New Books in French Studies
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.
Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com
Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/
Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork
626
Jerome Bourdon, “Histoire de la television sous...
Jerome de Bourdon‘s Histoire de la television sous de Gaulle (Presses des Mines, 2014) is a revised version of a book that first appeared in 1990. This edition has been revamped, and includes a new introduction in which Bourdon explores the historiogra...
58 min
627
Am Johal, “Ecological Metapolitics: Badiou and ...
The French philosopher Alain Badiou is not best known for his engagement with ecological matters per se. Badiou’s insights regarding being, truth, and political militancy are, however, highly relevant for the consideration of “the ecological question.
49 min
628
Anita Guerrini, “The Courtiers’ Anatomists: Ani...
Anita Guerrini‘s wonderful new book explores Paris as a site of anatomy, dissection, and science during the reign of Louis XIV between 1643-1715. The journey begins with readers accompanying a dead body to sites of dissection across the city,
64 min
629
Malick Ghachem’s “The Old Regime and the Haitia...
Malick Ghachem‘s recent book The Old Regime and the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2012) takes a long look at Haiti’s colonial history on the legal questions around slavery. In particular, he traces the implementation of the Code Noir,...
49 min
630
Jonathyne Briggs, “Sounds French: Globalization...
“Pop pop pop pop musik” -M Jonathyne Briggs‘ new book, Sounds French: Globalization, Cultural Communities, and Pop Music, 1958-1980(Oxford University Press, 2015) makes music the historical focus of the Fifth Republic’s first two decades.
59 min
631
Kimberly Arkin, “Rhinestones, Religion, and the...
In Fictions of Conversion: Jews, Christians, and Cultures of Change in Early Modern England (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), Jeffrey S. Shoulson, the Doris and Simon Konover Chair in Judaic Studies and the Director of the Center for Judaic Stu...
31 min
632
Richard C. Keller, “Fatal Isolation: The Devast...
In August 2003, a heat wave in France killed close to 15,000 people, the majority of whom were over 75. Prominent among the dead were a group of victims known as “the forgotten,” people who died alone and whose bodies were never claimed.
71 min
633
Dana Simmons, “Vital Minimum: Need, Science, an...
Dana Simmons‘s marvelous and thoughtful new book takes on a question that many of us likely take for granted: “What is a need; what is a want, a desire, a luxury?” Vital Minimum: Need, Science, and Politics in Modern France (University of Chicago Press...
62 min
634
Tabetha Ewing, “Rumor, Diplomacy, and War in En...
Tabetha Ewing‘s Rumor, Diplomacy and War in Enlightenment Paris (Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, 2014) is all about the on dit, the word on the street that everyday Parisians might have picked up,
56 min
635
Lisa Moses Leff, “The Archive Thief: The Man Wh...
33 min
636
Eric Reed, “Selling the Yellow Jersey: The Tour...
The Tour de France is happening right now! The 2015 edition started on July 4th and will continue until July 26th. I’m excited to be able to share this interview with Eric Reed about his new book, Selling the Yellow Jersey: The Tour de France in the Gl...
68 min
637
Gary Wilder, “Freedom Time: Negritude, Decoloni...
Gary Wilder‘s new book, Freedom Time: Negritude, Decolonization, and the Future of the World (Duke University Press, 2015) builds upon the work he began in The French Imperial Nation State: Negritude and Colonial Humanism between the Two World Wars (Un...
59 min
638
Felicia McCarren, “French Moves: The Cultural P...
Felicia McCarren‘s latest book, French Moves: The Cultural Politics of le hip hop (Oxford University Press, 2013) explores the fascinating evolution of this urban dance form in the French context. Following the choreography and performances of key figu...
9 min
639
David Meren, “With Friends Like These: Entangle...
In 1967, French President Charles de Gaulle cried out “Vive le Quebec libre!” from the balcony of Montreal’s City Hall. The controversial moment became a myth almost instantly. The four words De Gaulle uttered remain emblematic of an extremely importan...
60 min
640
Hugo Frey, “Nationalism and the Cinema in Franc...
Hugo Frey‘s new book, Nationalism and the Cinema in France: Political Mythologies and Film Events, 1945-1995 (Berghahn Books, 2014) distinguishes between a national cinema (films made in France) and a nationalist cinema motivated by the specific agenda...
59 min
641
Tracy Leavelle, “The Catholic Calumet: Colonial...
68 min
642
Nicolas Kenny, “The Feel of the City: Experienc...
Nicolas Kenny‘s new book, The Feel of the City: Experiences of Urban Transformation (University of Toronto Press, 2014) explores the sensory histories and urban development of Montreal and Brussels from the 1880s to 1914. We’ve read about Paris,
63 min
643
Carol E. Harrison, “Romantic Catholics: France’...
Since the political left and right first arose during the French Revolution, Catholics have been categorized as either conservatives or liberals, and most Catholics of the French nineteenth century are assumed to have been conservatives.
48 min
644
Michael Kwass, “Contraband: Louis Mandrin and t...
Michael Kwass‘s new book, Contraband: Louis Mandrin and the Making of a Global Underground is much more than an exciting biography of the notorious eighteenth-century smuggler whose name remains legendary in contemporary France.
60 min
645
Stephen L. Harp, “Au Naturel: Naturism, Nudism,...
In the decades after the Second World War, France became the foremost nudist site in Europe. Stephen L. Harp‘s new book, Au Naturel: Naturism, Nudism, and Tourism in Twentieth-Century France (Louisiana State University Press,
61 min
646
Ernest P. Young, “Ecclesiastical Colony: China’...
In theory, Christian missionaries plan only on working in a country until an indigenous leadership can take over management of the church. Theory is one thing, but practice is quite another, as Dr. Ernest P.
59 min
647
Cathy L. Schneider, “Police Power and Race Riot...
Cathy L. Schneider is the author of Police Power and Race Riots: Urban Unrest in Paris and New York (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014). She is associate professor in the School of International Service at American University.
27 min
648
John Tresch, “The Romantic Machine: Utopian Sci...
After the Second World War, the Hungarian Marxist Georg Lukacs described National Socialism as a triumph of irrationalism and a “destruction of reason.” It has since become commonplace to interpret modern European intellectual history as a prolonged st...
71 min
649
Kathrin Yacavone, “Benjamin, Barthes, and the S...
Kathrin Yacavone‘s Benjamin, Barthes, and the Singularity of Photography (Bloomsbury, 2013) is an engaging study that explores connections between two of the most significant thinkers of the twentieth century: Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) and Roland Bar...
2 min
650
Daniel Lee, “Petain’s Jewish Children: French J...
Daniel Lee‘s new book, Petain’s Jewish Children: French Jewish Youth and the Vichy Regime, 1940-1942 (Oxford University Press, 2014) is highly compelling in its breadth, depth of research, and analysis. Focused on the social relationship between French...
60 min