A profound sentiment of satisfaction might settle upon Herrick Chapman after he reads the articles in this special issue. For having touched so many lives, for having excelled in the intellectual endeavors he set out to explore, and for having made an impact on the field of French Studies itself, any soul would be rightly moved to a sense of completion and contentedness that accompanies such lifetime achievement. Teaching, research, and service are the core responsibilities of all tenure-stream academics, but Chapman has fulfilled these missions to an extraordinary degree to which few can aspire. In addition to this triple crown, his career is matched by a life well lived, one in which family, friendship, joy, and love are so abundant that they infuse his professionalism.

Mentorship is one of the most rewarding but least rewarded aspects of the professoriate. There are countless undergraduate teaching awards at most institutions of higher learning, and the three North American learned societies in French history grant a number of book and article awards; in addition, the Western Society for French Historical Studies has recently introduced its Tyler Stovall Mission Prize for demonstrated commitment to achieving equity and inclusion in the production and transmission of knowledge about the Francophone world. But the flagship association for US historians, the American Historical Association, has exactly one award for mentoring: the Nancy Lyman Roelker Mentorship Award, established in 1992. It is, moreover, given on an alternating cycle to graduate mentors, secondary school teachers, and undergraduate mentors (at both two- and four-year colleges), meaning that superb graduate mentors are recognized only every third year. Herrick Chapman was so recognized in 2021, which came as no surprise to those who know him.

In fall 2022, more than forty current and former students, colleagues, interlocutors, and friends of Herrick Chapman gathered at New York University's Institute of French Studies to honor and reflect on his nearly thirty-year career at NYU as a scholar, teacher, and mentor. Long delayed due to Covid, the symposium—“France in the Twentieth Century: Mobilizing People, Power, and Ideas”—brought together the multiple cohorts Herrick has trained, on and off the tenure track, working within and beyond the university. An abiding sense of gratitude permeated the event: everyone wanted a chance to say what Herrick had done for them and meant to them. The roundtables accordingly combined the academic and the personal, as former students considered their own trajectories in light of Herrick's work on such themes as social movements and politics, the state and expertise, and empire and difference. If presenters’ career paths and intellectual preoccupations diverged widely, spanning France and the francophone world and grounded in social, cultural, and political approaches, a number of common threads emerged: the depth and rigor of Herrick's critique combined with the lightness of his touch; his remarkable ability to identify and articulate the stakes of a project or argument, no matter how far from his own wheelhouse; and the critical respect and consideration he paid to everyone, from nervous first-year doctoral students to late-stage dissertators as well as peers. We had all learned to trust our instincts as scholars and writers precisely because Herrick had.

Even facing intense attacks, scholars on both sides of the Atlantic hold real public power. The power of scholars emerges in our final dossier in honor of Herrick Chapman, perhaps most explicitly in its final essay by sociologist Éric Fassin. Fassin argues that the recent surge of politicized attacks on the academy, an onslaught felt in both France and the United States, is, ironically, a good sign. So, too, he reasons, is the prevailing climate of anti-intellectualism. “What these campaigns reveal,” Fassin writes, “is that intellectual work is not to be dismissed; it is dangerous. It turns out it is important. Otherwise, why should it be demonized thus?” Fassin arrives at the conclusion through personal experience. As he recounts, he captured the attention of former presidential candidate Éric Zemmour, who launched his far-right campaign in 2021 with a video telling viewers (“chers compatriots”) that they were “despised” by academics, Fassin included.

What is the audience for French Studies in the Anglophone world? Who is interested in reading about France, and what kinds of books, essays, and articles arouse their curiosity?

Herrick Chapman, State Capitalism and Working-Class Radicalism in the French Aircraft Industry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991) George Reid Andrews and Herrick Chapman, eds., The Social Construction of Democracy, 1870–1990 (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1995) Herrick Chapman, France's Long Reconstruction. In Search of the Modern Republic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018)

Teaching at New York University's Institute of French Studies from 1989 to 1994 made me realize how the intellectuel, a figure that first emerged during the Dreyfus Affair and has continued to play a significant role in French history throughout the twentieth century, makes sense in what I then called a “transatlantic mirror.” In the United States, or at least among American academics, it signifies Frenchness. It may even be part of the attraction of French Studies for students with intellectual aspirations. Indeed, the term needs to be qualified to be translated into English: the public intellectual is defined by his (and sometimes her) public beyond academia. So is the French intellectuel—but that goes without saying: the public dimension defines both the word and the man (much more often than the woman: écriture inclusive might be misleading here). It is hard to imagine a nonpublic one. Intellectuel privé would sound like a contradiction in terms, unless followed by a complement: de son public. For American students of France, the desire to address a wider audience, beyond the proverbial “ivory tower,” thus affirms the public relevance of intellectual work; and this is in part in reaction against the long history of Anti-Intellectualism in American Life recounted by American historian Richard Hofstadter in the wake of McCarthyism in in his eponymous book of 1963.

Abstract This reflection on sports diplomacy at the XXXIII Olympiad is a series of snapshots focused through the Franco-American lens and the basketball prism. Paris 2024 illuminated French sports diplomacy, and while the 5x5 men's and women's basketball tournaments shined—notably at the historic United States vs. France gold medal matches—it was about much more than what happened on the hardcourt. Throughout the summer, France communicated, represented, and negotiated about itself. Activation of the French diplomatic network in service of sport empowered ever-closer relationships, including with longtime allies like the United States. Sporting results at the Olympic Games, particularly the France vs. United States gold medal basketball matchups, strengthened a “Made in France” brand.

Abstract For left-wing revolutionary groups in 1970s France, to have a publication was to exist. In the face of a dramatic increase in the number of newspapers, magazines, and pamphlets, however, militant editors often struggled for survival as they attempted to build a base of reliable readers. In this context, economic viability and ideological influence were intertwined. This article examines the production and consumption of French leftist media in the 1970s to understand how revolutionary publications co-opted capitalist sales techniques in service of radical social and political goals. In couching the practices of capitalist media in the language of socialism, editors and readers built strong revolutionary communities while also, unintentionally, softening popular perceptions of certain market behaviors that breathed new life into French capitalism.

Abstract Charles de Gaulle's Free French forces were dominated by men recruited from across the French Empire. However, women from every imperial territory also played an important role. This article focuses on women from New Caledonia, in the French Pacific, who joined the Free French women's auxiliary forces in Autumn 1940. It draws upon military archives, contemporary newspaper coverage, and Raymonde Jore's autobiography to investigate how these women skillfully navigated their identities and the stories of their service, depending on the sociopolitical environment. It also demonstrates how the intersections of gender and race influenced official attitudes toward these female combatants, as male metropolitan French officers and their administration were forced to grapple with changing visions of womanhood and empire in periods of war and decolonization.