Biography

Born in Toronto and raised in Montreal, I completed a BA in History at Concordia University. After graduating in 1993, I set off for central New Jersey where I entered the Ph.D. program in History at Rutgers University. From 1996-1999, I spent three glorious years roaming the streets of Paris. I joined the faculty at SFU in 2001 and completed my doctoral dissertation in 2002.

Since the beginning of my academic career, I have been interested in the study of a wide range of cultural objects and moments from the French past. My early research included subjects as diverse as the emergent science of handwriting analysis in nineteenth-century France and the "uncanny" rehabilitation of wounded soldiers during and after World War I. My book, Future Tense: The Culture of Anticipation in France Between the Wars, examines representations of the future and the futuristic between 1918 and 1939. I have also published articles on experimental and documentary film and history, including the work of Peter Watkins and Louis Malle. Over the past several years, my research has focused on the cultural politics of the "French" bomb after 1945, including the history and legacies of France's nuclear weapons detonations in Algeria and Maohi Nui (French Polynesia) from the early 1960s through the mid-1990s. I am also the founding host of New Books in French Studies a podcast channel on the New Books Network that I launched in 2013.

Books

Areas of Graduate Supervision:

Modern Europe, France, Cultural History, Colonial and Postcolonial History

Teaching Interests

I teach a range of subjects at the undergraduate and graduate levels including courses on modern Europe, modern  France, and historical methods. I also regularly teach in the Honours program in History. In 2012, I was awarded a Teaching Learning Development Grant from SFU's Institute for the Study of Teaching and Learning in the Disciplines as the Principle Investigator of "Excavating the Present in the History Classroom," a research study focused on History student engagement with current events.

Awards