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About Me

I am an historian of twentieth-century Europe, with a special focus on the social and cultural history of modern France. My scholarship reflects my wide-ranging interests in the history of the senses and the body, global and imperial history, disability history, and the  history of science, medicine, and technology.

My first book, Radio and the Politics of Sound in Interwar France, 1921-1939  (Cambridge, 2016) examined the democratization of radio in France, illustrating how broadcasting became a new platform for political engagement by transforming the act of listening into an important, if highly contested, practice of citizenship. Rejecting older models of broadcasting as the weapon of totalitarian regimes or a tool for forging democracy from above, the book provided a nuanced picture of the politics of radio by uncovering competing interpretations of listening and the many diverse uses of broadcast sound that flourished between the world wars.

Between 2018-2021, I continued researching broadcasting as one of a seven-member team funded by a Leverhulme International Network grant based out of the University of Bristol (UK). Our co-authored book, the Wireless World: Global Histories of International Broadcasting appeared with Oxford University Press in 2022.

With Alejandra Bronfman (SUNY-Albany) and Andrea Stanton (U-Denver), I co-directed a 2021 NEH Summer Seminar for College and University Faculty entitled “Radio and Decolonization: Bringing Sound into Twentieth Century.” We continue to collaborate in publishing scholarship and pedagogical materials related to the seminar.

I am currently working on an NEH-funded book project titled Polio and its Afterlives: Disability and Epidemic Disease in Twentieth Century France, the first scholarly studio of polio and its survivors in France. Although polio has largely disappeared from public memory, mid-century polio epidemics claimed the lives of thousands and left many people with permanent disabilities. Weaving together histories of epidemic disease, public health, and medicine with the social and cultural history of disability, this interdisciplinary study examines how polio restructured France’s welfare state and health care systems, fueled vaccine development and biomedical research, and mediated France’s geopolitical status during an era of decolonization and rising American predominance. Moreover, by charting the lives of polio survivors across the tumultuous political landscape of the twentieth century, this book will also uncover the complex and shifting intersections between disability and citizenship, providing a new framework for understanding the history of inclusion and exclusion in modern France.

Recent Publications

“Inventing Polio Care at the Colonie de Saint-Fargeau: Disability, Rehabilitation, and the Welfare State in Interwar France, The Journal of Social History, 58:2 (Winter 2024), 1-27. (Advance access April 16, 2024)

“Roundtable: Disability History in France: Past, Present, and Future,” trans. & ed. Rebecca P. Scales, Jérôme Bas, Gildas Brégain, Jonathyne Briggs, Jessie Hewitt, Catherine Kudlick, and Sun-Young Park, French History, 38:1 (March 2024), 139-163.

The Wireless World: Global Histories of International Broadcasting, co-authored with Simon Potter, David Clayton, Friedrike Kind-Kovacs, Vincent Kuitenbrower, Nelson Ribiero, and Andrea Stanton. (Oxford University Press, 2022).

Radio and the Politics of Sound in Interwar France, 1921-1939 (Cambridge University Press, February 2016)

• Honorable Mention, 2016-17 Laurence Wylie Prize in French Cultural Studies
• Featured in the Financial Times as one of the “Best Books in History: 2016”
• New Books in French Studies Podcast

“La Tribune de l’Invalide: Radio Broadcasting, Disability Activism, and the Remaking of the French Welfare State,” forthcoming, French Politics, Culture, and Society, 37, 3 (Winter 2019), 53-78.

“Jacques Lusseyran et l’étranger: regards sur l’Amérique” in Jacques Lusseyran: entre cécité et lumière, ed. Marion Chottin, Céline Roussel, and Zina Weygand. Paris: Éditions rue de l’Ulm, Presses de l’École normale supérieure, 2019, 87-104.

“Métissage on the Airwaves: Towards a Cultural History of Broadcasting in French Colonial Algeria, 1930-1935,” Media History, 19, 3, 2013, 305-321.

“Subversive Sound: Transnational Radio, Arabic Recordings, and the Dangers of Listening in French Colonial Algeria 1934-1939,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 52, 2, 2010, 384-417.

“Radio Broadcasting, Disabled Veterans, and Politics of National Recovery in Interwar France,” 1928-1935,” French Historical Studies, 31, 4, 2008, 643-678.

Media Coverage

Social Media

twitter.com/RebeccaPScales

Country Focus

France

Expertise by Geography

France, Western Europe

Expertise by Chronology

20th century

Expertise by Topic

Colonialism, Disability, Medicine, Pedagogy, Science, Technology, World War I