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Undergraduate Dissertation Prize Winners.2011 Winner: Pierre Caquet (Cambridge), ‘Egyptology, French Romantic Nationalism and the Oriental Crisis of 1839-1840'. Panel citation: This dissertation made sense of a moment which often seems incomprehensible in other accounts of the nineteenth-century, the Oriental Crisis of 1840 when France risked international isolation and even war in order to support the regime of Mehemet Ali in Egypt. Clear and sophisticated in its analysis, this dissertation was also a pleasure to read, not least for the author’s gift at phrase-making. But the judges’ decision was not based on aesthetic considerations alone, the student also displayed a profound familiarity both with the archival material located in the Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères and the BNF, but also with the newspapers, journals, memoirs and other sources concerning the Oriental Crisis. The student does an excellent job of marrying cultural and political history, demonstrating that the attitudes of political decision makers such as Thiers in the moment of crisis were not informed by a rational calculation of France’s interests, but were framed by a series of cultural engagements with Egypt that went back through the Restoration to the Napoleonic invasion. Egypt, as a possible ‘nation-state’ emerging under a Napoleonic modernising figure, appealed to many elements across the July Monarchy’s political spectrum. In the French political imagination, Egypt became a projection of French nationalism. As the title suggests, Ali’s very numerous supporters in France were influenced by a very particular post Napoleonic, romantic orientalism. 2011 Runner-up: Sean Heath (Cambridge) ‘Subtleties in the Representation in Music and Libretti of Louis XIV’s Power, Rule, and Pursuit of Glory, 1661-1715’. 2011 Highly Commended: Katy Brill (St Andrews), ‘A Liberated Nation on Stage: Politics, Theatre and National Identity in Post-Liberation France’. _______________________________ 2010 Winner: Adam Boukraa (Oxford), 'The harkis in France since the 1960s: local experiences, national discourse'. Panel citation: An extremely clear, innovative, well-focused analysis, based on a close and intelligent reading of much original material and wide ranging understanding of the historiography of the harkis in France. Knows the secondary literature but does not become bogged down in it; selects his targets with considerable thought and independence; delivers an excellent and subtle commentary. This is a straightforward piece of archival work, but what it does, it does very well indeed. Original in outcome if not in method, it provides a very welcome and instructive analysis of complex and elusive themes of identity. [download] 2010 Runner-up: Julia Nicholls (Cambridge), 'The Ideas of the French Revolutionary Left c. 1871-1881'. [download] 2010 Highly Commended: AArthur Asseraf (Cambridge), 'The Muslim Algerian deputies in the French National Assembly, 1958-1962'. Carly Hicks (Durham), 'Language, tradition, modernity: the rhetoric of Breton regionalist identity 1898-1945'. Samuel Pollack (Cambridge), 'Ideas of Venality from Montaigne to Montesquieu'. _________________________ 2009 Winner: James Eastwood (Cambridge): 'Noble Obligation and Political Imagination in ninth-century Carolingian Francia'. Panel citation: 'This is a clever piece, a very clever piece, and one only really appreciates how clever as it comes towards its conclusion. Mature, confident and engaging, it copes well with difficult sources and understands the developing historiographical issues clearly. Both sources and the secondary literature have been subjected to very close and independent reading. Presentation is clear, references correctly cited although, curiously, there is no final bibliography. Throughout the thesis, which is advanced in an extremely logical and coherent manner, is contextualised in the light of changing approaches to primary and secondary source material. The substantial third chapter on imperial connections moves the study from its focussed beginnings to significant reflection on wider European considerations. While the author suggests much of the work is observational (cf. Conclusion) it is in fact a useful insight into interrogating varying source material and matching this to current historical research on family, obligation and European structures in the early Middle Ages. If we have some reservations they derive from the author's assumption of knowledge that none of us had and from a sense that he may occasionally be loading his sources with ideological baggage that they just can’t sustain. The concepts of 'Noble obligation' and 'political imagination' are elastic, and the latter is never closely defined. There is also a danger of modern scholars reading too much subtlety into statements that were, and were meant to be, taken at face value. Nevertheless, this is an impressive piece that engages with big, well-studied themes but succeeds in establishing its own distinctive viewpoint. Publication in some form should not be ruled out.' [download file] 2009 Joint Runners-up: Melanie Pocock (Bristol): 'The French Pantheon 1791. Re-defining the dynamics of power in public art'. [download file] Joanna Warson (LSE): 'Britain, France and the Nigerian Civil War, 1967-1970'. [download file] The Chair of the Panel would also like to make honourable mention of the following thesis: Michael Surman (Durham), '"A Holy Nation, a peculiar people": Religion, region and nation in medieval Brittany'. [download file] _______________________________ 2008 Joint Winners: David Henry Doyle (Trinity College Dublin): 'What role did Public Opinion play in the formation of French foreign policy from June 1791 to January 1792'. Panel citation: "The dissertation sought to examine a problem in the early years of the Constituent Assembly to which no satisfactory answer has yet been forthcoming from historians of the Revolution: to what extent were the Assembly deputies duped into declaring war in 1792 by a small clique from within, and to what extent were they responding to public opinion from without? The dissertation uses a very broad range of primary and secondary sources in order to demonstrate that there were important tensions between the Assembly and the public over attitudes to foreign authorities, and their peoples; even more impressively, however, it highlights the 'interactive mechanisms' between deputies within and opinion without, which ensured that foreign policy issues were not discussed in a vacuum. By combining a keen sense of political evolution over the narrow time-frame chosen for analysis with an evaluation of the evidence from the records of the Assembly itself, the dissertation shows how opinion could be mobilised by deputies on the basis of reports (notably from deputies from frontier constituencies) from the provinces." [download file] 2008 Joint Winners: Julia Gilham (Bristol): 'Memory, discrimination and integration: a study of the 17 October 1961 massacre of Algerians in Paris'. Panel citation: "The dissertation examined the contested evidence and subsequent history of the notorious demonstration of c.20,000 Algerians of 17 October 1961 in Paris, and its repression by the authorities. It did so in the context of a sophisticated awareness of the historiography of memory and the related issues of institutional discrimination and attitudes towards the integration of immigrants and minorities in contemporary France. The panel were impressed with the careful handling of the necessarily incomplete and contested evidence regarding the events of that day, especially the evaluation of contemporary newspaper testimony balanced against later witness evidence. The dissertation is notable for tracing the evolution of 'memory disputes', for the sophisticated handling of limited photographic evidence to expose the discriminatory nature of the massacre, and for the analysis of decisions by local communities to erect commemorative plaques in memory of the victims of that day." [download file] 2008 Runner up: Hannah Yadi (Durham): 'Les Oubliés de l'Histoire - Les Harkis. A history Distorted by official narratives'. Panel citation: "This dissertation examines the 'neglect' of Harki history through the prism of a 'triple silence'; the reluctance of the official authorities in both Algeria and France to come to terms with a group whose role had been deeply problematic and embarrassing to both sides, albeit for different reasons, coupled with the reluctance of Harki participants themselves to acknowledge their own role. The Panel found it commendable in the way in which it integrated selected oral testimonies into a discriminating use of the available and growing secondary literature on the subject." [download file] _______________________________ 2007 Winner: Katie Alloway (Durham): The Limits of Dechristianisation: Religion and Revolution in the District of Montpellier, 1789-99. [download file] 2007 Runners-up: Joe Philp (Cambridge): The Idea of an International Order in the Political Thought of the Abbé de Mably. [download file] James Salmon (Durham): Surveillée, Encadrée, Canalisée: Institutionalisation and suppression of festivals by the religious and secular authorities in Bordeaux, 1600-1789. [download file] Andrew Smith (St Andrews): The Midi, the Métropole and the Marshall Plan. A Study of the Midi vignerons in the French Fourth Republic [download file] _______________________________ 2006 Joint Winners: Charlotte Wink (Durham) Bryony Palmer (Oxford) 2006 Runner-up: 2006 - Rachel Leow (Warwick) |
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