French History Podcast

Podcast art for The French History PodcastA weekly history podcast that will cover France from 3 million years ago to present. Presented by Gary Girod, with contributions by numerous scholars.

Book cover of Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast by Joan DeJean
Colonial Period

Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast 

The secret history of the rebellious Frenchwomen who were exiled to colonial Louisiana and found power in the Mississippi Valley

In 1719, a ship named La Mutine (the mutinous woman), sailed from the French port of Le Havre, bound for the Mississippi. It was loaded with urgently needed goods for the fledgling French colony, but its principal commodity was a new kind of export: women. […Learn More]

Book cover of Vénus Noire: Black Women and Colonial Fantasies in Nineteenth-Century France by Robin Mitchell
Europe

Vénus Noire: Black Women and Colonial Fantasies in Nineteenth-Century France

Even though there were relatively few people of color in postrevolutionary France, images of and discussions about black women in particular appeared repeatedly in a variety of French cultural sectors and social milieus. In Vénus Noire, Robin Mitchell shows how these literary and visual depictions of black women helped to shape the country’s postrevolutionary national identity, particularly in response to the trauma of the French defeat in the Haitian Revolution. […Learn More]