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:

Judith Surkis, "Sex, Law, and Sovereignty in French Algeria, 1830-1930" (Cornell UP, 2019)

January 12, 2024

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 expropriat…

Jennifer Cazenave, "An Archive of the Catastrophe: The Unused Footage of Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah" (SUNY Press, 2019)

January 8, 2024

An Archive of the Catastrophe

Jennifer Cazenave
Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi

Jennifer Cazenave’s An Archive of the Catastrophe: The Unused Footage of Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah (SUNY Press, 2019) is a fascinating analysis of the 2…

Emma Kuby, "Political Survivors: The Resistance, the Cold War, and the Fight against Concentration Camps After 1945" (Cornell UP, 2019)

January 7, 2024

Political Survivors

Emma Kuby
Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi

Emma Kuby’s new book, Political Survivors: The Resistance, the Cold War, and the Fight against Concentration Camps after 1945 (Cornell UP, 2019) trace…

Ronen Steinberg, "The Afterlives of the Terror: Facing the Legacies of Mass Violence in Postrevolutionary France" (Cornell UP, 2019)

January 1, 2024

The Afterlives of the Terror

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 (Cornel…

Anne E. Linton, "Unmaking Sex: The Gender Outlaws of Nineteenth-Century France" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

December 22, 2023

Unmaking Sex

Anne E. Linton
Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi

A compelling study of medical and literary imaginations, Anne Linton's Unmaking Sex: The Gender Outlaws of Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge Univer…

Tracy Rutler, "Queering the Enlightenment: Kinship and Gender in Eighteenth-Century French Literature" (Oxford UP/Liverpool UP, 2021)

September 23, 2023

Queering the Enlightenment

Tracy Rutler
Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi

Tracy Rutler's Queering the Enlightenment: Kinship and Gender in Eighteenth-Century French Literature (Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment,…

J. P. Daughton, "In the Forest of No Joy: The Congo-Océan Railroad and the Tragedy of French Colonialism" (Norton, 2021)

June 13, 2023

In the Forest of No Joy

J. P. Daughton
Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Listen:

J. P. Daughton's In the Forest of No Joy: The Congo-Océan Railroad and the Tragedy of French Colonialism (W. W. Norton, 2021) examines the complex and…

Annabel L. Kim, "Cacaphonies: The Excremental Canon of French Literature" (U Minnesota Press, 2022)

May 14, 2023

Cacaphonies

Annabel L. Kim
Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi

Annabel Kim's second book*, Cacaphonies: The Excremental Canon of French Literature (University of Minnesota Press, 2022) digs into fecal matter as a …

Rachel Anne Gillett, "At Home in Our Sounds: Music, Race, and Cultural Politics in Interwar Paris" (Oxford UP, 2021)

April 22, 2023

At Home in Our Sounds

Rachel Anne Gillett
Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi

Rachel Gillett's At Home in Our Sounds: Music, Race, and Cultural Politics in Interwar Paris (Oxford University Press, 2021) explores the world of the…

Jonathan Ervine, "Humour in Contemporary France: Controversy, Consensus and Contradictions" (Liverpool UP, 2019)

February 10, 2023

Humour in Contemporary France

Jonathan Ervine
Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi

Thinking through serious questions about racial, ethnic, and religious difference, Jonathan Ervine’s Humour in Contemporary France: Controversy, Conse…

Sébastien Philippe and Tomas Statius, "Toxique: Enquête sur les essais nucléaires français en Polynésie" (Companyédition PUF/Disclose, 2021)

August 8, 2022

Toxique

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 …

Christy Pichichero, "The Military Enlightenment: War and Culture in the French Empire from Louis XIV to Napoleon" (Cornell UP, 2018)

July 29, 2022

The Military Enlightenment

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…

Jacob Collins, "The Anthropological Turn: French Political Thought After 1968" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2020)

May 26, 2022

The Anthropological Turn

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 impor…

Carolyn J. Eichner, "The Paris Commune: A Brief History" (Rutgers UP, 2022)

May 18, 2022

The Paris Commune

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 er…

Charly Coleman, "The Spirit of French Capitalism: Economic Theology in the Age of Enlightenment" (Stanford UP, 2021)

April 25, 2022

The Spirit of French Capitalism

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 o…

Sarah Farmer, "Rural Inventions: The French Countryside After 1945" (Oxford UP, 2020)

March 1, 2022

Rural Inventions

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 trans…

Patricia Tilburg, "Working Girls: Sex, Taste, and Reform in the Parisian Garment Trades, 1880-1919" (Oxford UP, 2019)

February 16, 2022

Working Girls

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 cultur…

Jeffrey H. Jackson, "Paper Bullets: Two Artists Who Risked Their Lives to Defy the Nazis" (Algonquin Books, 2020)

January 28, 2022

Paper Bullets

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 W…

Julie Kleinman, "Adventure Capital: Migration and the Making of an African Hub in Paris" (U California Press, 2019)

January 14, 2022

Adventure Capital

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 …

Aro Velmet, "Pasteur's Empire: Bacteriology and Politics in France, Its Colonies, and the World" (Oxford UP, 2020)

December 31, 2021

Pasteur's Empire

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…

Emile Chabal, "France" (Polity, 2020)

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 ear…

Susan Mokhberi, "The Persian Mirror: French Reflections of the Safavid Empire in Early Modern France" (Oxford UP, 2019)

October 28, 2021

The Persian Mirror

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 immedi…

Chris Millington, "A History of Fascism in France: From the First World War to the National Front" (Bloomsbury, 2019)

September 24, 2021

A History of Fascism in France

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 …

Katherine Dauge-Roth, "Signing the Body: Marks on Skin in Early Modern France" (Routledge, 2019)

August 24, 2021

Signing the Body

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…