International Conference
A Quarter-Millenium of Franco-American Relations
May 28-29, 2026
May 28-29, 2026
May 28
08:45-09:00 Coffee
09:00-09:30 Art Goldhammer | Introductory Remarks
09:30-11:15 Panel 1 | Revolutions
Stephen Sawyer and William Novak | Four Theses on the American and and French Revolutions
Richard Bell | The Unnatural Alliance: Anti-French Sentiment in the American Revolutionary War
François Furstenberg | French Intervention in the American Revolution: A Realist Interpretation
Gilles Montègre | Beaumarchais et Vergennes avant La Fayette : les origines secrètes de l’alliance franco-américaine à l’âge des révolutions
11:15-11:30 Coffee Break
11:30-13:15 Panel 2 | Political Economy
Nicolas Barreyre | The French Alternative: France as a Financial Model for the Industrializing United States (Civil War to World War I)
Herrick Chapman and Lizabeth Cohen | Sister Republics Confronting Deindustrialization: France and the United States in the Late Twentieth Century
Sophie Meunier and Laurent Warlouzet | Invested in the Alliance: The Impact of Foreign Direct Investment on Franco-American Relations
Teddy Paikin | Capitalism in America: Tocqueville, Chevalier, Say
13:15-14:30 Lunch
14:30-15:45 Plenary Lecture: David Bell | Distorting Mirrors: France and the US in Each Other's Eyes
15:45-16:00 Coffee Break
16:00-17:45 Panel 3 | History: Trade and International Relations
Iris de Rode | Beyond the Battlefield: The Multifaceted Franco-American Relationship During the American Revolution
Adam Lebovitz | Neptune's Trident: Free Trade, International Law and Submarine Warfare in the Age of Revolutions
Nathan Perl-Rosenthal | Monsieur Francklin, Accidental Judge: Sovereignty and Jurisdiction in the Franco-American Alliance (ca. 1780)
Manuel Covo | A Triangular Relationship in the Age of Revolutions: Haiti, France, and the United States
17:45 Reception at AUP
09:00-09:30 Coffee
09:30-11:00 Panel 4 | Theory
Flora Champy | Rousseau and Tocqueville: Is Liberalism Incompatible with Sovereignty?
Arthur Ghins | American French Liberalism
Gili Kliger | Claude Lévi-Strauss and the American Origins of French Structuralism
11:00-11:15 Coffee break
11:15-12:45 Panel 5 | History: 20th century
Jim Kloppenberg | The Center-Left in France and the US
Patrick Weil | Georges Clemenceau, a political bridge between the American and the French republics (1865-1929)
Ludivine Broch | Materiality and Intimacy in France-American Friendship: The French Gratitude Train to Americans in 1949
12:45-14:00 Lunch
14:00-15:15 Plenary Lecture: Françoise Mélonio | Tocqueville, l’Amérique « au point de vue français »
15:15-15:30 Coffee break
15:30-17:00 Panel 6 | History: 19th century
Sarah Maza | 'Aristocracy of the Skin': Beaumont, Tocqueville, and American Racism
Olivier Zunz | Was Tocqueville at Gettysburg?
Yohanna Alimi-Levy | Filiation, Inheritance, and the Memory of Revolutions: The American Perception of the French Revolutions of 1830 and 1848