The Modern French Imperial Imagination
How did a nation founded on the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity justify the governance of one of the largest empires in the world? Was colonialism a natural extension of French republicanism? Was the idea of “Greater France” integral to the French concept of itself as a nation? What role did scientific explanations of subjects such as race and public health play in writing and governing the empire? How was visual culture used to “package” and “sell” the empire to inhabitants of metropolitan France? In short, what did the empire mean to France?
This course will explore the construction of a “colonial idea” in metropolitan France from the early Third Republic through decolonization in media such as literary, historical, and ethnographic texts as well as film, political discourse, and advertising. Aside from providing historical context, mining these sources will likely establish a framework for students to understand better more recent constructions of and debates over the legacies of French colonialism.