Presenter: Stephen J. Miller, Ph.D. (Professor, Department of History)

Topic: “The Social Interpretation of the French Revolution”

The Social Interpretation of the French Revolution explains the economic and political trends of the eighteenth-century and their relationship to the upheaval of 1789. In recent decades, scholars have examined the growth of the economy and commerce, and the expansion of the bourgeoisie, whose consumption patterns reflected new modes of social differentiation. As Daniel Roche and Jürgen Habermas have argued, consumerism, literacy, and associational life fostered a transformed “public sphere” in which political consciousness emerged, grounded in the critique of aristocratic privilege and the demand for civic equality.

Please register no later than December 3rd by email confirming your attendance to haddinforum@uab.edu.

The Haddin Arts & Sciences Forum offers scholarship that is interdisciplinary and translatable to a broad audience, celebrating and elevating the intellectual vibrancy present in the academic atmosphere of the College of Arts and Sciences.