The international conference aims at a re-evaluation of different decentralizing approaches in colonial history in relation to the early modern French colonial realm. The potential of these approaches lies in crystallizing different types of space and connections between these spaces instead of relying on the assumption of a strong interplay between an imperial center and its periphery. Case studies on French colonies in the Indo-Pacific and the Atlantic will examine the plurality of geographical and cultural spaces in order to reconstruct the entanglements between world regions and their mutual perceptions. The conference organizers have invited speakers to discuss decentralization of colonial administration, commerce, religion, cross-cultural interaction, and knowledge production in the context of early modern French colonial attempts.

Presentation

The international conference aims at a re-evaluation of different decentralizing approaches in colonial history in relation to the early modern French colonial realm. The potential of these approaches lies in crystallizing different types of space and connections between these spaces instead of relying on the assumption of a strong interplay between an imperial center and its periphery. Case studies on French colonies in the Indo-Pacific and the Atlantic will examine the plurality of geographical and cultural spaces in order to reconstruct the entanglements between world regions and their mutual perceptions. The conference organizers have invited speakers to discuss decentralization of colonial administration, commerce, religion, cross-cultural interaction, and knowledge production in the context of early modern French colonial attempts.

Programme

15 April

• 9h00–9h30 Introduction
• 9h30–10h15 Richard Drayton (King’s College London): De-centering the centre: the port cities of France and the wider European stakeholders in French expansion
• 10h15–11h00 Pernille Røge (University of Pittsburgh): From islands to empire: the French colonial administration at Gorée and Saint-Louis, 1763-1789
• 11h00–11h30  Pause de café
• 11h30–12h15  Arad Gigi (Florida State University): The Chains of Empire : penal work gangs in the French Empire, 1740-1789
• 12h15–13h00  Cécile Vidal (EHESS): Aux origines de l’esclavage racial dans l’Empire  français du XVIIIe siècle : Saint-Domingue, second centre impérial après la métropole
• 13h00–14h00 Déjeuner
• 14h00–14h45 Gregory Mole (University of Memphis): The European frontier: colonial India and the French „Company-state“ in India
• 14h45–15h30  Christopher Hodson (Brigham Young University): „The currency of this post“:  markets, material culture, and empire at Fort Toulouse, Lousiana, 1717-1745
• 15h30–16h00 Pause de café
• 16h00–16h45  Damien Tricoire (Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg): The politics of French-Malagasy encounters: rivalries between imperial actors and integration of French people in Malagasy polities
• 16h45–17h30  Fanny Malègue (EHESS): Saisir l’Empire au prisme des recensements : Antilles,  1763-1804
• 19h00 Dîner

16 April

• 9h00–9h45 Catherine Ballériaux (Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg): „You both have made us drunk with all your noise of praying“: the negotiation of political and religious identities on the Canadian frontier
• 9h45–10h30 Lenny Hodges (King’s College London): The crying Nawab: Franco-Indian ceremony and  the birth of indirect rule
• 10h30–11h00 Pause de café
• 11h00–11h45 Julie Marquet (Université Paris-Diderot): La faveur du prince. État colonial et autorité rituelle dans les établissements français de l’Inde (1816-1857)
• 11h45–12h30 Stéphane Van Damme (European University Institute): Astrological monuments, scientific ruins and sceptical metrology in eighteenth-   century French India
• 12h30–13h30 Déjeuner
• 13h30–14h15 Christopher Parsons (Northeastern University): The Biogeography of Empire in seventeenth-century French North America
• 14h15–15h00 Dorit Brixius (IHA): Eighteenth-century Isle de France and the creation of a  creole flora
• 15h00–15h15 Pause de café
• 15h15–16h00 François Regourd (Université Paris X-Nanterre): Faut-il brûler la Machine coloniale ?
• 16h00–16h30 Discussion finale