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Home: Our Faculty: Brooklyn College Faculty:

David G. Troyansky

Professor   Department: History   Location: 524 Whitehead Hall   Phone: 718-951-5303   Fax: 718-951-4504   Email:

A native New Yorker raised in Brooklyn, David Troyansky returned to the borough and joined the faculty of Brooklyn College in 2005 after teaching for twenty-one years at Texas Tech University. He began studying French history as an undergraduate at Carleton College, worked in seminars in France with Philippe Ariès and Michel Vovelle, and earned his doctorate at Brandeis University. Over the years he has lived and conducted research in Paris, Provence, Picardy, Alsace, Normandy, and the Limousin. He has taught at the Université de Limoges and held a Fulbright senior research fellowship at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris). In 2008 he was President of the Western Society for French History. Education: DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY, BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY - 1983 (HISTORY) Areas of Expertise: A specialist in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French history, David Troyansky has published on the history of old age, French provincial culture, the French Revolution, and transnational space and identities in the Francophone world. He is completing a book manuscript whose working title is "Entitlement and Complaint: Ending Careers and Reviewing Lives in the French Magistracy, 1814-1853." Books and Publications "Displaying World Culture in Provincial France: Francophonie in Limoges," in Transnational Spaces and Identities in the Francophone World," edited by Hafid Gafaïti, Patricia M.E. Lorcin, and David G. Troyansky (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2009), pp. 412-427. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 2009 Transnational Spaces and Identities in the Francophone World (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2009), edited by Hafid Gafaïti, Patricia M.E. Lorcin, and David G. Troyansky. (Books and Publications: Edited Book) 2009 "La famille, la retraite et la magistrature française post-révolutionnaire," a chapter in Histoire des familles, de la démographie et des comportements, en hommage à Jean-Pierre Bardet, edited by Jean-Pierre Poussou and Isabelle Robin-Romero (Presses de l'Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 2007), pp. 1011-1022. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 2007 "Savoir alsacien et culture européenne: Jérémie-Jacques Oberlin, la langue et le Gymnase protestant à Strasbourg pendant la Révolution," in Gelehrtennetzwerke in Strassburg am Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts/Réseaux savants strasbourgeois à la fin du XVIIIe siècle, edited by Marie-Renée Diot (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2007), pp. 37-63 (English version published in Francia (2000/2001). (Books and Publications: Chapter) 2007 For the Department of History, co-editor, The Shaping of the Modern World: Core Curriculum 2.2 Readings, 4th edition (Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2007). (Books and Publications: Edited Book) 2007 "Death and Burial," in Europe 1789 to 1914: encyclopedia of the age of industry and empire, edited by John Merriman and Jay Winter (Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006), vol. 2, pp. 628-630. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 2006 "Old Age," in Europe 1789 to 1914: encyclopedia of the age of industry and empire, edited by John Merriman and Jay Winter (Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006), vol. 3, pp. 1662-1665. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 2006 "Narrations personnelles et institutionnelles du vieillissement: le cas de la magistrature post-révolutionnaire," in Regards croisés sur la protection sociale de la vieillesse, Cahier d'histoire de la sécurité sociale, no. 1, dossier préparé par Françoise Cribier et Elise Feller (Paris: Comité d'histoire de la sécurité sociale, 2005): 23-41. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2005 "The Eighteenth Century," a chapter in The Long History of Old Age, edited by Pat Thane (London: Thames and Hudson, 2005), pp. 175-210. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 2005 Migrances, diasporas et transculturalités francophones: Littératures et cultures d'Afrique, des Caraïbes, d'Europe et du Québec, sous la direction de Hafid Gafaïti, Patricia Lorcin, et David G. Troyansky (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2005). (Books and Publications: Edited Book) 2005 "Growing Older with Cicero (and Others)," review essay in The Gerontologist 44 (2004):279-282. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 2004 "Personal and Institutional Narratives of Aging: A French Historical Case," in Journal of Aging Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Spring 2003): 31-42. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2003 "Aging and Memory in a Bureaucratizing World: A French Historical Experience," in Power and Poverty: Old Age in the Pre-Industrial Past, edited by Susannah R. Ottaway, L.A. Botelho, and Katharine Kittredge (New York: Greenwood Press, 2002), pp. 15-30. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 2002 "Alsatian Knowledge and European Culture: Jérémie-Jacques Oberlin, Language, and the Protestant Gymnase in Revolutionary Strasbourg," in Francia, Vol. 27, No. 2 (2000/2001): 119-138. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2001 "Death," (7000 words) in Encyclopedia of European Social History, edited by Peter N. Stearns (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2001), Vol. 2, pp. 219-233. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 2001 "The Elderly," (5500 words) in Encyclopedia of European Social History, edited by Peter N. Stearns (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2001), Vol. 4, pp. 219-229. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 2001 "'I Was Wife and Mother': French Widows Present Themselves to the Ministry of Justice in the Early Nineteenth Century," in Journal of Family History, Vol. 25, No. 2 (2000): 202-210 (see Dutch version, 1995). (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2000 "Memorializing Saint-Quentin: Monuments, Inaugurations and History in the Third Republic," in French History, Vol. 13, No. 1 (1999): 48-76. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 1999 "Why Do People Retire? Some Historical Answers," in The Gerontologist, Vol. 39, No. 5 (1999): 624-626. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 1999 "Balancing Social and Cultural Approaches to the History of Old Age and Ageing in Europe: A review and an example from post-Revolutionary France," in Old Age from Antiquity to Post-Modernity, edited by Paul Johnson and Pat Thane (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 96-109. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 1998 "Commemorating, Remembering, and Historicizing Revolution: Post-Bicentennial Tendencies in French Revolutionary History," in The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation, Vol. 39, No. 2 (1998):169-178. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 1998 "Whose Old Age? Whose History? To What End?" in The Gerontologist, Vol. 38, No. 5 (1998): 638-641. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 1998 Co-authored with Jean-Pierre Bois and Yves Lequin, "Chapitre VI. La Progressive mutation des structures," in Histoire des populations de l'Europe. II. La révolution démographique 1750-1914, edited by Jean-Pierre Bardet and Jacques Dupâquier (Paris: Fayard, 1998), pp. 161-191. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 1998 "Historical Research into Ageing, Old Age, and Older People," in Critical Approaches to Ageing and Later Life, edited by Sarah Harper, Anne Jamieson and Christina Victor (London: Open University Press, 1997), 49-62. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 1997 "Limogé for a Year: An American Teaches French History in Provincial France," The History Teacher, 29 (May 1996): 379-389. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 1996 "Progress Report: The History of Old Age in the Western World," Ageing and Society, 16 (1996):233-243. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 1996 "'Ik was echtgenote en moeder.' Weduwen schrijven het Franse Ministerie van Justitie aan het begin van de negentiende eeuw," ("'I Was Wife and Mother.' Widows Write the French Ministry of Justice in the Early Nineteenth Century,") in Monique Stavenuiter, Karin Bijsterveld and Saskia Jansens, Lange levens, stille getuigen: Oudere vrouwen in het verleden (Zuthpen: Walburg Pers, 1995), 118-132. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 1995 "Retraite, vieillesse, et contrat social: L'exemple des juges de la Haute-Vienne sous la Restauration," in A.-M. Guillemard & P. Ansart, Entre travail, retraite et vieillesse: Le grand écart (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1995), 85-101. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 1995 "The New Age of Old Age: Review Article," Ageing and Society, 14 (1994): 429-436. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 1994 "Aging and Prophecy: The Uses of G. Stanley Hall's Senescence," in K. Warner Schaie and W. Andrew Achenbaum, Societal Impact on Aging: Historical Perspectives (New York: Springer, 1993), 198-203. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 1993 "Old Age, Retirement, and the Social Contract in 18th- and 19th-Century France," in Christoph Conrad & Hans-Joachim von Kondratowitz, Zur Kulturgeschichte des Alterns/ Toward a Cultural History of Aging (Berlin: Deutsches Zentrum für Altersfragen, 1993), 77-95. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 1993 "Vieillards et mendiants, 1780-1794," in Jean-Pierre Goubert & Roselyne Rey, Atlas de la révolution française, 7: Médecine et santé (Paris: Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1993), 49. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 1993 "The Older Person in the Western World: From the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution," in Thomas R. Cole, Robert Kastenbaum, and David Van Tassel, Handbook of the Humanities and Aging (New York: Springer, 1992), 40-61. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 1992 Miroirs de la vieillesse ... en France au siècle des Lumières (Paris: Editions ESHEL, 1992) (translation of Old Age in the Old Regime). (Books and Publications: Book) 1992 "Looking for Grandparents in the French Revolution," in Annales de démographie historique 1991 (Paris: Editions de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1991), 127-131. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 1991 The French Revolution in Culture and Society, edited by David G. Troyansky, Alfred Cismaru, and Norwood Andrews, Jr., with an introduction and one chapter, "Generational Discourse in the French Revolution," by Troyansky (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991). (Books and Publications: Edited Book) 1991 Old Age in the Old Regime: Image and Experience in Eighteenth-Century France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989). (Books and Publications: Book) 1989 "Condorcet et l'idée d'assurances sociales," in Pierre Crépel & Christian Gilain, Condorcet mathématicien, économiste, philosophe, homme politique (Colloque international) (Paris: Minerve, 1989), 174-180. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 1989 "Monumental Politics: National History and Local Memory in French Monuments aux Morts in the Department of the Aisne Since 1870," in French Historical Studies, 15, 1 (1987): 121-141. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 1987 "Aging," "The Cult of the Cemetery," "The Cult of the Fallen Soldier," and "Marriage," in Patrick H. Hutton, ed., Historical Dictionary of the Third French Republic (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1986), 8-10, 173-4, 351-2, 605-7. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 1986 "Le vieillard dans la société française du XVIIIe siècle: images et réalités," in Annales de démographie historique 1985 (Paris, 1986), 155-170. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 1986 "Medical Thought on Aging in 18th-Century France," in Proceedings of the Western Society for French History, 13 (1986): 80-89. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 1986 "Images de la vieillesse des femmes en France moderne," in Pénélope: pour l'histoire des femmes, 13, Vieillesses des femmes (Paris, automne 1985), 11-15. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 1985 "Old Age in the Rural Family of Enlightened Provence," in Peter N. Stearns, ed., Old Age in Preindustrial Society (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1982), 209-231. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 1982 "Vers une histoire comparée de la vieillesse: le tournant des mentalités américaine et française," in Arthur Imhof, ed., Le vieillissement: Implications et conséquences de l'allongement de la vie humaine depuis le XVIIIe siècle (Lyon: Presses universitaires de Lyon, 1982), 179-191. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 1982 Awards, Honors and Fellowships Fulbright Senior Scholar, Centre de Recherches Historiques, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, 1996-97. (Grants and Fellowships) 1997 Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums "La 'vierge révolutionnaire': Marie dans les poèmes du Palinod de Caen à l'époque révolutionnaire," in Michel Vovelle, L'Image de la révolution française: Communications présentées lors du Congrès Mondial pour le Bicentenaire de la Révolution--Sorbonne, Paris, 6-12 Juillet 1989 (Paris: Pergamon Press, 1989), 2005-2013. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 1989 Professional Leadership President, Western Society for French History. (Professional Leadership: Organizational Leadership Position) 2008 Vice President and President-Elect, Western Society for French History. (Professional Leadership: Organizational Leadership Position) 2007 Pedagogical Achievements Maître de Conférences Associé, Université de Limoges, 1992-1993. 1993