New Books Network
French Studies
Celebration Studies January 19, 2021

City of a Million Dreams

A History of New Orleans at Year 300

Jason Berry

Hosted by Emily Ruth Allen
In City of a Million Dreams: A History of New Orleans at Year 300 (University of North Carolina Press, 2018), Jason Berry delivers a history of New Orleans at its tricentennial. Beyond …

Subscribe to

French Studies

on the NBN

RSS Spotify Stitcher Apple
History January 13, 2021

Albert Camus

A Very Short Introduction

Oliver Gloag

Hosted by Michael Vann
Albert Camus, one of the most famous French philosophers and novelists, has a diverse fan base. British alternative rockers The Cure sang about The Stranger in their first big hit …
French Studies December 29, 2020

Vénus Noire

Black Women and Colonial Fantasies in Nineteenth-Century France

Robin Mitchell

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
The preface to Robin Mitchell's new book, Vénus Noire: Black Women and Colonial Fantasies in Nineteenth-Century France (University of Georgia Press, 2020) moves me. In it, the author tells the story of her …
African American Studies December 28, 2020

The Haitians

A Decolonial History

Jean Casimir

Hosted by Adam McNeil
In The Haitians: A Decolonial History (UNC Press, 2020), leading Haitian intellectual Jean Casimir argues that the story of Haiti should not begin with the usual image of Saint-Domingue as …
French Studies December 23, 2020

The Afterlives of the Terror

Facing the Legacies of Mass Violence in Postrevolutionary France

Ronen Steinberg

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
How did the "Reign of Terror" end? In his new book, The Afterlives of Terror: Facing the Legacies of Mass Violence in Postrevolutionary France (Cornell University Press, 2019), Ronen Steinberg explores the end …
European Studies December 15, 2020

Project Europe

A History

Kiran Klaus Patel

Hosted by Tim Jones
Project Europe made waves when it was published in German in 2018 (CH Beck) and was soon translated into English as Project Europe: A History (Cambridge UP, 2020). A clue to …
History December 8, 2020

Reproductive Citizens

Gender, Immigration, and the State in Modern France, 1880–1945

Nimisha Barton

Hosted by Julia Gossard
On today’s New Books in History, we sit down with Dr. Nimisha Barton to discuss her new book, Reproductive Citizens: Gender, Immigration, and the State in Modern France (Cornell …
British Studies November 9, 2020

The Bloody Flag

Mutiny in the Age of Atlantic Revolution

Niklas Frykman

Hosted by Mark Klobas
The 1790s were a decade of turmoil and strife across the West. With the French Revolution, a new era of wars began that invoked the language of equal rights. In …
Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas with Renee Garfinkel November 9, 2020

The Fascination with Death in Contemporary French Thought

A Longing for the Abyss

Betty Rojtman

Hosted by Renee Garfinkel
The Fascination with Death in Contemporary French Thought: A Longing for the Abyss (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020) analyses a cultural phenomenon that goes to the very roots of Western civilization: the …
French Studies October 27, 2020

Mobilizing Memory

The Great War and the Language of Politics in Colonial Algeria, 1918-1939

Dónal Hassett

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Dónal Hassett’s Mobilizing Memory: The Great War and the Language of Politics in Colonial Algeria, 1918-1939 (Oxford UP, 2019) is at once a history of colonialism and of the “Great …
Literary Studies October 26, 2020

Sex, Love, and Letters

Writing Simone de Beauvoir

Judith G. Coffin

Hosted by Julia Gossard
When Judith G. Coffin discovered a virtually unexplored treasure trove of letters to Simone de Beauvoir from Beauvoir's international readers, it inspired Coffin to explore the intimate bond between the …
European Studies October 13, 2020

Sex in an Old Regime City

Young Workers and Intimacy in France, 1660-1789

Julie Hardwick

Hosted by Jennifer J. Davis
Young women and men sought out each other’s company in the workshops, cabarets, and streets of Old Regime Lyon, and evidence of these relationships lingers in documents and material objects …
Film September 16, 2020

Roland Barthes and Film

Myth, Eroticism and Poetics

Patrick Ffrench

Hosted by Bill Schaffer
Roland Barthes and Film: Myth, Eroticism and Poetics (Bloomsbury) is a book by Patrick Ffrench, Professor of French at Kings College. It is a comprehensively researched and finely argued book …
African Studies September 11, 2020

Economistes and the Reinvention of Empire

France in the Americas and Africa c. 1750-1802

Pernille Røge

Hosted by Grant Kleiser
In her new book, Economistes and the Reinvention of Empire: France in the Americas and Africa, c. 1750-1802 (Cambridge UP, 2020), Dr. Pernille Røge charts the confluence and reciprocal impacts …
European Studies September 4, 2020

Before Trans

Three Gender Stories from Nineteenth-Century France

Rachel Mesch

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
In Before Trans: Three Gender Stories from Nineteenth-Century France (Stanford University Press), Rachel Mesch reads the biographies and work of three writers who did not conform to the gender norms …
American Studies August 28, 2020

On the Spirit of Rights

Dan Edelstein

Hosted by Alexandra Ortolja-Baird
By the end of the eighteenth century, politicians in America and France were invoking the natural rights of man to wrest sovereignty away from kings and lay down universal basic …
Folklore August 25, 2020

Body and Tradition in Nineteenth-Century France

Félix Arnaudin and the Moorlands of Gascony, 1870-1914

William G. Pooley

Hosted by Rachel Hopkin
The moorlands of Gascony are often considered one of the most dramatic examples of top-down rural modernization in nineteenth-century Europe. From an area of open moors, they were transformed in …
Caribbean Studies August 13, 2020

Reimagining Liberation

How Black Women Transformed Citizenship in the French Empire

Annette Joseph-Gabriel

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
‘Where were the women?’ was the big question that led Annette Joseph-Gabriel to her new book, Reimagining Liberation: How Black Women Transformed Citizenship in the French Empire (University of Illinois …
European Studies August 11, 2020

Napoleon and de Gaulle

Heroes and History

Patrice Gueniffey

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
One of France’s most famous historians compares and contrasts the two most famous French exemplars of political and military leadership of the past two-hundred and fifty years to make the …
Caribbean Studies August 4, 2020

There is No More Haiti

Between Life and Death in Port-au-Prince

Greg Beckett

Hosted by Lachlan Summers
In today’s episode, I talk with Dr. Greg Beckett, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Western University, about his richly grounded book There is No More Haiti: Between Life and Death …