Participant Info
- First Name
- Mita
- Last Name
- Choudhury
- Country
- United States
- State
- NY New York
- michoudhury@vassar.edu
- Affiliation
- Vassar College
- Website URL
- https://www.vassar.edu/faculty/michoudhury/
- Keywords
- French, European, Eighteenth-century, gender and sexuality, religion, politics, politics of religion and gender, sexual abuse in Catholic Church
- Availability
- Media Contact
- Additional Contact Information
- PhD
- PhD
Personal Info
- Photo
- About Me
I have been teaching early modern European history and Women’s Studies at Vassar College since 1997. My speciality is in eighteenth-century France with a focus on religion, gender, and politics. My book The Wanton Jesuit and the Wayward Saint (2015) unpacks one of the most controversial trials in eighteenth-century France in which a young woman accused her Jesuit confessor of seduction and heresy. I am currently working on a book project on sexual abuse in the 17th- and 18th-century French Catholic Church. The purpose is to write a victim-centered history. This topic has allowed me to speak on topics such as Brett Kavanaugh and Jeffrey Epstein for my local NPR station.
- Recent Publications
- Mita Choudhury and Daniel J. Watkins, ed., Belief and Politics in Enlightenment France: Essays in Honor of Dale K. Van Kley, in Oxford Studies in the Enlightenment (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2019).
- The Wanton Jesuit and the Wayward Saint: A Tale of sex, Religion, and Politics in Eighteenth-Century France (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2015).
- Convents and Nuns in Eighteenth-Century French Politics and Culture (Ithaca: Cornell University, 2004)
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- “Race, Privilege, and Identity in French History,” H-France Salon 12, 1, 4 (2019): 1-2. https://h-france.net/h-france-salon-volume-12-2020/#1201
- “The French Revolution, #MeToo, and Embodying Rights,” H-France Salon 11, 19, 2 (2019): 1-11.
https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fh-france.net%2Fh-france-salon-volume-11-2019%2F%23111621&data=02%7C01%7Ch-france%40lists.uakron.edu%7Cd5d201eaffa54a9fd7e808d78a345ff8%7Ce8575dedd7f94ecea4aa0b32991aeedd%7C0%7C1%7C637129829877669323&sdata=xWftXMtLq9u0waaHCjXgBQDRNcyrp%2F%2BTkVjMr2056XQ%3D&reserved=0 - “Gender, Faith, and Authority in the Eighteenth Century: Comparing François de Pâris and Jean-Baptiste,” in Belief and Politics in Enlightenment France: Essays in Honor of Dale K. Van Kley, Oxford Studies in the Enlightenment (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2019).
- « »I was an immigrant who chose to be the wrong kind of doctor : an academic, » The Guardian, July 19, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/19/immigrant-who-chose-be-wrong-kind-doctor-academic
- Media Coverage
- Interviewed by Alison Dunne of WAMC in October 2018 on the Brett Kavanaugh hearings; the interview for Midday magazine and 51% https://www.wamc.org/post/vassar-professor-speaks-aspect-kavanaugh-hearings
- Social Media
- Country Focus
- France
- Expertise by Geography
- France, Western Europe
- Expertise by Chronology
- Pre-17th century, 18th century, Early Modern
- Expertise by Topic
- Family, Gender, Politics, Sexuality, Sexual Violence, Women