Dr. Troy Feay 

Associate Professor of History

troyfeay@bac.edu

 

2003 – Doctor of Philosophy in History
University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana
1999 – M.A. in European History, University of Notre Dame.

1998 – M.A. in Theology, concentration in the History of Christianity, University of Notre Dame.

1990 – B.S. in Theology, Taylor University-Fort Wayne, Fort Wayne, Indiana; semesters of study in Brazil and the Dominican Republic.
1986 – Diploma, Sierra Leone, West Africa, from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Division of Continuing Studies Independent Study High School.

  • Western Civilizations I and II
  • World Civilizations I and II
  • Early Modern Europe
  • Modern Europe
  • Old Regime France
  • Modern France
  • Alexis de Tocqueville in His Time
  • Emile Zola and His Age
  • Americans in Paris
  • Power and Culture in the Modern European Empires
  • Religion and Power: Christianity and Colonialism
Publications:

  • “Creating the People of God’: French Utopian Dreams and the Moralization of Africans and Slaves,” in In God’s Empire: French Missionaries and the Modern World, JP Daughton and Owen White, eds., (Oxford University Press), 2012.
  • “Voltaire,” The Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy, Volume 3, J. Varacalli, R. Myers, and M. Coulter, eds., (The ScarecrowPress), 2012.

Conference Papers and Presentations:

  • 2011 – Chair of the Panel, “Militarized Politics: Military Service and Militarism in French Politics and Policy from Napoleon to Pétain,” Annual Conference of the Society for French Historical Studies, Charleston, SC, February 10-12, 2011.
  • 2006 – “The French Catholic Colony of Sierra Leone? Freetown under Sir Charles MacCarthy, 1814-1824,” American Historical Association, Atlanta, GA.
  • 2003 – “The Marriage of the Sword and the Gospel: Ernest Psichari’s Novels of France and Africa,” Western Society for French History, Newport Beach, CA.
  • “Creating ‘The People of God’: French Catholic Utopian Dreams and the ‘Moralization’ of Africans and Slaves, 1815-1855,” French Colonial
    Historical Society, Toulouse, France.
  • “Good Mothers, Great Men: Social Crises and Gender Identities in the French Slave Colonies,” Select Symposium of the Program in Gender Studies, University of Notre Dame.
  • 2002 – “The Séminaire des jeunes africains: Constructing Catholic Identity in Senegal and France,” International Conference on Christianity and Native Cultures, Saint Mary’s College, IN.
  • “French Catholic Abolitionism: Missionaries, Politics, and the Antislavery Movement in France, 1830-1848,” American Society of Church History, San Francisco, CA.
-Dissertation: “Mission to Moralize: Slaves, Africans, and Missionaries in the French Colonies, 1815-1852”.

Description: This dissertation explores contention over and appropriation of religious, ethnic, and gender identities in the French slave colonies throughout the nineteenth century. It further explores how religious definitions of culture and morality informed the broader political and ideological agenda of the French “civilizing mission.”

Research Projects
-Paying to Play: A Study of Higher Education and Athletics
-Eisenhower and the D-Day Decision, 1944
-Decolonization in the Congo: An Internal Perspective
-Land Use and Decolonization in Vietnam
-Politics, Power, and the Press: The Opium Wars in China and Great Britain