Elizabeth Heath Lecture: Crafting Cultural Commodities in a Global Age

Baruch College historian Elizabeth Heath will give a lecture entitled: "Crafting Cultural Commodities in a Global Age: Market Regulation, Empire, and the Struggle to Defend “French” Wine in the Early Twentieth Century"

From Heath's Baruch College profile:

Elizabeth Heath joins Baruch as Assistant Professor of History. An historian of Modern France and the French Empire, her research focuses on colonialism, globalization, and everyday life in France and the French empire.  Her current project, provisionally entitled Colonialism and Everyday Life in Modern France, examines the broad history of the French Empire through the “life history” of six colonial commodities—sugar, palm oil, wheat, rubber, vanilla, and cocoa—all of which played a central role in colonial trade at different moments of the French empire.  By tracing the histories of these six different commodities she hopes to show how contemporary conceptions of “Frenchness” are indebted to past relations with colonial territories, producers, and products.  In the upcoming years she will be teaching a variety of classes on modern Europe, modern France and the French Empire, including classes on the Haitian Revolution, Nineteenth Century Europe, and the history of everyday life. Professor Heath received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Most recent or current research:  

My research focuses on colonialism, globalization, and everyday life in France and the French empire.  My current project, provisionally entitled Colonialism and Everyday Life in Modern France, examines the broad history of the French Empire through the “life history” of six colonial commodities—sugar, palm oil, wheat, rubber, vanilla, and cocoa—all of which played a central role in colonial trade at different moments of the French empire.