#FlightyFridays — WSFH Talk: “Ce gentlemen rider du turf atmospheric" [sic]: Ballooning, Aristocratic Masculinity, and the Colonial Imaginary in Turn-of-the-Century France”

Today’s #FlightyFridays will be another presentation I recently gave at the most recent Western Society for French Historical Studies Conference, which took place in a pleasantly charming but dreadfully rainy Portland, ME, from November 1-3, 2018.

Two aristocrats who tried (and failed) to cross the Mediterranean aboard a balloon—Henri de La Vaulx (left) and Georges de Castillon de Saint-Victor (right).

La Vie au Grand Air, 20 October 1901, 615 (Gallica, BNF).

I was lucky enough to be part of a panel titled “Border Crossings: Aristocratic Masculinities at the Fin de Siècle,” chaired by Sally Charnow, from Hofstra University. H-France selected our panel to be recorded, and just released it as part of the H-France Salon, Vol. 10 (2018), Issue 14. I now have the pleasure of sharing it with you.

The paper I presented was titled “‘Ce gentlemen rider du turf atmospheric’ [sic]: Ballooning, Aristocratic Masculinity, and the Colonial Imaginary in Turn-of-the-Century France.” It incorporates some new research I’ve been doing that situates ballooning within the context of empire—focusing especially on how it served both as an adventurous practice for aristocrats to negotiate their anxieties concerning France’s crisis of masculinity following the Franco-Prussian War defeat and as a way for the French to imagine how to manage their growing imperial possessions.

Venita Datta (Wellesley College) followed with a paper that compared and contrasted the performances of masculinities in the American West by Theodore Roosevelt and the curious Marquis de Morès. It was then Elizabeth Everton’s (Concordia University) turn, and she told a winding, intriguing, and often hilarious story of a duel that never happened but that still caused the press to go into a frenzy. Catherine Clark (The Massachusetts Institute of Technology) presented a very pertinent comment that addressed how perhaps we should understand masculinity as central to the construction of modernity. The panel closed with some questions and a brief but insightful discussion about how many of the tropes that informed masculinity more than a century ago linger in the present—especially in the form of toxic masculinity. All of the videos are worth checking out.

The departure of La Vaulx and Castillon de Saint-Victor’s balloon from its hangar in the Isthme des Sablettes, near Toulon, during their first attempt to cross the Mediterranean.

La Vie au Grand Air, 20 October 1901, 615 (Gallica, BNF).

Here’s my presentation (links to the full panel below):

H-France Salon, Vol.

Border Crossings: Aristocratic Masculinities at the Fin de Siècle

Chair: Sally Charnow, Hofstra University

Patrick Luiz Sullivan de Oliveira, Princeton University

“Ce gentlemen rider du turf atmosphérique’ [sic]: Ballooning, Aristocratic Masculinity, the Colonial Imaginary in Turn-of-the-Century France”

Venita Datta,Wellesley College

“Aristocratic Masculinities on the Global Frontier: The Marquis de Morès and Theodore Roosevelt”

Elizabeth Everton, Concordia University

“Dueling at a Distance, 1901: Politics, Honor, Manhood, and Exile in the ‘Affaire Buffet-Déroulède’”

Catherine Clark, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Comment and Audience Questions

#FlightyFridays — Linda Hall Library Talk: "Whims of the Wind: The Balloon's Ascent, Decline, and Resurrection in France"

For today’s #FlightyFridays I figured I’d share a broader view of my research. Earlier this year I had the opportunity to present my work at the Linda Hall Library, a wonderful institution in Kansas City for anyone interested in the study of science, technology, and engineering (its “collection encompasses more than half a million monograph volumes and more than 48,000 journal titles”). I was a fellow there for three months, and came across some exciting finds in their Rare Books Collection, some of which are showcased in the presentation.

So, if you’re interested in understanding how the balloon went from being this exciting innovation in the late eighteenth century, to quickly becoming obsolete in the early nineteenth century, only to then be rediscovered as modern as the twentieth century approached, this is just the thing for you!

The video is also available in the Linda Hall Library’s Facebook Page.