French Presse: New Books on French and Francophone History. Bring your own coffee!
This virtual series of hour-long book talks typically feature an author with a relatively new publication in French and/or Francophone history (publication date of current or previous year) and an interviewer familiar with the subject matter. A moderator handles Zoom entry and takes additional questions from the audience.
We actively seek proposals for pairs of authors-interviewers that would include the title and publication information of the book, short CVs, and a list of potential themes for discussion.
We are committed to creating a welcoming, antiracist, and diverse series that embodies our Society’s anti-discriminatory mission of inclusiveness, political education, and equitable empowerment.
French Presse 2021
French Presse 2022
French Presse 2023
French Presse 2024
Sunday, January 21, 2024 at 3 PM EST
Emily Marker and Todd Shepard will discuss Marker’s prize-winning book, Black France, White Europe: Youth, Race, and Belonging in the Postwar Era.
Sunday, March 3, 2024 at 3 PM EST
Graduate Student Showcase Edition (in conjunction with Hofstra 2024)
Moderated by Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies of the History Department at California State University, San Marcos
Sunday, May 5, 2024
Yan Slobodkin in conversation with Madeline Woker on Yan’s book The Starving Empire: A History of Famine in France’s Colonies (Cornell University Press, 2023).
French Presse 2025
French Presse – spring 2025 (Sign-up with Zoom link will be announced approximately one week in advance of the meeting)
January 26th – Elise Franklin, Disintegrating Empire: Algerian Family Migration and the Limits of the Welfare State in France (Nebraska, 2024) In conversation with Emily Marker, Rutgers University
February 16th - Tamara Chaplin, Becoming Lesbian: A Queer History of Modern France (U Chicago, 2024) In conversation with Andrew Israel Ross, Loyola
March 9th - Terry Peterson, Revolutionary Warfare: How the Algerian War Made Modern Counterinsurgency (Cornell UP, 2024) In conversation with Drew Flannigan, University of Pittsburgh
April 20th - Laura Mason, The Last Revolutionaries: The Conspiracy Trial of Gracchus Babeuf and the Equals (Yale UP, 2022). In conversation with Charles Walton, University of Warwick
May 11th - Julie Fette, Gender by the Book: 21st-Century French Children's Literature (Routledge, 2024) and, Sophie Heywood, Children’s Publishing in Cold War France: Hachette in the Age of Surveillance and Control (Bloomsbury, Perspectives in Children’s Literature series, February 2025) In conversation with each other!