James Smith Allen

James Smith Allen is Professor Emeritus of History at Southern Illinois University where he worked for nearly 30 years (1991-2020). A specialist in nineteenth-century French social and intellectual history, Dr. Allen is interested primarily in the social history of romanticism, reading, feminism, and memory. His publications include four books, Popular French Romanticism: Authors, Readers, and Books in the 19th Century (1991), In the Public Eye: A History of Reading in Modern France (1991), Poignant Relations: Three Modern French Women (2000), and A Civil Society: The Public Space of Freemason Women in France, 1744-1944 (2021/22). In 1994 he also edited In the Solitude of My Soul: The Diary of Genevieve Breton, 1867-1871, then in 2010, he completed an autobiographical study of personal and historical memory, entitled A Privileged Past. His current project is the English translation of Éliane Brault's memoir of Paris during the German occupation in World War II.