Participant Info

First Name
Antonia
Last Name
Perna
Country
United Kingdom
State
Affiliation
Durham University
Website URL
https://www.dur.ac.uk/directory/profile/?id=15975
Keywords
French Revolution, Napoleonic Empire, history of childhood, cultural history, children's literature, education
Availability
Media Contact
Additional Contact Information
PhD
PhD

Personal Info

Photo
About Me

Antonia Perna is a historian of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Empire, with a particular focus on childhood. She is interested in the politicisation of the eighteenth-century model of childhood innocence, in terms of both representations and experiences of children, in France and Italy in this period. More recently, her work concerns the transmission of political culture in this period, and especially how ideas were transferred internationally and packaged for children beyond French borders along with revolutionary and Napoleonic expansion across Europe.

Antonia has lectured at Durham University and held research fellowships at the British School at Rome, the John Rylands Research Institute and the Newberry Library.

Recent Publications

Journal Articles

Perna, A., ‘Schoolbooks Printed in Jacobin and Napoleonic Milan: cultural imperialism and the making of a modern education system in Northern Italy, 1796–1814’, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome – Italie et Mediterranée modernes et contemporaines (MEFRIM), in press.

Perna, A., ‘Les Discours publics du jeune Charles Nodier et de ses pairs bisontins : une étude de l’agentivité enfantine dans la vie civique pendant la Révolution française, 1790–94 [The Juvenile Public Speeches of Charles Nodier and His Peers in Besançon: A study of children’s agency in French Revolutionary civic life, 1790-1794]’, Histoire de l’éducation, 161 (2024), pp. 81-108. [https://doi.org/10.4000/11wth].

Perna, A., ‘Bara and Viala, or Virtue Rewarded: the memorialization of two child martyrs of the French Revolution’, French History, 35:2 (2021), pp. 192–218. [https://doi.org/10.1093/fh/craa071].

Magazine Articles

Perna, A., ‘Hope of the Nation: celebrating schoolboys’ achievements to end the French Revolution’, Symeon, 11 (2021), pp. 30–33. [https://www.durham.ac.uk/media/durham-university/departments-/history/DU-History—Symeon-11-2021.pdf]

Digital publications

Perna, A., ‘Patriotic Giving and Republican Girlhood in Revolutionary France: the public speeches of twelve-year-old Joséphine Fontanier, 1793–94’, H-France Salon (2020), 12:8, #49.

Media Coverage
Country Focus
France; Italy
Expertise by Geography
France, Western Europe
Expertise by Chronology
18th century, 19th century, Modern
Expertise by Topic
Book History, Children & Youth, Pedagogy, Rebellion & Revolution