Allan A. Tulchin

Curriculum Vitae



Department of History and Philosophy, Shippensburg University

1871 Old Main Dr.

Shippensburg, Pennsylvania 17257

(717) 477-126

aatulchin@ship.edu



Current Position:



    Shippensburg University, Shippensburg, PA. Assistant Professor of History, 2006-present. Courses taught: World History, French History, The Reformation, early modern Europe, The Old Regime and the French Revolution, and graduate courses on early modern political thought and the Age of Revolutions.



Education:



    University of Chicago. Ph.D. in History with Distinction, December 2000. Dissertation: “The Reformation in Nîmes.” Advisor: William H. Sewell, Jr. M.A. in History, August 1991. Thesis: “Witchcraft in Elizabethan Essex: A Reappraisal.” Advisor: Edward M. Cook, Jr.

    University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, July 1993.  Classes in statistics and quantitative historical methods.

    Yale University. B.A. cum laude with Distinction in History, May 1990. Senior Essay: “‘To Defend By Our Precedents Our Privileges’: Strategy and Ideology in the Parliaments of 1621 and 1628,” Advisor: David Underdown.

Christ’s College, University of Cambridge. Junior Year Abroad, 1988-89.



Book:



    That Men Would Praise the Lord: The Triumph of Protestantism in Nîmes, 1530-1570 (Oxford University Press, 2010). The book combines a number of methodological approaches to produce a new understanding of why the Reformation was successful in some French cities and not in others. The argument takes the form of a case study of Nîmes, the French city where the Reformation was most successful, and where the documentation is consequently the best. Using a database compiled from all 1,750 surviving wills and marriage contracts from Nîmes between 1550 and 1562, including more than 13,000 references to persons of every social condition, it traces the spread of Protestant ideas, beginning with merchants and artisans, then spreading to lawyers and officials. The book also includes a final chapter where Nîmes is compared to other cities, both in France and elsewhere in western Europe.



Articles:



    “Inheritance Strategies or Friendship Networks? The Importance of Family in the Cities of Renaissance France,” in preparation. Abstract: The article is a study of the role and function of legacies and dowry gifts among Nîmes’s urban artisans. It argues that such gifts were commonly intended to lubricate social relations, rather than to affect the economic destiny of the recipients. I have completed a draft of this article, and am now working on revisions.

    “Making Peace in the Wars of Religion,” solicited for a Round Table on “How Civil Wars End,” to appear in the American Historical Review. I have completed a draft and am making revisions for submission, based on a conference paper I delivered at the Western Society for French History conference (Banff, Canada, 2012). Abstract: The article considers why in the French Wars of Religion (1562-1598), the crown found it found it extremely difficult to make peace between Protestants and Catholics. The article considers modern political-science models of peace-making to improve our understanding of why Henri IV (reigned 1589-1610) succeeded in pacifying France while his predecessors did not. Previous accounts have seen Henri IV’s success as a product of his great personal qualities, but his achievement has been overstated. In fact, over the first fifteen years of the wars, Catholics learned that Protestants could not be eradicated from the country, and became more willing to negotiate. Henri’s success was due more to structural changes brought about by his position, rather than his personal qualities. Specifically, Henri’s questionable legitimacy forced him to adopt policies of persuasion rather than coercion, while his predecessors were hindered by their position as mediators within a conflict between the Protestant forces and the Catholic League.

    “Church and State in the French Reformation,” forthcoming in the Journal of Modern History (tentatively scheduled for publication in Dec. 2014). This is a review essay which gives an overview of the period and its significance for European history by discussing the books reviewed in chronological order, while highlighting two major issues. The first issue is how and why the French Reformation ultimately failed to persuade the majority of French people to convert, despite the astonishing successes of the Protestant movement in the late 1550s and early 1560s. The second issue is the importance of the Wars of Religion for the history of the French state: the result of the wars was a decisive shift in power towards the crown and away from both the localities and representative institutions.

    “Low Dowries, Absent Parents: Marrying for Love in an Early Modern French Town,” Sixteenth Century Journal (forthcoming vol. 44:3, 2013). This article, using information from over 1000 marriage contracts from mid-sixteenth century Nîmes, examines marriage choice in early modern France. It concludes that among the poorer half of the population, children largely chose their own spouses. Legal requirements for consent were frequently ignored, and parents were frequently dead. Many poor young people immigrated to Nîmes from the countryside, and met their spouses in town. They also did not have to rely on their parents for dowries, since young women from poor backgrounds frequently used savings from their wages for the purpose. A third of all marriage contracts also specified no particular sum or significant asset as a dowry. The article concludes with an extended comparison to other French cities, which suggests considerable dowry inflation in early modern France. This may have led to increasing parental control by the end of the old regime.

    “Massacres During the French Wars of Religion,” Past and Present Supplement 7:100-126 (February 2012), a special issue entitled “Ritual and Violence: Natalie Zemon Davis and Early Modern France,” ed. Graeme Murdock, Penny Roberts, and Andrew Spicer.

    “Geneva by the Sea: the Reformation in Nîmes in Historiographical Context,” in Gabi Piterberg, Teo Ruiz, and Geoffrey Symcox eds., The Mediterranean After Braudel (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010).

    “Same-Sex Couples Creating Households in Old Regime France: The Uses of the Affrèrement,” Journal of Modern History 79(3):613-47 (September 2007). The University of Chicago Press, which publishes JMH, put out a press release to publicize it, and reports appeared in a number of publications, and on the radio. See also my op-ed, “The 600 Year Tradition Behind Same-Sex Unions,” which appeared online at the website of the History News Network: http://hnn.us/articles/42361.html.

“The Michelade in Nîmes, 1567,” French Historical Studies 29(1):3-35 (Winter 2006).

    “The Reformation in Nîmes: The Demographics of Protestant Growth,” Proceedings of the Western Society for French History: Selected Papers of the 1999 Annual Meeting, 27:74-83 (2001).

    “Les étudiants au collège des arts de Nîmes au XVIe siècle,” Bulletin of the Societé de l’histoire moderne et contemporaine de Nîmes (October, 1994).



Honors, Awards, Fellowships



    Teaching and Research Excellence grant, Shippensburg University. For summer research in France ($3700).

    Franklin Research Grant, American Philosophical Society. For summer research in France, 2010 ($4000).

    Honorable Mention (i.e., second place) for the William Koren, Jr. Prize of the Society for French Historical Studies, given “for the outstanding journal article published on any era of French history by a North American scholar in an American, European, or Canadian journal during 2007.” This was given for my article “Same-Sex Couples Creating Households in Old Regime France: The Uses of the Affrèrement,” Journal of Modern History 79(3):613-47 (September 2007).

    The Nancy Lyman Roelker Prize, awarded by the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference to the best article in the field of French History in 2006, for my article “The Michelade in Nîmes, 1567,” French Historical Studies 29(1):3-35 (Winter 2006).

    Camargo Foundation Fellowship (Cassis, France).  Residential fellowship to complete the final revisions for That Men Would Praise the Lord, Fall semester, 2007.

    National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, to participate in a Summer Seminar for Faculty on Calvinism, held at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan, July, 2004.   

    Eric Cochrane Travel Fellowship for dissertation research (awarded by the Univ. of Chicago Dept. of History). June, 1993. 

    Unendowed university fellowship, University of Chicago. Full tuition and stipend, 1990-1994.



Previous Positions:



    George Mason University, Fairfax, VA. Postdoctoral Fellow in History, 2003-2006. Courses taught: Western Civilization and a graduate survey course on Early Modern Europe.

    University of California, Los Angeles. Getty-Ahmanson Postdoctoral Fellow, 2002-2003. Research fellowship to participate in the program, “Braudel Revisited: The Mediterranean World, 1600-1800.”

    Hunter College High School, New York, NY. Teacher, Social Studies Department, 2000-2002. Courses taught: American History to 1835 and World History, 1600-present, at one of the country’s best schools for gifted students.



Reviews:



    Review of Arlette Jouanna, The Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre: The Mysteries of a Crime of State, trans. Joseph Bergin. (Manchester, U.K. and New York, N.Y.: Manchester University Press, 2013) in H-France (on-line peer-reviewed forum on French history), forthcoming. This review is part of a forum on the book, edited by Hilary Bernstein, and also including Mack Holt, Diane Margolf, Elizabeth Tingle, the translator, and the author.

    Review of Didier Boisson and Yves Krumenacker, eds., La coexistence confessionnelle à l’épreuve: Études sur les relations entre protestants et catholiques dans la France moderne (Lyon: Laboratoire de recherche historique Rhône-Alpes, Université Jean-Moulin B Lyon III, 2010), in H-France (on-line peer-reviewed forum on French history), May 2011 (http://www.h-france.net/vol11reviews/vol11no100Tulchin.pdf).

    Review of Valérie Leclerc Lafage, Montpellier au temps des troubles de Religion: Pratiques testamentaires et confessionnalisation, 1554-1622 (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2010. Renaissance Quarterly, 63(4) (Winter 2010):1322-1323.

    Review of Paul Sonnino, Mazarin’s Quest: The Congress of Westphalia and the Coming of the Fronde (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008). Journal of Modern History, 82(2) (June, 2010):464-466.

    Review of Michel de Montaigne, Apology for Raymond Sebond ed. and trans. Roger Ariew and Marjorie Grene (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett, 2003), in H-France (on-line peer-reviewed forum on French history). See http://www.h-france.net/vol4reviews/tulchin.html.



Papers and talks:



    “Making Peace in the Wars of Religion,” Western Society for French History conference, Banff, October 12, 2012.

    Seminaire of Prof. Denis Crouzet, Université de Paris-IV Sorbonne, March 28, 2012. This talk gave an overview of my Nîmes research.

    Commentator on a panel on “History, Memory and Identity in Religious War France” at the conference of the Society for French Historical Studies, Charleston, SC, February 11, 2011.

    “The Causes of Religious Massacre During the French Wars of Religion,” Renaissance Society of America Conference, Venice, April 2010 (based on the article referenced above).

    “‘This Joining in Marriage Surpasses All Other Delights and Kindnesses of Love’: Dowry and Marriage Choice in Early Modern France,” Washington, DC area Seminar on Ancien Regime France, March 2010 (based on the article referenced above).

    “The Reformation in Nîmes in Comparative Perspective,” Washington, DC area Seminar on Ancien Regime France, November 2008.

    Commentator on a panel on “French History” as part of a conference held at the University of Chicago, May 31, 2008. I proposed this conference, which honored Prof. William H. Sewell, Jr. on his retirement.

    “Séminaire de Master sur le notariat français du XVIe siècle,” workshop at the Univ. of Avignon, November 30, 2007. I spoke about research strategies with students of Prof. Françoise Moreil.

    Commentator on a panel on “The Politics of the French Revolution” at the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe conference, Arlington VA, March 1, 2007.

    “Catholic Behavior Under Protestant Rule in Nîmes, 1569-1598,” Western Society for French History, Colorado Springs, October 28, 2005.

    Commentator at the Mid-Atlantic Conference on British Studies, on a panel of papers ANew Research in Early Modern British History,” April 8. 2005.

    “Conflict and Compromise Within the Nîmes Protestant Movement,” Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, Toronto, October 29, 2004.

    “The Reformation in Nîmes,” Columbia Univ. Seminar on the Renaissance, March 25, 2003.

    “Geneva by the Sea,” given at “Religion, Conflict, and Popular Culture,” a conference given at the Clark Memorial Library, UCLA, February 1, 2003. The conference was part of a series on “The Mediterranean After Braudel.” The paper eventually became the book chapter referenced above.

    “Lawyers and the Reformation in France: The Case of Nîmes,” Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, Denver, October 27, 2001.

    “Databases and the French Reformation,” a paper in a panel I organized, entitled “Databases and the Future of French History,” Western Society for French History, November 9, 2000.

    “The Role of Factions in Religious Riot: The Michelade in Nîmes, 1567,” Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, Cleveland, November 2, 2000.

    “Popular Protestant Political Theory: The Nîmes Cahier de Doléances, 1561,” Out of New Babylon: The Huguenots and their Diaspora, College of Charleston, May 15, 1997.

    “Nîmes from Catholicism to the Reformation: A Change of Identity,” Crucibles of Conflict: Confrontation and Compromise in Early Modern Europe, Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the Ohio State University, March 23, 1996. (An abridged version of the following.)

    “Nîmes du Catholicisme à la Réforme: un changement d’identité?” (Talk delivered at a conference on “Religion et Identité” at the University of Provence, March 22 , 1995.)



Service



        American Historical Association. Member of the J. Russell Major Prize Committee for the Best Book in French History, term runs from Jan. 2014-Jan. 2017.

Explorations in Renaissance Culture. Article review.

    Shippensburg University. I have served on my department’s search committees, Undergraduate Education committee, and course assessment committee.  I have also developed a cloud-based shared materials resource for the Department, where faculty store and share materials (documents, PowerPoint slides, assignments, syllabi) to improve our teaching. University-wide, I serve as an alternate to the APSCUF (faculty union) Representative Council, and as a representative on the Web Content Advisory Committee and the Library Committee.

    Sixteenth Century Society and Conference. Member of the Nancy L. Roelker Prize Committee, 2013.





Languages:



French, German, Biblical Hebrew, Latin