Dr Joseph Clarke

Lecturer in European History

Research Interests

As a historian of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era, my research primarily addresses the relationship between cultural change and political conflict in France. To date, this has revolved around a variety of questions: the rôle of commemoration in Revolutionary political culture, the use of religious language, imagery and ritual in Revolutionary politics and the evolution of Revolutionary war culture. With funding support from the IRCHSS, my most recent research involves a study of popular religious culture in France from the Revolution through to the Restoration.

Select Publications
Books

• Commemorating the Dead in Revolutionary France: Revolution and Remembrance 1789-1799 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007; 2nd edn, 2011)

Articles

• ‘Cenotaphs and cypress trees: commemorating the citizen-soldier in the Year II’, French History, 22 (2008), pp. 218-40.
• ‘The sacred names of the nation's dead: war and remembrance in revolutionary France’, in Kate McLoughlin and Alana Vincent, eds, Memory, Mourning and Landscape: Interdisciplinary essays (New York: Rodopi, 2010)

Teaching and Supervision

My teaching centres on the political and cultural history of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Alongside undergraduate survey teaching on Europe in this period, I offer Special Subject Honors modules (levels 3 & 4) on the French Revolution (List 1), on Napoleon and on the religious history of France in the long eighteenth-century (List 3). At postgraduate level, I also teach modules on eighteenth-century cultural history and the enlightenment in France for the History Department’s M.Phil programme in Early Modern History. I am happy to supervise postgraduate research in any of these areas.

Dr. Clarke on the TCD Research Support System

Contact Details

Room 3153
Department of History
Trinity College
Dublin 2.

Telephone: +353 1 896 2378
Fax: +353 1 896 3995
Email: joseph.clarke@tcd.ie