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Dr John Strachan
Lecturer
Degree: B.A., M.A. (Warwick, 2000, 2002), Ph.D. (Manchester, 2007), PGCAP (Lancaster, 2010)
Associated research centres and groups: Dynamics of Memories
Current Teaching
I am on sabbatical leave in the 2012-2013 academic year and will not be teaching. I normally contribute to HIST100, HIST300 and HIST405 and convene the following undergraduate modules:
HIST272 Empire, Race, and the French Colonial World
HIST273 Empire, Race, and the French Nation-State
I hold the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice and am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Research Interests
I studied and taught at the universities of Warwick (1997-2002) and Manchester (2002-2007) before joining Lancaster in September 2007. I serve on the steering committee of the Society for the Study of French History and am a core member and formerly research events co-ordinator (2008-2012) for the Dynamics of Memories research group (recently awarded a major AHRC Networking Grant).
I started out as an historian of local, regional and national identities in late nineteenth-century France and was especially interested in Eugen Weber's ideas about the coming-together of the modern nation-state. From there, I began to explore the cultural underpinnings of identity-formation and, at the same time, started working on France's overseas empire in North Africa which I had encountered in the writings of Albert Camus and Fernand Braudel. These interests came together in my doctorate--a history of the European settlers in Algeria (pieds-noirs) that looked at the role of the military, political and commemorative cultures, literature, education, medicine, food and drink and the writing of history in the period 1870-1930. The work of Roland Barthes and Pierre Nora served me well in developing a broad analytical framework for the study of these cultural and psychological relationships between metropolitan and colonial worlds. Much of this research has been published in article form (see below). More recently, I have worked on the relationship of memory to history, colonial cultures in a comparative context and the intellectual history of decolonisation. In addition to writing a monograph on colonial Algeria, I am beginning new projects on the commemoration of imperial heroes, the colonial origins of anthropology and the place of sub-Saharan Africa in Western thought.
Potential Doctoral Proposals
Social, cultural and intellectual histories of modern France and the French overseas empire
Imperialism, colonialism and race
Historiography (especially French) in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
Current Projects
Mythologies of Empire: The Shape of Culture in European Colonial Algeria (book manuscript, in preparation).
A co-authored special issue on the commemoration of imperial heroes.
Publications
PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLES AND CHAPTERS IN EDITED COLLECTIONS
2013. 'From Poverty to Wretchedness? Albert Camus and the Psychology of the Pieds-Noirs', Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 14: 2 (in press)
2012/13. 'The Dogon of Mali as lieu de mémoire' (under review)
2011. 'The Colonial Cosmology of Fernand Braudel' in Martin Thomas (ed.), The French Colonial Mind Volume I: Mental Maps of Empire and Colonial Encounters (Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press), 72-95
2011. 'Murder in the Desert: Soldiers, Settlers and the Flatters Expedition in the Politics and Historical Memory of European Colonial Algeria, 1830-1881', French History and Civilization. Papers from the George Rudé Seminar 4, 210-222
2011. 'Between History, Memory and Mythology: The Algerian Education of Albert Camus' in Kate Marsh and Nicola Frith (eds.), France's Lost Empires: Fragmentation, Nostalgia, and la fracture coloniale (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books), 55-67
2007. 'The Colonial Identity of Wine: The Leakey Affair and the Franco-Algerian Order of Things', Social History of Alcohol and Drugs: An Interdisciplinary Journal 21: 2, 118-137
2006. 'The Pasteurization of Algeria?', French History 20: 3, 260-275
2004. 'Romance, Religion and the Republic: Bruno's Le Tour de la France par deux enfants', French History 18: 1, 96-118
REVIEW ESSAYS AND REVIEWS OF BOOKS
2012. Jennifer Sessions, By Sword and Plow: France and the Conquest of Algeria (Cornell University Press, 2011), H-France Review 12: 100
2012. 'Camus in Context' [review of Neil Foxlee, Albert Camus's 'The New Mediterranean Culture'. A Text and its Contexts (Peter Lang, 2010) and Robert Zaretsky, Albert Camus. Elements of a Life (Cornell University Press, 2010)], Modern and Contemporary France 20: 1, 105-108.
2011. Spencer Segalla, The Moroccan Soul: French Education, Colonial Ethnology, and Muslim Resistance, 1912-1956 (University of Nebraska Press, 2009), H-France Review 11: 90
2010. Graham Huggan and Ian Law (eds.), Racism, Postcolonialism, Europe (Liverpool University Press, 2009), Bulletin of Francophone Postcolonial Studies 1: 2, 13-14
2009. Richard Keller, Colonial Madness: Psychiatry in French North Africa (Chicago University Press, 2007), Modern and Contemporary France 17: 2, 233-234
2009. Claude Liauzu, Histoire de l'anticolonialisme en France du XVIe siècle à nos jours (Armand Colin, 2007), H-France Review 9: 42
2008. Raphaëlle Branche, La guerre d'Algérie: une histoire apaisée? (Editions du Seuil, 2005) and Sylvie Thénault, Histoire de la guerre d'indépendance algérienne (Flammarion, 2005), Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 63: 3, 658-660
2007. Annie Bleton-Ruget and Philippe Poirrier (eds.), Le temps des sciences humaines. Gaston Roupnel et les années trente (Editions Le Manuscrit-MSH de Dijon, 2006), H-France Review 7: 130
2007. Jonathan Dewald, Lost Worlds: The Emergence of French Social History, 1815-1970 (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006), Modern and Contemporary France 15: 3, 365-366
2007. Nabila Oulebsir, Les usages du patrimoine. Monuments, musées et politique coloniale en Algérie (1830-1930) (Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'homme, 2004), European Review of History/Revue européenne d'histoire 14: 1, 133-134
2005. Stéphane Gerson, The Pride of Place: Local Memories and Political Culture in Nineteenth-Century France (Cornell University Press, 2003), European Review of History/Revue européenne d'histoire 12: 1, 168-169
Additional Information
Eprints Publications Repository and Bibliographic Database
John Strachan has 4 selected publication records listed on this webpage. Use links to access abstracts and full text where available. View all records to sort by date, type and title. For all ePrints records go to http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk
Strachan, John (2011) Between history, memory and mythology : the Algerian education of Albert Camus. In: France's Lost Empires: Fragmentation, Nostalgia, and la fracture coloniale. Lexington, Lanham, Md., pp. 55-67. ISBN 978-0739148839
Strachan, John (2007) The Colonial Identity of Wine: The Leakey Affair and the Franco-Algerian Order of Things. The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 21 (2). pp. 118-137. ISSN 0887-2783
Strachan, John (2006) The Pasteurization of Algeria? French History, 20 (3). pp. 260-275.
Strachan, John (2004) Romance, Religion and the Republic: Bruno's Le Tour de la France par deux enfants. French History, 18 (1). pp. 96-118.
Associated Keywords: Alcohol and illicit drug use, Citizenship, Colonialism, Comparative literature, Cultural theory, Discourse analysis, Environmental history, European identity, Food, Foucault, France, Historiography, History, History of medicine, Identity, Identity politics, Imperialism, Literary criticism, Memorialisation, Memory, Modernity, Nineteenth century, Political culture , Political history 18th - 20th centuries, Postcolonial theory, Psychoanalytic thought, Regional identity, Revolution, Semiotics
View all research activities, ePrints, news and events associated with John Strachan.
Contact Details
Tel: (5)92608
Room: Bowland, B150