Research and Teaching Interests:

20th-century France, Modern Imperialism, Sexuality

Personal Statement:

My scholarship explores French imperialism, national identity, and the state. My first book is a history of the close of the Algerian War and the difficult re-negotiation of French state structures and national identity that resulted.

My teaching concentrates on modern European and colonial North African history, with special attention to the period of decolonization, and histories of race, gender, and sexuality.

In courses, I introduce students to the method and the nuance of historical thinking.  While expecting them to learn the key narratives--and pushing them to consider institutions as well as representations--we scrutinize primary documents both for what they reveal about the past and to grasp how (and why) historians use sources to describe earlier times.

Representative Publications:

The Invention of Decolonization: The Algerian War and the Remaking of France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, forthcoming in spring 2006).

“From Douai to the USA,” in Why France?, eds. Laura Lee Downs and Stéphane Gerson (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, forthcoming)

“’La bataille du voile’ pendant la guerre d’Algérie,” in Le foulard islamique en questions, ed. Charlotte Nordmann (Paris: Editions Amsterdam, 2004).