According to Rogers, the nineteenth century was incapable of managing the feminine question and preferred to mythicize it. Everything that was related to it, especially feminine sexuality, was transformed into fiction. Thus women were saddled with the role of scapegoat.

In 1811, deaf student Ferdinand Berthier commenced his education at the National Institute for the Deaf in Paris under its director Abbé Sicard and his teachers Auguste Bébian, Jean Massieu, and Laurent Clerc. Their tutelage eventually led Berthier to join the faculty at the Institute and become a life-long proponent of sign language and Deaf culture. Berthier earned fame for instituting the famous silent banquets in Paris in 1834. He also learned to advance his agenda by writing biographies of important figures who advocated sign over oralism to educate deaf French students. Forging Deaf Education in Nineteenth-Century France offers the first translation of Berthier’s biographical sketches of the four men above who influenced him most. Berthier wrote first about Bébian in 1839, timed to advocate sign language for teaching deaf students after the departure of the pro-oralism Institute Director Désiré Ordinaire. Berthier extolled Bébian’s linguistic acumen and his educational philosophy. In later sketches, however, he described Sicard and Massieu in positive terms but also criticized them for supporting “methodical” signing, which conformed to spoken language conventions. In contrast, he lauded Clerc in his portrayal for using “natural” signing to teach deaf students. The incisiveness of Freeman G. Henry’s introduction and the clarity of his translations will enthrall readers now able to read Berthier’s biographies in English for the first time.

The international learned journal Francophonies d'Amérique publishes articles produced by academics working on North America's francophone minority populations throughout the continent. As stated clearly by Jules Tessier from the University of Ottawa in the foreword of the first issue published in 1991, the journal serves as "a meeting place for sharing the results of research and studies dealing with different aspects of French life in North America outside of Québec, and looked at from multiple perspectives offered under the umbrella of the Humanities and Social Sciences' academic disciplines. The journal also provides information concerning research and publication projects in the field, along with a list of the latest publications and related events of academic life".

Sponsored by the French Colonial Historical Society (FCHS), French Colonial History is an annual volume of refereed, scholarly articles selected from the society's annual meetings. The journal covers all aspects of French colonization and the history of all French colonies, reflecting the temporal span, geographical breadth, and diversity of subject matter that characterize the scholarly interests of the Society’s members.

French Colonial History is an outgrowth of the Society's ongoing relationship with Michigan State University Press, which began with the Press's publication of the 1995 FCHS Proceedings.

For more information about the French Colonial Historical Society, see the FCHS website at www.frenchcolonial.org.

Produced by the French section of the Department, French Forum is a journal of French and Francophone literature and film. It publishes articles in English and French on all periods and genres in both disciplines and welcomes a multiplicity of approaches.

French Historical Studies, the leading journal on the history of France, publishes groundbreaking articles, commentaries, and research notes on all periods of French history from the Middle Ages to the present. The journal's diverse format includes forums, review essays, special issues, and articles in French, as well as bilingual abstracts of the articles in each issue. Also featured are bibliographies of recent dissertations and books and announcements of fellowships, prizes, and conferences of interest to French historians.