New Books Network
French Studies
General History July 30, 2021

France

A Short History

Jeremy Black

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
A short and entertaining narrative of France from prehistory to the present, recounting the great events and personalities that helped create France’s cultural and political influence today. Country and destination …

Subscribe to

French Studies

on the NBN

RSS Spotify Stitcher Apple Premium Ad-Free Email Alerts
Gender Studies July 23, 2021

Beauvoir in Time

Meryl Altman

Hosted by Lilian Calles Barger
Meryl Altman's new book Beauvoir in Time, published by Brill Rodopi Press (2020), situates Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex (1949) in its historical context and responds to criticism that …
General History July 22, 2021

Slave Revolt on Screen

The Haitian Revolution in Film and Video Games

Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall

Hosted by Michael Vann
Michel-Rolph Trouillot wrote that “the silencing of the Haitian Revolution is only a chapter within a narrative of global domination. It is part of the history of the West and …
Princeton UP Ideas Podcast July 15, 2021

Émigrés

French Words That Turned English

Richard Scholar

Hosted by Marshall Poe
English has borrowed more words from French than from any other modern foreign language. French words and phrases—such as à la mode, ennui, naïveté and caprice—lend English a certain je-ne-sais-quoi …
French Studies July 13, 2021

Our Civilizing Mission

The Lessons of Colonial Education

Nicholas Harrison

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Nicholas Harrison's Our Civilizing Mission: The Lessons of Colonial Education (Liverpool UP, 2019) is a fascinating examination of colonial education not just as a facet of colonialism, but as an "example" of education …
Art July 9, 2021

Painting by Numbers

Data-Driven Histories of Nineteenth-Century Art

Diana Seave Greenwald

Hosted by Allison Leigh
Painting by Numbers: Data-Driven Histories of Nineteenth-Century Art (Princeton UP, 2021) presents a groundbreaking blend of art historical and social scientific methods to chart, for the first time, the sheer …
General History July 9, 2021

The Western Front: A History of the Great War, 1914-1918

Nick Lloyd

Hosted by Douglas Bell
The Western Front evokes images of mud-spattered men in waterlogged trenches, shielded from artillery blasts and machine-gun fire by a few feet of dirt. This iconic setting was the most …
General History July 8, 2021

French Wine

A History

Rod Phillips

Hosted by Jana Byars
Today on New Books in History, Rod Phillips, Professor of History at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, talks about his book, French Wine: A History, out in 2016 with the …
Intellectual History June 30, 2021

Why We Are Restless

On the Modern Quest for Contentment

Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey

Hosted by Hope J. Leman
What makes us happy? What keeps us from being happy? Is restlessness the same thing as unhappiness? Is happiness something we should value or assume we can even find? These …
Psychoanalysis June 28, 2021

Disalienation

Politics, Philosophy, and Radical Psychiatry in Postwar France

Camille Robcis

Hosted by J.J. Mull
On this episode, J.J. Mull interviews scholar and historian Camille Robcis. In her most recent book, Disalienation: Politics, Philosophy, and Radical Psychiatry in Postwar France (University of Chicago Press, 2021) …
General History June 24, 2021

The Road Less Traveled

The Secret Battle to End the Great War, 1916-1917

Philip Zelikow

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
During a pivotal few months in the middle of the First World War all sides-Germany, Britain, and America-believed the war could be concluded. Peace at the end of 1916 would …
Architecture June 22, 2021

Notre-Dame of Amiens

Life of the Gothic Cathedral

Stephen Murray

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Notre-Dame of Amiens is one of the great Gothic cathedrals. Its construction began in 1220, and artistic production in the Gothic mode lasted well into the sixteenth century. In Notre-Dame …
General History June 17, 2021

Reframing Japonisme

Women and the Asian Art Market in Nineteenth-Century France, 1853–1914

Elizabeth Emery

Hosted by Jennifer Davis Cline
Erin Duncan O’Neill (Assistant Professor, University of Oklahoma) speaks with Elizabeth Emery (Professor, Montclair State University) about Emery’s recent book, Reframing Japonisme: Women and the Asian Art Market in Nineteenth-Century …
General History June 15, 2021

An Infinite History

The Story of a Family in France Over Three Centuries

Emma Rothschild

Hosted by Yi Ning Chang
Emma Rothschild’s new book, An Infinite History: The Story of a Family in France over Three Centuries (Princeton University Press, 2021) (see the book’s accompanying website here: https://infinitehistory.org), is a …
French Studies June 4, 2021

Sex, Law, and Sovereignty in French Algeria, 1830-1930

Judith Surkis

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Judith Surkis's Sex, Law, and Sovereignty in French Algeria, 1830-1930 (Cornell UP, 2019) traces the intersection of colonialism, law, land expropriation, sex, gender, and family during the century after the French …
General History May 31, 2021

The Age of Fitness

How the Body Came to Symbolize Success and Achievement

Jurgen Martschukat

Hosted by Jana Byars
Today on New Books in History, Juergen Martschukat, professor of North American History at Universitat Erfurt, talks about his new book, The Age of Fitness: How the Body Became a Sign …
General History May 24, 2021

Sodomy in Eighteenth-Century France

Jeffrey Merrick

Hosted by Jana Byars
We know more about men who sought and had sex with men in eighteenth-century Paris than in any other city at the time. Police records provide information about thousands of …
Gender Studies May 13, 2021

No Modernism Without Lesbians

Diana Souhami

Hosted by Jana Byars
Diana Souhami talks about her new book No Modernism Without Lesbians, out 2020 with Head of Zeus books. A Sunday Times Book of the Year 2020. This is the extraordinary story …
Islamic Studies April 30, 2021

Esoteric Islam in Modern French Thought

Massignon, Corbin, Jambet

Ziad Elmarsafy

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
In his new book Esoteric Islam in Modern French Thought: Massignon, Corbin, Jambet (Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2021) Ziad Elmarsafy maps the intellectual and personal genealogies of three French specialists of …
General History April 27, 2021

The Enlightenment

The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790

Ritchie Robertson

Hosted by Zachary McCulley
The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790 (Harper, 2021) is a magisterial history that recasts the Enlightenment as a period not solely consumed with rationale and reason, but rather as a pursuit …