French Empires

As in many other European countries in the last fifteen years, the historiography of France has been reshaped by interest in the imperial trajectory of the nation. This class will explore this ‘imperial turn’, and examine its specificity vis-à-vis the historiographies of other European empires. We will examine the questions that have been at the center of the historian’s agenda: what kind of historical processes are revealed (or masked) by the imperial perspective? How do we think historically about the relationships between nation, Republic and empire?  How has the ‘imperial turn’ shaped the categories and writing practices of historians? What are the contributions of historians to the understanding of postcolonialism? All readings and discussions are in English.