Staff Profile

Dr Julian Wright

(email at julian.wright@durham.ac.uk)

Julian Wright is a historian of French politics and political ideas under the Third Republic. His current research is directed towards a book entitled Socialism without Marx: the Independent Socialists in France, 1880-1940. This will use intellectual biography and investigation of personal networks to re-examine an important element of the French left, whose members have too often been sidelined as turncoats or ‘traitors’ to the socialist cause. His wider interests build on his early work on French regionalism, by investigating other French reform movements. He has a broad concern to break down the division between studies of the political right and left, by emphasizing moments of unity and collaboration between different political positions. He is co-editor of the journal French History.

Research Interests

• Political and intellectual history of France, 1870-1940
• Political thought and historiography
• Reformist socialism in France

Publications

Books: authored

• 2003 The Regionalist Movement in France, 1890-1914: Jean Charles-Brun and French Political Thought, Oxford University Press, 304 pp.

Books: edited

• 2012 (co-edited with Jones, H. S.) Pluralism and the Idea of the Republic in France, Palgrave Macmillan.

Essays in edited volumes

• 2012 'Vision and reality: Joseph Paul-Boncour and Third Republic pluralism', in Wright, Julian & Jones, H. S. (eds.), Pluralism and the Idea of the Republic in France, Palgrave, pp. 179-197
• 2008 'One mind at Locarno? Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresemann', in Steven Casey & Jonathan Wright (eds.), Mental Maps in the Era of Two World Wars, Palgrave, pp. 58-76
• 2007 'Aristide Briand et les problèmes d’un socialiste indépendant', in Jacques Bariéty (ed.), Aristide Briand, la Société des Nations et l’Europe, 1919-32, Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg, pp. 440-47
• 2004 'Charles-Brun et l’idée du régionalisme: réalisme et réconciliation', in Mireille Meyer (ed.), Le régionalisme: Jean Charles-Brun, Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques (CTHS), pp. 45-61

Journal papers: academic

• 2012 'Réformisme et historiographie révolutionnaire. Georges Renard et Eugène Fournière, historiens du XIXe siècle', Mil neuf cent. Revue d'histoire intellectuelle 30, pp. 21-38
• 2011 'Les réformistes au secours d’une femme en deuil. Une petite histoire de réseaux et de recherches socialistes à la veille de la Grande Guerre', Cahiers Jaurès 200, pp. 163-172
• 2009 'After the Affair: the Congrès de la Jeunesse and intellectual reconciliation in 1900', French History 23, pp. 491-516
• 2008 (co-authored with Christopher Clark) 'Regionalism and the state in France and Prussia', European Review of History: Revue europeenne d'histoire 15, pp. 277-93
• 2008 'Tradition, modernity and the regionalist Republic: a response to Philip Whalen', Cultural Analysis 6, pp. 63-66
• 2007 'The State and the Left in modern France: historiographical essay', French History 21, pp. 450-72
• 2005 'Joseph Paul-Boncour: regionalism, syndicalism and the Third Republic', Nottingham French Studies 44, pp. 66-81
• 2005 'Social reform, state reform and Aristide Briand's moment of hope in France, 1909-10', French Historical Studies 28, pp. 31-67

Teaching Areas

• Modern European history
• Political history of France, 1780-1870
• Politics and culture in France, 1880-1914