On Tuesday, February 18, MIT history professor Jeffrey Ravel will offer a lecture entitled, “The Relation Between Revolution and Religion: The Case of the French Revolution of 1789 and French Catholicism,” at 7:15 p.m., in Franz Hall 120. The event is free and open to all, and is sponsored by the Garaventa Center.
In the early twenty-first century, we often assume that the great eighteenth-century revolutions in North America, France, and Haiti were popular political movements that ushered in the modern, secular age. A selective reading of these events has made us lose sight of the role religion played in these watershed events, a role that continues to have relevance in today’s national and global politics. This lecture will re-examine this relationship by focusing on the French Revolution and French Catholicism.
Jeffrey Ravel’s research focuses on the history of French and European political culture from the mid-seventeenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries. He currently co-directs the Comédie-Française Registers Project, and is serving as president of the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies.
For ADA accommodations or further information, please contact the Garaventa Center at x7702 or garaventa@up.edu.