Centre for European and International Studies Research (CEISR)

Profile

I have recently completed my PhD thesis on the radical left press in France after May 1968, and am currently lecturing French and history part-time in the School of Languages and Area Studies at the University of Portsmouth. My continuing research seeks to probe unexplored regions of the ‘diaspora’ of May ’68. I aim to bring to light other corners of the 1970s new left press such as Les Cahiers de Mai, a "counter-information" bulletin that offered novel ways of enabling, informing and linking militant workers in a period of continued industrial unrest. Another of my research interests lies in the transnational dimension of the new, radical left movements, building on my thesis findings that showed important Italian and US influences on French militants. Conversely, the French May re-oriented movements globally, not just through the paradigm of student and worker revolution, but also in the linguistic and graphic styles typical of the Beaux-Arts posters. A further object of my enquiry, again flowing from my PhD work that analysed journals such as Actuel and Le Parapluie, will be the under-researched French counterculture, a crucible of alternative ideas that would subvert a range of French cultural, lifestyle norms.

The molecular changes at the levels of ‘radical politics and youth culture’ under Pompidou’s France, via sexual/gender/immigrant and other ‘liberation’ or contestation movements, held significant import for the country’s social and legislative future but have been under-researched, their full significance yet to be understood; these themes will partly inform a short conference at Portsmouth in the second semester of 2011.

Publications

Thesis

• Tout! in context 1968-1974: French radical press at the crossroads of far left, new movements and counterculture, University of Portsmouth, October 2010.

Articles

• ‘Art on the Street’, History Today, vol. 58 no.5, May 2008, pp.34-36.
• ‘L’Écho du Mai Français en Angleterre et Irlande du Nord’, Matériaux, pour l’histoire de notre temps (BDIC), no.94, April-June 2009, pp.53-59.
• 'Lotta Continua and Vive la Révolution: the circulation of ideas and practices between the left militant worlds of France and Italy following 1968’, Modern and Contemporary France, vol.18, no.3, August 2010, pp.309-328.
• ‘From the Algerian War to May 1968 and After: the role of Left Radicals and their Press’,  in Birchall, I., European Revolutionaries and Algerian independence 1954-1962, Revolutionary History, Vol. 10, no.4, 2012, pp.218-231.

Talks

• ‘Anatomy of a Poster: imagery of the Paris art school occupations May-June 1968’ - Society for the Study of French History 20th Annual Conference: “Power in France, 1500-2000 "University of Sussex, 4 July 2006.
• ‘The Strange Disappearance of the Maoists: some memories of leftist agitation in early 1970s France’, Postgraduate study half-day University of Portsmouth, 9 May 2007.
• ‘De Londres à Derry : l’Impact du Mai français en Angleterre et en Irlande du Nord’ -International Colloquium : « Les années 68 : une contestation mondialisée » BDIC /UMR IRICE University of Nanterre,19 mars 2008.
• ‘Tout!: Militant press and Resistance cultures in Early 1970s France’ - BSA Theory Study Group Conference: “1968, Impact and Implications”, Birkbeck University of London, 3 July 2008.
• ‘Lotta Continua and Vive la Révolution : the circulation of ideas and practices between the left militant worlds of France and Italy following 1968’ - CEISR/PBS Postgraduate half-day, University of Portsmouth, 13 May 2009 & ASMCF 30th annual Conference: “France and the Mediterranean; representations, policy, transnationalism”, University of Portsmouth, 3 September 2009.
• ‘Graphics, Caricature and Bande-dessinée in the Left Alternative Press of Early 1970s France’ - CEISR/PBS Postgraduate half-day, University of Portsmouth, 12 May 2010.