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French Studies
Sociology March 21, 2023

Forbidden Intimacies

Polygamies at the Limits of Western Tolerance

Melanie Heath

Hosted by Rituparna Patgiri
In the past thirty years, polygamy has become a flashpoint of conflict as Western governments attempt to regulate certain cultural and religious practices that challenge seemingly central principles of family …

French Studies

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Interviews with scholars of France about their new books.

Critical Theory March 16, 2023

Playing Oppression

The Legacy of Conquest and Empire in Colonialist Board Games

Mary Flanagan and Mikael Jakobsson

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
Playing Oppression: The Legacy of Conquest and Empire in Colonialist Board Games (MIT Press, 2023) by Dr. Mary Flanagan & Dr. Mikael Jakobsson is a striking analysis of popular board …
French Studies March 14, 2023

Sacred Rivals

Catholic Missions and the Making of Islam in Nineteenth-Century France and Algeria

Joseph W. Peterson

Hosted by Sarah Miles
Upon the French invasion of Algeria in 1830, the territory quickly became a placeholder for French dreams, debates, and experiments in social engineering, economic development and even religious culture. Missionaries …
Intellectual History March 14, 2023

Who's Black and Why?

A Hidden Chapter from the Eighteenth-Century Invention of Race

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Andrew S. Curran

Hosted by Caleb Zakarin
Who's Black and Why?: A Hidden Chapter from the Eighteenth-Century Invention of Race (Harvard University Press, 2022) is the first translation and publication of sixteen submissions to the notorious eighteenth-century Bordeaux essay …
Medieval History March 3, 2023

Courtly and Queer

Deconstruction, Desire, and Medieval French Literature

Charlie Samuelson

Hosted by Nathan Moore
In Courtly and Queer: Deconstruction, Desire, and Medieval French Literature (Ohio State UP, 2022), Charlie Samuelson casts queerness in medieval French texts about courtly love in a new light by …
French Studies February 25, 2023

Code

From Information Theory to French Theory

Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan

Hosted by Salvador Lopez Rivera
Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan traces the shared intellectual and political history of computer scientists, cyberneticists, anthropologists, linguists, and theorists across the humanities as they developed a communication and computational-based theory that …
Caribbean Studies February 21, 2023

The Colonial System Unveiled by Baron de Vastey

Translated and edited by Chris Bongie

Chris Bongie

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Long neglected in mainstream history books, the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) is now being claimed across a range of academic disciplines as an event of world-historical importance. The former slaves' victory …
Biblical Studies February 20, 2023

Temptation Transformed

The Story of How the Forbidden Fruit Became an Apple

Azzan Yadin-Israel

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
Temptation Transformed: The Story of How the Forbidden Fruit Became an Apple (University of Chicago Press, 2023) by Dr. Azzan Yadin-Israel presents a journey into the mystery behind why the …
Canadian Studies February 15, 2023

Bewitchment, Possession, and the Diabolical Arts: Daily Life in New France

A Discussion with Mairi Cowan

Mairi Cowan

Hosted by Greg Marchildon
In this podcast episode, Greg Marchildon interviews Mairi Cowan, the author of The Possession of Barbe Hallay: Diabolical Arts and Daily Life in Early Canada, a microhistory of bewitchment and …
Critical Theory February 11, 2023

Anarchism After Deleuze and Guattari

Fabulating Futures

Chantelle Gray

Hosted by Jackson Reinhardt
Deleuze and Guattari never identified as anarchists, nor do they seem to know much about its historical development or continued praxis. Yet their individual and collective work belies this apparent …
French Studies February 10, 2023

Humour in Contemporary France

Controversy, Consensus and Contradictions

Jonathan Ervine

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Thinking through serious questions about racial, ethnic, and religious difference, Jonathan Ervine’s Humour in Contemporary France: Controversy, Consensus and Contradictions (Liverpool University Press, 2019) traces the ways that comedy pulls …
General History February 4, 2023

Empire and Catastrophe

Decolonization and Environmental Disaster in North Africa and Mediterranean France since 1954

Spencer D. Segalla

Hosted by Michael Vann
Spencer Segalla’s Empire and Catastrophe: Decolonization and Environmental Disaster in North Africa and Mediterranean France since 1954 (U Nebraska Press, 2021) explores natural and anthropogenic disasters during the years of decolonization …
Peoples & Things January 31, 2023

War, Plague, and Confession in Fourteenth-Century Provence

A Discussion with Nicole Archambeau

Nicole Archambeau

Hosted by Lee Vinsel
Nicole Archambeau, associate professor of history at Colorado State University, talks about her book, Souls under Siege: Stories of War, Plague, and Confession in Fourteenth-Century Provence (Cornell University Press), with …
African Studies January 17, 2023

Contesting French West Africa

Battles Over Schools and the Colonial Order, 1900–1950

Harry Gamble

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
After the turn of the twentieth century, schools played a pivotal role in the construction of French West Africa. But as this dynamic, deeply researched study reveals, the expanding school …
Early Modern History January 16, 2023

Enmity and Violence in Early Modern Europe

Stuart Carroll

Hosted by Jana Byars
Stuart Carroll's Enmity and Violence in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2023) transforms our understanding of Europe between 1500 and 1800 by exploring how ordinary people felt about their enemies and …
Sociology January 15, 2023

On Émile Durkheim's "The Elementary Forms of Religious Life" (1912)

A Discussion with Steven Lukes

Steven Lukes

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
In 1912, the French sociologist Emile Durkheim published The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Centered around the experience of religion in tribal cultures, this masterpiece explores the nature of religion …
Almost Good Catholics January 13, 2023

Marxists and Mystics

A Vatican Journalist Discusses her Biography of Madeleine Delbrêl and the New Papal Constitution

Colleen Dulle

Hosted by Krzysztof Odyniec
Vatican journalist Colleen Dulle discusses her biography of the French Mystic Madeleine Delbrêl, author of The Marxist City as Mission Territory (1957), and Catholic evangelist among the urban poor of …
The Vault January 9, 2023

Rousseau's Ideas About Censorship in the Arts

A Lecture by Richard Sennett

Richard Sennett

Hosted by New York Institute for the Humanities
In 1982, the Institute held a multi day discussion of censorship. In this session from the Vault, sociologist Richard Sennett talks about Jean Jacques Rousseau’s ideas about censorship in the …
Caribbean Studies January 8, 2023

The Unexceptional Case of Haiti

Race and Class Privilege in Postcolonial Bourgeois Society

Philippe-Richard Marius

Hosted by Aleem Mahabir
In The Unexceptional Case of Haiti: Race and Class Privilege in Postcolonial Bourgeois Society (University Press of Mississippi, 2022), Philippe-Richard Marius recasts the world-historical significance of the Saint-Domingue Revolution to investigate the twinned significance …
Middle Eastern Studies January 7, 2023

Frantz Fanon

Philosopher of the Barricades

Peter Hudis

Hosted by Mehdi Sanglaji
Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) was a Caribbean and African psychiatrist, philosopher and revolutionary whose works, including Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth are hugely influential in the …