PUBLIC LECTURE: Propaganda of the Deed: Terrorism during the French Fin de Siecle

The Institute of Advanced Studies and the History Discipline at UWA present a series of ten public lectures attached to a new History Honours seminar. The series aims to present a context for contemporary terrorism by inviting lectures from scholars working on historical and contemporary terrorism movements. The lectures are open to all with an interest in political and social movements and their methodologies and repercussions.

Abstract During the 1890s, anarchist bombs terrorised Paris – detonating in the Chamber of Deputies, dismembering respectable bourgeois as they dined out, shattering social and political order. What motivated the militants who went to the guillotine for these acts of what they called 'propaganda of the deed'? How effective was such terrorism in destablising the Third Republic? What legacy was left by this astonishing episode? This lecture will seek to answer these questions, which remain controversial both in the public memory and among scholars.

Biographical note Rob Stuart did his honours BA at the University of Saskatchewan and an MA and a Ph.D. at the University of Toronto (researching the latter in Paris during 1973 and 1974), took up his teaching position at UWA in 1975, and has just completed three decades of research on French Marxism. His efforts have resulted in Marxism at Work: Ideology, Class and French Socialism during the Third Republic (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992) and Marxism and National Identity during the French Fin de Siècle (Albany, NY, State University of New York Press, 2006), as well as a number of articles. His other interests include social and political theory with particular reference to postmodernism, and Cultural Studies focusing on Fantasy and Science Fiction.

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