Venita Datta

A specialist of French cultural and intellectual history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Venita Datta is especially interested in the relationship of politics and culture, particularly in the formation of national identity. She is the author of Birth of a National Icon: The Literary Avant-Garde and the Origins of the Intellectual in France (Albany: SUNY, 1999), and is completing a book manuscript entitled Heroes and Legends of Fin-de-Siècle France: Gender, Politics, and the Nation (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press). She has served as President of the Western Society for French History (2000-2001) and is currently co-editor of the H-France Forum, an online journal of history reviews.

Professor Datta teaches a variety of courses in cultural history, among them “Myth and Memory in Modern France,” "La Belle Epoque: Politics, Society, and Culture," "America Through French Eyes: Perspectives and Realities," “Occupation and Resistance: The History and Memory of World War II in France,” as well as the introductory course in French Cultural Studies.