MISSION & CHARTER
For the promotion and study of French and francophone history.
The Western Society for French History was founded in 1974 to promote greater regional, professional, and methodological diversity in the study of French and Francophone history. Its international membership includes research and teaching faculty, graduate students, independent scholars, and historians in the general public from the United States, Canada, and around the world. The Society welcomes specialists of French and Francophone culture from a variety of disciplines and interdisciplinary perspectives. The Society takes pride in its longstanding support of graduate student research and conference participation, particularly through its scholarship program.
The Western Society for French History embraces a dynamic, diverse, and engaged scholarly community that is actively committed to achieving equity and inclusion in the production and transmission of knowledge about the Francophone world. To that end, the Society encourages its members to think critically about injustice in the academy and to develop tools and practices to combat structural inequalities in the profession and academic institutions. Convinced that academic excellence demands this kind of individual and collective engagement, the Society seeks to empower its members to work to eliminate oppression and discrimination in the field, as well as in their classrooms, home departments, and university administrations.