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About Roxanne Panchasi

Roxanne Panchasi is an Associate Professor of History at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada who specializes in France and empire after 1945. She is the author of Future Tense: The Culture of Anticipation in France Between the Wars (Cornell University Press, 2009). She has published widely on French culture and politics including work on memory, military technologies/imaginaries, and film. Her most recent article, “‘No Hiroshima in Africa’: The Algerian War and the Question of French Nuclear Tests in the Sahara” appeared in the Spring 2019 issue of History of the Present.

Roxanne Panchasi is an Associate Professor of History at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada who specializes in twentieth and twenty-first century France and empire. She is the founding host of New Books in French Studies, a channel launched in 2013.

Roxanne's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Roxanne:

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 …
French Studies August 8, 2022

Toxique

Enquête sur les essais nucléaires français en Polynésie

Sébastien Philippe and Tomas Statius

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
What happens when you bring together an important collection of previously secret archival documents dealing with France's nuclear detonations in the Pacific from 1966 to 1996, a nuclear scientist, and …
French Studies July 29, 2022

The Military Enlightenment

War and Culture in the French Empire from Louis XIV to Napoleon

Christy Pichichero

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Covering the pivotal period from the mid-seventeenth century through the era of the French Revolution, Christy Pichichero's The Military Enlightenment: War and Culture in the French Empire from Louis XIV to Napoleon (Cornell …
French Studies May 26, 2022

The Anthropological Turn

French Political Thought After 1968

Jacob Collins

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Jacob Collins's The Anthropological Turn: French Political Through After 1968 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020) examines some of the most important currents in French intellectual life through the 1970s. In the …
French Studies May 18, 2022

The Paris Commune

A Brief History

Carolyn J. Eichner

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Carolyn Eichner's new book, The Paris Commune: A Brief History (Rutgers University Press, 2022) was published on March 18th, the anniversary of the eruption of Paris Commune of 1871. In this accessible …
French Studies April 25, 2022

The Spirit of French Capitalism

Economic Theology in the Age of Enlightenment

Charly Coleman

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Charly Coleman's latest book, The Spirit of French Capitalism: Economic Theology in the Age of Enlightenment (Stanford University Press, 2021) is at once a history of ideas, the economy, religion, and material …
French Studies March 1, 2022

Rural Inventions

The French Countryside After 1945

Sarah Farmer

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Sarah Farmer's Rural Inventions: The French Countryside After 1945 (Oxford University Press, 2020) is a history of national, regional, and local transformations during the period known as the Trente Glorieuses in France from …
French Studies February 16, 2022

Working Girls

Sex, Taste, and Reform in the Parisian Garment Trades, 1880-1919

Patricia Tilburg

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Patricia Tilburg's Working Girls: Sex, Taste, and Reform in the Parisian Garment Trades, 1880-1919 (Oxford University Press, 2019) is at once a cultural, gender, urban, and labour history of the Belle Epoque era. The …
French Studies January 28, 2022

Paper Bullets

Two Artists Who Risked Their Lives to Defy the Nazis

Jeffrey H. Jackson

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Want to read a fantastic book about art, love, politics, and resistance during the Second World War? Jeffrey H. Jackson's Paper Bullets: Two Artists Who Risked Their Lives to Defy the Nazis …
French Studies January 14, 2022

Adventure Capital

Migration and the Making of an African Hub in Paris

Julie Kleinman

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Every day, hundreds of thousands of people move through the Gare du Nord train station in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, the largest train station in Europe. Julie Kleinman's Adventure Capital …
French Studies December 31, 2021

Pasteur's Empire

Bacteriology and Politics in France, Its Colonies, and the World

Aro Velmet

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Aro Velmet's Pasteur's Empire: Bacteriology in France, Its Colonies, and the World (Oxford UP, 2020) is a complex history of the Pasteur Institutes, a network of scientific laboratories established in France and throughout the French empire …
French Studies November 12, 2021

France

Emile Chabal

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
An accessible and compelling read, Emile Chabal's France (Polity, 2020) is an overview of the nation's political history from 1940 right up to the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Organized thematically …
French Studies October 28, 2021

The Persian Mirror

French Reflections of the Safavid Empire in Early Modern France

Susan Mokhberi

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
When I/we think about the early modern relationship between France and Persia, Montesquieu's 1721 Lettres persanes is a text that comes to mind immediately. Susan Mokhberi's The Persian Mirror: Reflections of the …
French Studies September 24, 2021

A History of Fascism in France

From the First World War to the National Front

Chris Millington

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
FASCISM...FRANCE. Two words/ideas that scholars have spent much time and energy debating in relationship to one another. Chris Millington's A History of Fascism in France: From the First World War to the …
French Studies August 24, 2021

Signing the Body

Marks on Skin in Early Modern France

Katherine Dauge-Roth

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Contemporary historians and other scholars of the body frequently use "writing" and "inscription as metaphors. Katherine Dauge-Roth's Signing the Body: Marks on Skin in Early Modern France (Routledge, 2019) is an absorbing book that emphasizes literal, material forms …
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 …
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 …
Literary Studies May 26, 2021

The Teaching Archive

A New History for Literary Study

Rachel Sagner Buurma and Laura Heffernan

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Rachel Buurma and Laura Heffernan's The Teaching Archive: A New History for Literary Study (University of Chicago Press, 2020) is an excavation of a discipline through the work of its teachers, the …
French Studies March 29, 2021

Capitals of Punk

DC, Paris, and Circulation in the Urban Underground

Tyler Sonnichsen

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
This one's personal. Tyler Sonnichsen's Capitals of Punk: DC, Paris, and Circulation in the Urban Underground (Palgrave, 2019) was an amazing book for me to read and speak with its …
French Studies March 17, 2021

Lethal Provocation

The Constantine Murders and the Politics of French Algeria

Joshua Cole

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Joshua Cole's Lethal Provocation: The Constantine Murders and the Politics of French Algeria (Cornell University Press, 2019) appeals to a few of the different readers in my head: the one who admires …
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 …
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 …
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 …
French 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 …