Seminars

The Centre for French History and Culture hosts a biannual seminar, in November and April/May, in the School of History at St Andrews. The seminars take the form of a pre-circulated paper presented by an invited visiting scholar, followed by a response from a member of the Centre's staff prior to open discussion. The aim is to create a forum for presentation of work in progress that is different from most academic seminars: the pre-circulation of the paper gives the audience the opportunity to consider the guest speaker's work in more depth than is commonly afforded by the normal seminar format. We hope this will, in turn, prove to be a more fruitful exercise for the speaker as well as the audience.

Staff and students from other universities, as well as independent scholars, are most welcome to become participants in these seminars. If you wish to attend or be placed on the automatic mailing list, then please contact the Director of the Centre, so that you can receive a copy of the pre-circulated papers. We would hope to circulate all papers via email.

The inaugural seminar took place on 23rd November 2005, addressed by Professor Martin Evans (Portsmouth University).

The autumn 2006 seminar took the form of a one-day conference, "Robert Kingdon's Geneva and the Coming of the Wars of Religion: A retrospective after 50 years", on 18th November 2006.

There are also a number of other seminar series on related subjects run by Schools involved with the Centre. Click on the hyperlinks below to see what is coming up:

Department of Modern History seminar
Reformation Studies Institute seminar

Centre for French History and Culture Seminar Series

23rd November 2005
Professor Martin Evans (Portsmouth University): "Myth, History, Politics: the Legacy of French Colonialism in Contemporary Algeria."
3rd May 2006
Dr David Parrott (New College, Oxford): "The Army in Seventeenth-Century France: Perspectives and Problems."
18th November 2006
One Day Conference: Robert Kingdon's Geneva and the Coming of the Wars of Religion: A retrospective after 50 years
2nd May 2007
Professor James McMillan (University of Edinburgh): "God and the French soldier, 1914-1918."
24th October 2007
Dr Jan Dumolyn (University of Ghent, Belgium): "‘Le pauvre peuple estoit moult opprimé’. The Discourse on ‘the People’ in the Burgundian Chronicles."
5th November 2008
Dr Simon Kitson (University of London in Paris): "Death and Liberation: the Allied Bombing of France"
29th April 2009
Professor James B. Collins (Georgetown University, USA): "Beheading the Body Politic: Parricides and Politics in the France of Henri IV"
25th November 2009
Professor Norman Ingram (Concordia University, Canada): "Eyes Across the Rhine: the Ligue des droits de l'homme and the German Problem, 1914-1944"
13th April 2010
Professor Rebecca Zorach (University of Chicago): "'Sweet in the Mouth, Bitter in the Belly': Absence and the Devotional Imaginary in a French Renaissance Book of Hours"
18th November 2010
Dr Alison Forrestal (National University of Ireland Galway): "Memory and Memorialisation: Vincent de Paul and 'the first sermon of the Mission'".
4th December 2011
Dr Michael Rapport (Stirling University):" The French Revolution: a Global Perspective?"
2nd May 2012
Professor Eric Jennings (University of Toronto, Canada):"La France libre fut africaine: Free French Sub-Saharan Africa at war, 1940-1944"
31st October 2012
Professor Emeritus Michael Jones (University of Nottingham), "Philippe de Commynes in Early Modern Britain: the Reception and Translation of his Memoirs"

French Visual Culture Seminar Series

From 2010-11, the St Andrews Centre for French History and Culture and the School of Art History has been convening a new series of seminars on French and francophone art and visual culture. The series intends to foster debate and promote intellectual exchange between the disciplines of modern languages, history and art history. Talks will address the diverse range of visual culture practices, theories and their historical contexts in France and the French-speaking world. The organisers are Natalie Adamson (na14@st-andrews.ac.uk) and Linda Goddard (ljg21@st-andrews.ac.uk).

20th April 2011
Richard Taws (University College London): "The Telegraphic Image: Lemonnier, Chappe, and Haiti" view poster
12th October 2011
Professor Peter Read (University of Kent): "'Au rendez-vous des poètes:' Picasso's art and literary contacts during his early years in Paris"
Wednesday 13th March 2013
Amanda Crawley Jackson (University of Sheffield): "Unmapping the urban: contemporary art from France and insurgent public space"