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Founded in 1954, the Society for French Historical Studies promotes scholarship focused on the history of France from the medieval era to the twenty-first century. The Society also champions research into history beyond France itself, to include the hexagon’s historical relationships with the rest of the world, including North America, Africa, and Asia, as well as other societies on the European continent.
The SFHS is very proud to publish the quarterly, French Historical Studies, long recognized internationally as one of the premier journals in the discipline of history.
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The annual meetings hosted by the SFHS have been particularly important venues for the dissemination of the highest quality research on French history in both English and French, and have offered countless opportunities for productive interchange and collaboration among scholars from the United States and Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, and beyond.
Gilbert Chinard Book Prize
The Gilbert Chinard Prize is awarded each year by the Society for French Historical Studies with the financial support of its Institut Français d’Amérique Fund. It recognizes the best book published for the first time and with a copyright date of 2024 by a North American press in one of the two following fields: the history of French-American relations; or the comparative history of France and North, Central, or South America—including critical editions of significant source materials and translations into English. We’re honored to announce this year’s winner:
Elisa Camiscioli
Selling French Sex: Prostitution, Trafficking and Global Migrations . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2024
In Selling French Sex: Prostitution, Trafficking and Global Migrations, Elisa Camiscioli examines the history of French sex workers and the idea of French sex in a global context in the first decades of the twentieth century. Writing against narratives that portrayed women migrating to sell sex as victims of trafficking, Camiscioli uncovers the complexity of their stories and thus explores the tension between choice and coercion of women who were mostly marginalized. In doing so, Camiscioli solidly situates their history within the larger histories of global migration. The author also explores how migration controls developed to bar sex workers, and thus, ironically, worked against the very women trafficking discourses identified as the most vulnerable. Rich in archival sources and written in limpid and elegant prose, Selling French Sex makes major interventions into several fields including French history, the history of women and gender, and the history of sexuality.
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Elisa Camiscioli is Professor of History at Binghamton University, State University of New York. She is the author of Selling French Sex: Prostitution, Trafficking, and Global Migrations, which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2024. Research drawn from the book won the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Prize for the best article published in the fields of the history of women, gender, and/or sexuality; and the Society for French Historical Studies William Koren, Jr. Prize for the most outstanding article published in any period of French history. Her previous book, Reproducing the French Race: Immigration, Intimacy, and Embodiment in the Early Twentieth Century, was published by Duke University Press.
The SFHS Executive Board sincerely thanks the Chinard Book Prize Committee: Venita Datta, chair, Nina Kushner, and Ian Merkel, for their outstanding work on behalf of the Society and our field. We extend our appreciation to the editorial board and staff of Cambridge University Press. And, finally, we wish to thank author Elisa Camiscioli for this dynamic research. You’ll learn more about Gilbert Chinard or how to support this prize here.
The David H. Pinkney Prize
The Society for French Historical Studies awards the David H. Pinkney Prize to the most distinguished book in French history, published for the first time and with a copyright date of 2024 by a citizen of the United States or Canada or by an author with a full-time appointment at an American or Canadian college or university. The prize honors the contributions of David H. Pinkney to the development of French historical studies in the United States and to his field of 19th-century France. The winner of the prize this year:
Jennifer Ngaire Heuer
The Soldier’s Reward: Love and War in the Age of the French Revolution and Napoleon. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2024
In this groundbreaking book, Jennifer Heuer paints a vivid picture of the impact of prolonged warfare on the family and intimate relations during the revolutionary era. The book brings together a rich collection of military history sources (such as troop records, soldiers’ memoirs, and debates about conscription) and cultural history sources (such as music, art, plays, and festivals). The experiences and strategies of individual families are further illustrated in family letters and journals, police reports, and court records. Heuer details how soldiers were promised many things, including financial rewards, patriotic honor, and a happy family life once their military service was completed. The book deftly elucidates what prolonged warfare meant to soldiers and their families. This includes debates surrounding whether soldiers should marry and efforts to encourage marriage following demobilization, such as state-sponsored marriage rituals under Napoleon. The book also tackles the question of female military service and the extent to which women were recognized as veterans. Other highlights of the book include rich detail about men’s strategies to avoid lengthy military service, such as petitions for early demobilization and sham marriages. Heuer's expert analysis throughout the book illuminates how soldiers and their families navigated the disruptions of military service amidst a changing political landscape. Heuer’s inclusion of the Restoration period further illustrates the long-term impact of revolutionary warfare on families, notions of citizenship, and martial masculinity.
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Jennifer Ngaire Heuer is Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts- Amherst, and the author of The Family and the Nation: Gender and Citizenship in Revolutionary France (Cornell), and with Mette Harder, co-editor of Life in Revolutionary France (Bloomsbury), and now her new book, The Soldier’s Reward: Love and War in the Age of the French Revolution and Napoleon (Princeton), as well as a variety of articles and book chapters in both French and English-language publications. With Christine Haynes, she is currently co-editor of the journal French Historical Studies.
On behalf of the SFHS Executive Board, I warmly thank the Pinkney Prize Committee: Margaret Andersen, chair, William C. Jordan, Michael Lynn, and Keith P. Luria for their outstanding work on behalf of the Society and our field. We thank the editorial board and staff of Princeton University Press. And, finally, we thank the author, Jennifer Heuer, for the opportunity to amplify this important work.
2024 PRIZES & AWARDS ANNOUNCED!
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The David H. Pinkney Prize
Winner: Rachel Jean-Baptiste, Multiracial Identities in Colonial French Africa: Race, Childhood, Citizenship. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2023.
Honorable Mention: H.B. Callaway, The House in the Rue Saint-Fiacre: A Social History of Property in Revolutionary Paris. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2023.
The Gilbert Chinard Book Prize
Winner: Katlyn Marie Carter, Democracy in Darkness: Secrecy and Transparency in the Age of Revolutions (The Lewis Walpole Series in Eighteenth-Century Culture and History). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2023.
Honorable mention: Sara E. Johnson, Encyclopédie noire : The Making of Moreau de Saint-Méry's Intellectual World. The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and University of North Carolina Press, 2023.
The William Koren Jr. Prize
Winner: Lauren R. Clay, “Liberty, Equality, Slavery: Debating the Slave Trade in Revolutionary France,” The American Historical Review 128, no. 1 (2023): 89-119.
Honorable Mention: Brett Bowles, “Fragmentary, Censored, Indispensable: The Audiovisual Archive of October 17, 1961,” French Historical Studies 46, no. 2 (2023): 177-212.
Honorable Mention: Jeffrey S. Ravel, "On the Playing Cards of the Dulac Brothers in the Year II," Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 52, no. 1 (2023): 325-367.
The Farrar Memorial Awards
Winner: Olivia Cocking, "Droits assurés, droits bafoués: Race, Nationality, and the Right to Living Well in France After Empire."
Winner: Richard Todd Yoder, “Unorthodox Flesh: Gender, Religious Convulsions, and Charismatic Knowledge in Early Modern France”
The Institut Français d’Amérique Fund Research Fellowships
Winner, Harmon Chadbourn Rorison Fellowship: Jillian Kruse, “Printing Utopia: Experimentation, Collaboration, and Anarchy in the Prints of Camille Pissarro”
Winner, Catherine Maley Fellowship: Chanelle Dupuis. “Loss of smell: Absence and Extinction in 20th and 21st century French and Francophone literature”
The Laurie M. Wood Research Travel Award
Winner: Merve Fejzula, “Negritude and the Afro-Black Public Sphere 1947-77”
The Natalie Zemon Davis Award
Winner: Patrick Travens, “Jacobinism, Commerce, and Empire in Revolutionary Bordeaux.” (2023 SFHS-WSFH Detroit conference paper)
Society for French Historical Studies Defends Tenure
On January 12, 2023, Manhattan College terminated twenty-three faculty members, many of whom hold tenure, including two historians. Among the historians is Dr. Jeff Horn, Co-President of the Society for French Historical Studies. In Jeff’s case, this termination comes after more than two decades of committed service to the institution and its students. Many of you know Jeff as a highly accomplished, widely published historian of the French Revolution. His presidency of the SFHS is just one example of his generosity to the historical profession and to the field of French history, more specifically. This dismissal is, in academic terms, summary. The faculty members will be unemployed as of June 15, 2024. The college cites financial duress. However, without much more transparency about the process for deciding which departments and faculty members were targeted to be let go, the extreme solution of breaking tenure contracts cannot be justified. In fact, the nature of the trust between faculty member and institution on the matter of tenure is such that it should never be broken without the institution making every effort to retain the faculty member through the crisis or, in the worst case, support them in finding new employment or in re-professionalization and in a timely transition that respects the academic job calendar. These are ethical considerations. There are legal guidelines spelled out in the Manhattan College faculty handbook, especially around this short timeframe and severance package, which the college has disregarded. Manhattan College is attempting to censor the affected faculty from speaking “disparagingly” about the college in exchange for a minimal severance package. We wish to express our unwavering support for Jeff and our colleagues at Manhattan College.
Many of you have asked how you might offer material support for our colleagues as they negotiate with Manhattan College to reestablish their contract or establish fair severance. Jeff has shared this link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-defend-tenure-at-manhattan-college
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