Tyler Stovall "Montmartre in Black and White"

Prof. Stovall is a specialist on modern French history with particular interest in labor and working-class issues as well as in French racial beliefs and practices. He has written two well-received books, one on each of these themes. The Rise of the Paris Red Belt is an insightful study of the sources of Communist Party appeal in a working-class Paris suburb during the interbellum. In it, Stovall argues that community rather than class and workplace was the foundation upon which the party built its power. Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light shifts the focus to the expatriate community of African Americans in Paris from the First World War to the present day. Stovall argues that the relative racial liberalism of Paris both nourished the expatriate community and denied it the means to critique the specific forms of French racialism.