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Jennifer J. Popiel, Ph.D.

Professor
Department of History

Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Affairs
College of Arts and Sciences

Courses Taught

Origins of the Modern World; French Revolution and Napoleon; Atlantic Commodities; Faith and Reason in Modern Europe; Race, Rights, and Revolution in the Atlantic World; The Early Modern World

Education

Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania 
B.A., Trinity University

Publications and Media Placements

Books
monographs

Worship Facing Europe: Mission, Ultramontanism, and Roman Culture. (In process)

Heroic Hearts: Sentiment, Saints, and Authority in Modern France. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2021. 366 pp (22 illus.)

Rousseau's Daughters:  Domesticity, Education, and Autonomy in Modern France. Durham: University of New Hampshire Press, 2008. 284 pp (16 illus.) Winner of David Pinkney Prize, 2009.

Textbooks

Rousseau, Burke, and Revolution in France, 1791: Reacting to the Past. 2nd ed. W.W. Norton and Company, 2015. (With Mark Carnes and Gary Kates) UNC Press, 2022. 176 pp. (Instructor Materials, 677 pages) New edition forthcoming with UNC Press.

Book Chapters

 “Martyred Virgins, Fiery Dragons, and Mass Culture: Sentiment and Authority in Nineteenth-Century Religious Images” Book chapter forthcoming as a book in the series: Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, July 2024.

"Virginité et sacrifice de soi : Philippine Duchesne, Euphrosine Perier et la vocation religieuse au XlXe siècle, » in Stéphane Gougelmann et François Kerlouegan, Écrire le mariage des lendemains de la Révolution à la Belle Époque: discours, idéologies, représentations (Publications de l'université de Saint-Étienne, 2017).

Preface to Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (New York, 2004).

Articles

“St. Philomena(’s) Remains: Religion, Sentiment, and Patriarchy Undermined in Post-Revolutionary France,” part of the Age of Revolutions series: (2020). Open-access and peer reviewed.

“The Revolution and Me” part of the H-France Salon, “What the Revolution Means Today: The French Revolution Beyond the Academy,” Volume 11 (2019). Open-access and peer-reviewed.

“The Hearth, the Cloister, and Beyond: Religion and the Nineteenth-Century Woman,” Proceedings of the Western Society for French History, 37 (Ann Arbor, MI: Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Library, 2009): 187-204. Open-access and peer-reviewed.

“Making Mothers: The Maternal Advice Genre and the Domestic Ideal, 1760-1830.” The Journal of Family History, 29 (Fall 2004).

“‘To Repress the Exuberance of Their Characters’: Self-Control and the Definition of Womanhood in Nineteenth-Century France.” Proceedings of the Western Society for French History, Selected Papers of the 1998 Annual Meeting 26 (Greeley CO: University Press of Colorado, 2000): 258-266.

“Necessary Connections? Catholicism, Feminism, and Contraception.” Essay about the relationship between feminist theory and the Catholic Church’s position on artificial contraception. America, November 27, 1999, 22-25.

“‘To Amuse and Instruct’: Freedom, Education, and the Molding of the Child in Modern France,” in Childhood and Youth: A Universal Odyssey. Annette Richardson, ed. (Edmonton: Kanata Learning Co., 1998): 161-170. Refereed publication issued in conjunction with the International Child/Youth Conference.

Digital Media

From Spinning Wheels to Steam and Steel: Understanding the Age of Industrialization. Recorded Books, 2014.

Honors and Awards

  • SLU Scholarly Works Award, Best Book by a Faculty Member in 2021
  • Bicentennial Fellow, Saint Louis University
  • Fulbright Research Fellowship (Lyon, France)
  • Summer Research Grant in the Humanities, Saint Louis University
  • Mellon Research Award
  • David Pinkney Prize, French Historical Studies (best book in French History)
  • Dean's Award for Outstanding Service to Undergraduate Students
  • Provost's Research Award, Saint Louis University
  • Millstone Prize for Outstanding Interdisciplinary Paper (WSFH)
  • Scholar Access Grant, Center for European Studies (Madison, WI)