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Miranda Spieler

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Miranda Spieler

Professor

  • Department: History and Politics
  • Graduate Program(s): Diplomacy and International Law
  • Office: 
    G-006

Professor Miranda Spieler joined the Department of History and Politics at the American University of Paris in 2013. After completing her dissertation at聽Columbia,听she served as a lecturer at Wesleyan and Harvard聽before joining the University of Arizona's History Department, where she received聽tenure in 2011. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Center for Human Values at Princeton University and from聽the Center for Humanities at Stanford University.聽Before and during her graduate studies, she served as assistant to the writer Susan Sontag.聽

Miranda Spieler is an historian of France and the French overseas empire. Her areas of expertise include 聽European legal history, slavery and emancipation, 聽the history of French Guiana and the Caribbean, policing and carceral systems, human rights, and聽the history of Paris.

Spieler's聽prize-winning first book,听Empire and Underworld: Captivity in French Guiana聽聽(Harvard, 2012), moves between domestic France and colonial soil聽to chronicle the lives of convicts, ex-convicts, freed slaves, and non-European immigrants, revealing their envelopment by novel structures of coercion and violence between the French Revolution and the Third Republic.

She is a near-native speaker of French and publishes in both English and French.聽

Her forthcoming book,听Slaves in Paris: Hidden Lives and Fugitive Histories聽(Harvard, May 2025), is a biographical study of enslaved people who lived聽in France's capital city between the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. 聽She pieces together vivid, granular portraits of men, women and children who came from Africa, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean, revealing their strategies and hiding places, their family histories and relationships to well-known Enlightenment figures.聽



Education/Degrees

  • MA, MPhil, PhD, Department of History, Columbia University (2005)
  • AB Magna Cum Laude, Harvard-Radcliffe, Committee on Degrees in History and Literature (1994)

News

  • "Ourika and the Chevalier de Boufflers.鈥� In聽French Revolutionary Lives. Edited by David Bell and Colin Jones. War Culture and Society. Series editor Rafe Blaufarb et al. Palgrave MacMillan, 2023,听 29-47.
  • 鈥淭he Right to Come and Go,鈥澛�Law and History Review聽38, no. 3 (2020): 555-570.
  • 鈥淟鈥橢nl猫vement des esclaves de Paris des Lumi猫res.鈥滻n聽Colonisations: notre histoire. Edited by Pierre Singarav茅lou. Paris: Seuil, 2023, 120-122.
  • 鈥� Viande de barbecue,鈥�L鈥櫭塸icerie du monde, ed. Pierre Singravalou (Fayard, 2022), 17-21.
  • 鈥溍妕re esclave dans une capitale imp茅riale: Paris XVIIIe si猫cle.鈥� In Paulin Ismard, Benedetta Rossi, and C茅cile Vidal,听Histoire mondiale de l鈥檈sclavage, (Seuil, 2021), 245-252.
  • 鈥淪lave Voice and the Legal Archive: Freedom Suits before the Paris Admiralty Court.鈥� In Sophie White and Trevor Burnard, eds.,听Hearing Enslaved Voices: African and Indian Slave Testimony in British and French America 1700-1848聽(London: Routledge, 2020), 165-187.
  • 鈥淢obility.鈥� In聽A Culture History of Western Empires, vol. 5, ed. Kristin McKenzie (Bloomsbury, 2019), 109-130.
  • "The Vanishing Slaves of Paris: 罢丑别听Lettre de Cachet聽and the Emergence of an Imperial Legal Order in Eighteenth-Century France.鈥� In聽The Scaffolding of Sovereignty: Global and Aesthetic Perspectives on the History of a Concept, edited by Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, Stefanos Geroulanos, and Nicole Jerr, 230-245. 聽New York: Columbia University Press, 2017. 聽
  • 鈥淎bolition and Reenslavement in the Caribbean: The Revolution in French Guiana.鈥� In聽The French Revolution in Global Perspective, edited by Lynn Hunt, Suzanne Desan, and William Nelson, 132-147. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013.

Book Reviews

  • Review of Edenz Maurice,听La Guyane: la promesse r茅publicaine: faire France outre-mer 1920-1980聽(2022), submitted May 2024, forthcoming H-France.
  • Review of Cecile Vidal,听Caribbean New Orleans, in聽Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales聽4 (2023): 828-831.
  • Forum comment on David Todd,听Velvet Empire聽(2022), H-Diplo Roundtable, March 2023.
  • 鈥淧easant Resistance in Postrevolutionary Haiti.鈥澛�Reviews in American History聽(Sept. 2021), vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 413-42
  • Review of Sophie White,听Voices of the Enslaved: Love, Labor, and Longing in French Louisiana聽(2019), in聽Slavery and Abolition, September 2021, vol. 42, no. 3: 653-654.
  • Review of Brandon Byrd,听The Black Republic: African Americans and the fate of Haiti聽(2019), in聽Slavery and Abolition, June 2021, vol. 42, no. 2: 415-417
  • Comment on Patrick Boucheron,听France in the World: A New Global History, in H-Diplo Roundtable XXII-1, 6 Nov. 2020.
  • Review of Edward Rugemer,听Slave Law and the Politics of Resistance in the Early Atlantic World,听The William and Mary Quarterly聽77, no. 4 (Oct. 2020): 711-715.
  • Review of Pascal Firges,听French Revolutionaries in the Ottoman Empire,听The Journal of Modern History聽91, no. 3 (2019): 677-678.
  • Review of Jennifer Palmer,听Intimate Bonds, in聽French History聽31, no. 3 (2017): 380-382.
  • Review of Jeremy Popkin,听You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery聽(2011),听Annales. Histoire, Sciences sociales聽67 (June 2012): 516-518.
  • Comment on Ian Coller,听Islam and the Making of Modern Europe 1798-1830, in H-France Forum, vol. 7 (winter 2012).
  • Review of Benjamin Claude Brower,听A Desert Named Peace: The Violence of France鈥檚 Empire in the Algerian Sahara, 1844-1902,听The Journal of Modern History聽83, no.4 (December 2011): 905-907.
  • Review of Lynn Festa, Sentimental Figures of Empire in Eighteenth-Century Britain and France聽for H-France 8, no. 107 (Aug. 2008).

Works in Progress/under Contract

  • 鈥淪lavery in Europe: 1500-1800,鈥澛�Oxford Bibliographies.
  • 鈥淭he Odyssey of Black Soldiers in the Seven Years War.鈥� Essay in special issue on global black biography in聽Slavery and Abolition, edited by Sue Peabody and Rebekka von Mallinckrodt. 聽

Publications

Books, book chapters and articles
  • Slaves in Paris: Hidden Lives and Fugitive Histories.聽Harvard University Press. Forthcoming. Publication date: May 2025.
  • 鈥淢obility,鈥� in A Culture History of Western Empires, vol. 5, ed. Kristin McKenzie, 109-130 (Bloomsbury, 2019).
  • 鈥淭he Vanishing Slaves of Paris: The Lettre de Cachet and the Emergence of an Imperial Legal Order in Eighteenth-Century France.鈥� In Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, Stefanos Geroulanos, and Nicole Jerr, eds., The Scaffolding of Sovereignty: Global and Aesthetic Perspectives on the History of a Concept. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017.
  • 鈥淪lave Flight, Slave Torture and the State: Nineteenth Century French Guiana.鈥� French Politics, Culture and Society, vol. 33, no. 1, Spring 2015.
  • 鈥淎bolition and Reenslavement in the Caribbean: The Revolution in French Guiana.鈥� In Lynn Hunt, Suzanne Desan, and William Nelson, eds. The French Revolution in Global Perspective. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, April 2013.
  • 鈥淔rance and the Atlantic World.鈥� In Peter McPhee, ed., Blackwell Companion to the French Revolution (2012), 57-72.
  • Empire and Underworld: Captivity in French Guiana. Harvard Historical Series, Harvard University Press, April 2012. French translation (Alma 脡diteur 2016). Awarded the J. Russell Major Prize (2013) and the George Mosse Prize (2013), from the American Historical Association; finalist for the Wylie Prize in French Cultural Studies.
  • 鈥淭he Destruction of Liberty in French Guiana: Law, Identity and the Meaning of Legal Space, 1794-1830,鈥� Social History 32, no. 3 (August 2011): 260-279.
  • 鈥淭he Structure of Colonial Rule during the French Revolution 1789-1802.鈥� The William and Mary Quarterly 66, no. 2 (April 2009): 365-408.
Reviews
  • Review of Jeremy Popkin, You are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery (2011). Annales. Histoire, Sciences sociales 67 (June 2012): 516-518.
  • Comment on Ian Coller, Islam and the Making of Modern Europe 1798-1830 in H-France Forum, vol. 7 (winter 2012).
  • Review of Benjamin Claude Brower, A Desert Named Peace: The Violence of France鈥檚 Empire in the Algerian Sahara, 1844-1902, 罢丑别听Journal of Modern History 83, no.4 (December 2011): 905-907.
  • Review of Lynn Festa, Sentimental Figures of Empire in Eighteenth-Century Britain and France for H-France 8, no. 107 (Aug. 2008).

Conferences & Lectures

Invited Talks

  • 鈥淎donis,鈥� Policer les pr茅sences noires en Europe dans le long 18e si猫cle/Policing Black Presence in the Long Eighteenth Century, Abbaye de Royaumont 25-28 June 2023, organized by Ian Coller and Vincent D茅nis.
  • 鈥淔aire de l鈥檋istoire sur le terrain,鈥� L鈥橢criture, L鈥橢nseignement; et l鈥橢sclavage en l鈥檋onneur de Jean H茅brard, (23 June 2023).
  • 鈥淓sclaves domestiques et la police parisienne,听禄聽Policer la pr茅sence noir en Europe, Paris-Sorbonne I, Paris-Sorbonne I, Centre Malher, organized by聽l鈥橧nstitut d鈥橦istoire Moderne et Contemporaine (Paris I-CNRS-ENS) and the University of Californie (Irvine), 16 June 2022.
  • "The Rise and Fall of Andr茅 Lucidor, an African Swordsman in Paris (c.1718-1771):聽Race, Sexual Deviance, and the Problem of Freedom in the Eighteenth Century Capital鈥�. Center for Critical Democracy Studies, American University of Paris, 14 November 2022.
  • "The Case of Ourika: Children, the French Slave Trade, and the End of the Rights of Man,鈥� Center for Critical Democracy Studies, American University of Paris, 2 May 2022.
  • 鈥淭he Chevalier de Boufflers between Senegal and Paris: Slavery and the Man of Feeling,鈥� French Revolutionary Lives Conference, Princeton University, co-sponsored by the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies and the Eighteenth Century Seminar, organized by David Bell and Colin Jones, 9 April 2022.
  • 鈥淭he Julian Affair,鈥� precirculated paper for the Age of Revolutions E-Seminar, co-sponsored by USC and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Clement Thibaud and Nathan Perl-Rosenthal), 22 February 2022.
  • 鈥淟e fardeau des vieilles cha卯nes: travail et citoyennet茅 aux Antilles et en Guyane apr猫s les abolitions,鈥� S茅minaire Colonisation P茅nitentiaire de l`Am茅rique latine et des Cara茂bes, 3 December 2021.
  • 鈥淭he Julien Affair,鈥� New York French History Group, 21 October 2020 (zoom talk).
  • 鈥淥n the Lam in Global History,鈥� Mellon Seminar on Genealogy and Kinship, Tufts University, 10 March 2020.
  • 鈥淟鈥橧talie et l鈥橝ntiquit茅 : imaginaire et voyage au si猫cle des Lumi猫res聽禄 (final comment/conclusions de la journ茅e), Sorbonne Journ茅e d鈥櫭塼ude, 21 June 2019. Organized by Giovanna Cesarani, Jean-Fran莽ois Dunyach, and Simon MacDonald.
  • 鈥淪laves before the Paris Admiralty Court,鈥� Miami Law School, 25 February 2019.
  • 鈥淏etween Slavery and Freedom in Eighteenth-Century France: A Tale of Two Cities,鈥� Indiana Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Annual Workshop,听10 May 2018. Organized by Rebecca Spang. 聽聽聽聽聽
  • 鈥淪lavery in Imperial Paris,鈥� Legal Histories of Slavery, Stanford Law School, 15 March 2018. Organized by Amalia Kessler and Elizabeth Katz.
  • 鈥淒roit et justice,鈥� Colloque international聽formation et transformation des soci茅t茅s nouvelles en situation coloniale aux Am茅riques du XVIe au XVIIIe si猫cle, 18 d茅cembre 2017, EHESS, Paris. Organized by C茅cile Vidal.
  • 鈥淪lave Voice and the Legal Archive: The Case of Freedom Suits before the Paris Admiralty Court,鈥� Slave Narratives in British and French America, 1700鈥�1848, Notre Dame London Global Gateway, 14 July 2017. Organized by Sophie White and Trevor Burnard.
  • 聽鈥淟es esclaves sur le sol libre: relecture de Paris comme ville imp茅riale, v. 1760 鈥� v. 1790.鈥� Invited talk for 鈥淧our une histoire transnationale et globale de la France,鈥� Faculty seminar organized by Nicolas Delalande (Science-Po), Quentin Deluermoz (Paris 13), and Blaise Wilfert-Portal (ENS), 21 June 2016.
  • 鈥淭he Slaves of Paris: Revelations from the Archives de la Bastille,鈥� Beyond France, Columbia University faculty seminar, co-chaired by Gregory Mann and Emmanuelle Saada, New York, 10 April 2015.
  • 鈥淪lave Flight, Slave Torture, and the State: Nineteenth Century French Guiana.鈥� The Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Ohio, 24 February 2014.
  • 鈥淭he lettre de cachet and the operations of sovereignty in Ancien R茅gime France.鈥� Sovereignty: Stages and Frontiers, New York University, May 3-4 2013.
  • 鈥淭he Vanishing Black Children of Paris.鈥� Symposium on Comparative Early Modern Legal History, Law and the French Atlantic, Newberry Library, 5 October 2012.
  • 鈥淩evisiting the Free Soil Principle,鈥� talk on 21 Sept. 2012 at Uppsala University (Sweden), in Faculty Seminar on Colonial Courts in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean 17th-19th Centuries, organized by Fredrik Thomasson.
  • 鈥淭he perils of pluralism in the French Atlantic: The erosion of revolutionary liberty and the transition back to slavery in French Guiana 1794-1809, 鈥� the Symposium on Comparative Early Modern Legal History, New Perspectives on Legal Pluralism, Newberry Library, Chicago, 23 April 2010.
  • Slaves, Strangers, and the Limits of Revolutionary Citizenship: The Jacobin Structure of Colonial Rule,鈥� Membership in Communities and States in the Early Modern Atlantic World: Legal Rules, Social Judgments, and the Negotiation of Citizenship, Newberry Library, Chicago, 14 October 2005
  • 鈥淪laves, Freed People and the Revolutionary Rights Tradition 1789-c. 1799,鈥� Harvard Seminar on the History of the Atlantic World, 10th Anniversary Conference, August 2005.
  • 鈥淒ying to the Law,鈥� Death in the Eighteenth Century, Bloomington Eighteenth-Century Studies Workshop, Indiana University, May 2003.

Papers, Comments, Roundtables at Professional Meetings

  • 鈥淩ethinking Race, the Colonial and the Postcolonial in Contemporary France,鈥� December 13-15, 2022, commentator, University of Chicago (Paris).聽
  • Commentary on C茅cile Vidal et al.,听Une histoire sociale du nouveau monde, at the Journ茅e聽Mondes Am茅ricaines, 11 March 2022, 脡cole des Hautes 脡tudes en Sciences Sociales, Campus Condorcet.
  • 鈥淪lavery and the Enlightened Self: The Correspondence of the Chevalier de Boufflers from Africa,鈥� panel on Letter-Writing and the Age of Revolution: Politics, Authenticity, and the Limits of Resistance, SSFH Annual Conference, 28 June 2021.
  • 鈥淢arrons de la Guyane Fran莽aise: la loi et la violence 1830-1870.鈥� Annual meeting of the Caribbean Studies Association, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 6 June 2016.
  • 鈥淟aw and the Humanities.鈥� Roundtable discussion, American Historical Association Annual Meeting, New York City, 4 January 2015.
  • 鈥淲hat is the Age of Revolutions? The Transnational Perspective.鈥� Roundtable discussion, Consortium on the Revolutionary Era Annual Meeting, Oxford, Mississippi, 21 Feb. 2014.
  • 聽鈥淭he Unmaking of Free Soil in French Guiana: Land and Law During the Transition Back to Slavery.鈥� Invited talk in mini-conference organized by Lynn Hunt on the French Revolution in Global Context, Consortium on Revolutionary Europe Annual Meeting, Tallahassee, 3-5 March 2011.
  • 鈥淭he Leblond Affair (1812-1830): Land, Law, and Fictions of Identity in the New Regime.鈥� Western Society of French History Annual Meeting, Lafayette, Louisiana, 23 Oct. 2010.
  • Comment for panel on civil law and society with Judith Surkis, Sylvia Schaffer, and Camille Robcis. Society for French Historical Studies Annual Meeting, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 4 April 2008.
  • 聽鈥淭he Legal Framework for Convict and Ex-Convict Life in French Guiana 1852-1870.鈥� American Society for Legal History Annual Meeting, Tempe, Arizona, 27 October 2007.
  • 聽鈥淢aroons and Colonists in French Guiana.鈥� French Colonial History Society Annual Meeting, La Rochelle, 8 June 2007.
  • 聽鈥淔rench Guiana between the Two Emancipations.鈥� Society for French Historical Studies Annual Meeting, Houston, TX, 16 March 2007.
  • 鈥淐ommissarial Dictatorship and the Overseas Empire,鈥� Consortium on the Revolutionary Era Annual Meeting, Arlington, VA, 2 March 2007.
  • 鈥淓stranged Dominion: The Structure of Colonial Rule during the French Directory 1795-1799,鈥� Society for French Historical Studies Annual Meeting, Champaign-Urbana, IL, March 2006.
  • 鈥淟eaving the Republic? Legal fictions of absence and revolutionary Terror: the case of the 茅migr茅s,鈥� Society for French Historical Studies Annual Meeting, Stanford, CA, April 2005.
  • 鈥淭he Dry Guillotine,鈥� Harvard Seminar on the History of the Atlantic World, August 2002.
  • 鈥淢yths and Realities of the Guillotine S猫che,鈥� Society for French Historical Studies Annual Meeting, Toronto, April 2002.
  • 鈥淐ivic deviance and National Frontiers: The Clergy and the Legislative Assembly,鈥� Consortium on Revolutionary Europe (Auburn), February 2001.

General Audience

  • "Les romanciers peuvent-ils 锚tre t茅moins du pass茅聽? l鈥檋istoire de l鈥檈sclavage 脿 travers les archives, ses lacunes, et la question du t茅moignage." Mediath猫que Malakoff (25 May 2024).
  • Roundtable about slavery, colonialism, and public memory at the centre d鈥檃rt de Malakoff (24 mai 2024).
  • 鈥淰iolence l茅tale, violence raciale, dans les soci茅t茅s esclavagistes. Round-table, Rendez-vous de l鈥橦istoire, Blois (7 Oct. 2023).
  • One of three historians to speak at "Patrimoines d茅cha卯n茅s, un atelier professionnel 脿 Nantes." Workshop for museum curators at the Mus茅e de Nantes, co-sponsored by the Fondation pour la m茅moire de l鈥檈sclavage (19 Sept. 2023).
  • Speaker at "Marroner la l茅gende聽: Napol茅on et l鈥檈sclavage," La Villette, Fondation pour la M茅moires de l鈥櫬燛sclavage. Public conversation about reenslavement with Florence Al茅xis (1 July 2021).
  • One of three discussants at filmed memorial roundtable on H-France, 鈥淩emembering Dominique Kalifa, 1957-2020,鈥� organized by Stephane Gerson.
  • Speaker at "Napol茅on聽et l'outre-mer : quel bicentenaire聽?" Conversation about the reestablishment of slavery in 1802 with Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec, event sponsored by the Association des Professeurs d鈥橦istoire et de G茅ographie and La Fondation pour la M茅moire de l鈥橢sclavage, 6 May 2021.
  • Radio interview about colonial history with host Shelly de Vito for聽Vocable Magazine,听12 Sept. 2017.
  • Solo guest on French and English-language versions of聽Focus, long format (20 minute) TV news program, 10 April 2017.
  • Television interview in English about uprising in French Guiana for聽France 24, 4 April 2017.
  • Television interview with Mohamed Kacim for 鈥�64鈥�: l鈥檈ssentiel du monde en fran莽ais,鈥� TV5 Monde, Paris, 11 July 2016.
  • Radio interview with Emmanuel Laurentin, host of 鈥淟a Fabrique de l鈥檋istoire,鈥� France Culture, 11 April 2016.
  • Citoyennet茅 et Esclavage: aux marges de l鈥檈mpire au XIXe si猫cle. Public lecture/interview, Rendez-vous de l鈥檋istoire (book festival), Blois (France), 9 October 2015.
  • 聽Fran莽ais ici et l脿-bas? Citoyennet茅, Colonies et D茅colonisation. Public conversation with C茅cile Vidal and Bernard Trepied, Pompidou Museum, Paris, 3 Nov. 2014.

Affiliations

  • French historical society
  • Western society for French history
  • American society of legal history
  • French colonial history society

Research Areas

Legal history, legal theory, slavery and abolition, race, criminality, colonial history, history of Paris, France 1750-1850.

Awards, Fellowships and Grants

  • External Fellow, Stanford Humanities Center, Sept. 2017-June 2018.
  • Faculty Fellow, George and Irina Schaeffer Center for the Study of Genocide, Human Rights and Conflict Prevention, 2016-present.
  • J. Russell Major Prize from the American Historical Association for the best book in English related to France, 2013.
  • George L. Mosse Prize for a book of 鈥渆xtraordinary scholarly distinction, creativity and originality in the intellectual history of Europe since 1500鈥� from the American Historical Association, 2013.
  • Laurance S. Rockefeller Visiting Fellow, University Center for Human Values, Princeton University, 2007-8.
  • Comargo Foundation Fellowship, Spring 2007-8 (declined).
  • Social and Behavior Sciences Research Institute Grant, Univ. Arizona, Spring 2006.
  • Whiting Fellowship, 2001-2.
  • Social Science Research Council International Dissertation Research Fellowship, 2000.

Curriculum Vitae