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Old Regime and Terror in France

Poster for Old Regime and Terror in France

Old Regime and Terror in France

History Thursday, September 20, 2018 10:00 am - 4:00 pm Marie Mount Hall, The Maryland Room

Please join the Nathan & Jeanette Miller Center for Historical Studies for a symposium in honor of Dr. Donald Sutherland. 

Christy Pichichero is Associate Professor of French and History at George Mason University. She earned her A.B. in Comparative Literature at Princeton University, a bachelor’s of music in opera singing from the Eastman School of Music, and her Ph.D. in French Studies from Stanford University. She has held fellowships at Cambridge University (King’s College), the École Normale Supérieure (Paris), West Point Military Academy, and the Society of the Cincinnati. She is the author of several articles and chapters on neoclassical theater, the history of emotions, and race in French history and recently published The Military Enlightenment: War and Culture in the French Empire from Louis XIV to Napoleon (Cornell University Press, 2017), which is a finalist for the Kenshur Prize. She serves on the Governing Council of the Western Society for French History, the Board of Directors of the Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, and the Presidential Advisory Committee of the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies.

Thomas Kaiser retired this past spring from his professorship at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, a position he held for forty-two years. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1976, and since then has lectured and published widely on a variety of aspects of Old Regime and Revolutionary France, including royal propaganda, public opinion, finance, historiography, the court, and diplomacy. Professor Kaiser has received research fellowships from many funders, among them, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Humanities Center, and the American Philosophical Society. His latest work deals with the diplomatic origins of the French Revolution. His current book project, parts of which he has published in the form of articles and book chapters, examines the twisted history of France's relationship with Austria in the later eighteenth century. It focuses on the widespread French belief that the nation's decline as a major power owed largely to Austria's duplicitous efforts to drain French resources for its own purposes by means of its highly placed subversive agents in Versailles, among them a royal mistress, a royal minister, and the Queen.Tentatively entitled "Marie-Antoinette and the Austrian Plot, 1748-1794," it then traces the impact of this essentially conspiratorial notion on the subsequent course of the French Revolution.

Colin Jones is Professor of History at Queen Mary University of London and from 2018-19 will be Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago. He is author or editor of many books on French history, the most recent of which are The Smile Revolution in 18th-century Paris (2015) and Versailles: Landscape of Power and Pleasure (2018). His current project is a study of the day of 9 Thermidor Year II.

Dr. Censer, a native of Memphis, Tennessee, became the Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at George Mason University in 2006. He earned his Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University. After three years at the College of Charleston, Dr. Censer came to George Mason in 1977. Beginning as an assistant professor, he was promoted to full professor in 1987. He served as the Chair of the Department of History & Art History from 1995-2005 and served as Dean of the College from January 2006 to July 2013. He retired in May 2015. He has given numerous guest lectures and regularly presents his work at national conferences. He has held visiting professor appointments at Cornell University and the University of Maryland. Dr. Censer’s research has examined the French Revolution, intellectual history, and the press. Previous publications include: Prelude to Power: The Radical Press in the French Revolution; The French Press in the Age of Enlightenment; On the Trail of the DC Sniper: Fear and the Media; and Debating Modern Revolution: The Evolution of Revolutionary Ideas. His latest work, coauthored with his colleague Lynn Hunt, is The French Revolution and Napoleon (Bloomsbury, 2017).

Add to Calendar 09/20/18 10:00 AM 09/20/18 4:00 PM America/New_York Old Regime and Terror in France

Please join the Nathan & Jeanette Miller Center for Historical Studies for a symposium in honor of Dr. Donald Sutherland. 

Christy Pichichero is Associate Professor of French and History at George Mason University. She earned her A.B. in Comparative Literature at Princeton University, a bachelor’s of music in opera singing from the Eastman School of Music, and her Ph.D. in French Studies from Stanford University. She has held fellowships at Cambridge University (King’s College), the École Normale Supérieure (Paris), West Point Military Academy, and the Society of the Cincinnati. She is the author of several articles and chapters on neoclassical theater, the history of emotions, and race in French history and recently published The Military Enlightenment: War and Culture in the French Empire from Louis XIV to Napoleon (Cornell University Press, 2017), which is a finalist for the Kenshur Prize. She serves on the Governing Council of the Western Society for French History, the Board of Directors of the Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, and the Presidential Advisory Committee of the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies.

Thomas Kaiser retired this past spring from his professorship at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, a position he held for forty-two years. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1976, and since then has lectured and published widely on a variety of aspects of Old Regime and Revolutionary France, including royal propaganda, public opinion, finance, historiography, the court, and diplomacy. Professor Kaiser has received research fellowships from many funders, among them, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Humanities Center, and the American Philosophical Society. His latest work deals with the diplomatic origins of the French Revolution. His current book project, parts of which he has published in the form of articles and book chapters, examines the twisted history of France's relationship with Austria in the later eighteenth century. It focuses on the widespread French belief that the nation's decline as a major power owed largely to Austria's duplicitous efforts to drain French resources for its own purposes by means of its highly placed subversive agents in Versailles, among them a royal mistress, a royal minister, and the Queen.Tentatively entitled "Marie-Antoinette and the Austrian Plot, 1748-1794," it then traces the impact of this essentially conspiratorial notion on the subsequent course of the French Revolution.

Colin Jones is Professor of History at Queen Mary University of London and from 2018-19 will be Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago. He is author or editor of many books on French history, the most recent of which are The Smile Revolution in 18th-century Paris (2015) and Versailles: Landscape of Power and Pleasure (2018). His current project is a study of the day of 9 Thermidor Year II.

Dr. Censer, a native of Memphis, Tennessee, became the Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at George Mason University in 2006. He earned his Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University. After three years at the College of Charleston, Dr. Censer came to George Mason in 1977. Beginning as an assistant professor, he was promoted to full professor in 1987. He served as the Chair of the Department of History & Art History from 1995-2005 and served as Dean of the College from January 2006 to July 2013. He retired in May 2015. He has given numerous guest lectures and regularly presents his work at national conferences. He has held visiting professor appointments at Cornell University and the University of Maryland. Dr. Censer’s research has examined the French Revolution, intellectual history, and the press. Previous publications include: Prelude to Power: The Radical Press in the French Revolution; The French Press in the Age of Enlightenment; On the Trail of the DC Sniper: Fear and the Media; and Debating Modern Revolution: The Evolution of Revolutionary Ideas. His latest work, coauthored with his colleague Lynn Hunt, is The French Revolution and Napoleon (Bloomsbury, 2017).

Marie Mount Hall