Jacques Revel, Global Distinguished Professor of History and the Institute of French Studies (Fall 2005)

Jacques Revel is a graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure and earned his doctorate in history at the Sorbonne. He was Assistant Professor at Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines de l'Université de Paris (1969-1970) before being appointed to the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (1973-1977). Since 1978, Professor Revel has taught at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris), where he is directeur d'études (full professor). He served as President of the Ecole from 1995 to 2004. Revel has taught at U.C. Berkeley, Michigan, Bielefeld and numerous other universities worldwide; he has been a regular visiting professor at NYU's Institute of French Studies since its creation in 1978.

Professor Revel's outstanding scholarship centers on two areas of study: historiography and the social and cultural history of Early and Modern Europe (16th to 19th centuries). His books include Une politique de la langue. La Révolution française et les patois, 1975 (with M. de Certeau and D. Julia); Les Universités européennes du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle: Histoire sociale des populations étu-diantes, Paris, Editions de l'EHESS, 2 tomes, 1986, 1989 (with R. Chartier and D. Julia); and Logiques de la foule. L'affaire des enlèvements d'enfants, Paris, 1750, 1988 (with A. Farge); A construçao da Sociedade, 1991. Among other publications he edited: Jeux d'échelles. La micro-analyse à l'expérience, 1996; Histories. French Constructions of the Past, 1996 (with L. Hunt); Fernand Braudel et l'histoire, 1999; Les usages politiques du passé, 2001 ; and Penser par cas, forthcoming 2005 (with J.-Cl. Passeron). He also co-edited with A. Burguière a historiographical and methodological reflection on contemporary history, Histoire de la France, 4 vols, 1989-1993. Professor Revel was co-editor of the Annales, économies, sociétés, civilisation from 1975 to 1981 and remains an active member of the editorial boards of this and many other journals.