History professor receives major award

Conklin

A lice Conklin, associate professor of history, has been honored by the major organization of French historians in North America.

The Society for French Historical Studies has presented her with its William Koren Jr. Prize, awarded annually for the most distinguished article in French history. A society committee that reviews all articles in the field of French history published throughout the year selects the recipient.

Conklin was cited for her piece "Colonialism and Human Rights, A Contradiction in Terms: The Case of France in West Africa, 1895-1914." The article appeared in the April 1998 issue of American Historical Review, the journal of the American Historical Association.

Conklin argues that France's attitude toward its colonies was influenced both by its belief in universal rights--as evidenced by the human and civil rights underpinning French democracy--and by its ideas of African difference. Africans were to be "freed" from the material and moral want that had oppressed the French nation and allowed to "evolve" within their own culture. As a result, even French democrats felt colonialism was advancing the cause of human liberation, when it was in fact depriving Africans of their basic freedoms.

The author of numerous articles about modern France, its empire, and European colonialism, Conklin received the 1998 Book Prize awarded by the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians for her work A Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895-1930.

Most recently she co-edited European Imperialism, 1830-1930 with Ian Christopher Fletcher of Georgia State University. The book was published by Houghton Mifflin Company as part of the "Problems in European Civilizations" series. It includes analysis of imperialism by historical figures like Mohandas Gandhi and V.I. Lenin as well as articles by contemporary historians.

Currently, Conklin is conducting research for a book on the Museum of Man in Paris, France's premiere ethnographic museum that opened in 1937.