John D. French, Faculty of Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and Professor of History

An historian of modern Latin America with a specialization in Brazil, my most recent book entitled Drowning in Laws: Labor Law and Brazilian Political Culture was published in 2004. I was on residential fellowships at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (2005-06) and at the Kellogg Institute at Notre Dame (Spring 2007)to work on my book entitled "Lula's Politics of Cunning: From Trade Unionism to the Presidency." I am also finishing on a book entitled "Globalizing Protest and Policy: Neo-Liberalism, Worker Rights, and the Rise of Alt-Global Politics" that reflects ongoing research labor and globalization. I have received major fellowships from: Fulbright-Hays (1981-1982, 2000), Inter-American Foundation (1981-83), Social Science Research Council (1981-83, 1991) the National Humanities Center (1995-96), the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (2005-2006), and the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame (Spring 2007). In addition, my external grants include: American Philosophical Society (1998), American Council of Learned Societies (1991), National Endowment for the Humanities (1998, 1991), National Historical Publications and Records Commission (1998-2000) and North-South Center (1994) Since 1984, I have been co-coordinator of the Latin American Labor History Conference held in April of each year at Duke, and I served as Director of the Duke Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies from 2001 to December 2005, and as Director of the Carolina and Duke Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies 2002-05. I also serve as Associate Editor for Latin America and the Caribbean for the journal Labor: Studies in Working Class History of the Americas, under its new editor Leon Fink (University of Illinois-Chicago).

Contact Info:

Office Location:	223 Carr Bldg., Box 90719
Office Phone:	(919) 684-3014
Email Address:

Teaching (Fall 2023):

• HISTORY 301T.01, APPLIED HISTORICAL RESEARCH Synopsis

  Class Bldg 136, F 04:40 PM-07:10 PM

• HISTORY 327.01, AFRO-BRAZIL CULTURE/HST Synopsis

  Class Bldg 103, TuTh 10:05 AM-11:20 AM

  (also cross-listed as AAAS 209.01, PORTUGUE 260.01, RIGHTS 327.01)

• HISTORY 790S-02.01, LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY (TOP) Synopsis

  Class Bldg 229, Th 04:55 PM-07:25 PM

Education:

Ph.D.	Yale University	1985
MA	University of Pittsburgh	1978
BA (Magna cum laude)	Amherst College	1975

Specialties:

Gender
Labor and Working Class History
Legal History
Politics, Public Life and Governance
Race and Ethnicity
Latin America and the Caribbean
Global and Comparative

Research Interests:

Current projects: Since 1984, I have been co-coordinator of the Latin American Labor History Conference held in April of each year at Duke, and I served as Director of the Duke Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies from 2001 to December 2005, and as Director of the Carolina and Duke Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies 2002-05. I also serve as Associate Editor for Latin America and the Caribbean for the journal Labor: Studies in Working Class History of the Americas, under its new editor Leon Fink (University of Illinois-Chicago).

I am an historian of modern Latin America with a specialization in Brazil. Since 2005, I have been working on a book entitled "Lula's Politics of Cunning: From Trade Unionism to the Presidency in Brazil" which draws on a multi-year international research project on “Nurturing Hope, Deepening Democracy, and Combating Inequalities: An Assessment of Lula’s Presidency” that I co-organized (preliminary results have been published in 2012 along with a number of other articles on Lula, Latin American left turns, and working class history in Brazil. My last book entitled "Drowning in Laws: Labor Law and Brazilian Political Culture" was published in 2004.

Keywords:

African diaspora • Brazil • History • labor • Labor • Lula • Political science • PT • transnationalism • WTO

Curriculum Vitae

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

1. French, JD, Epilogue: Authoritarianism and the Specter of Democracy, International Review of Social History, vol. 68 no. 1 (April, 2023), pp. 173-175 [doi]
2. French, JD, Common Men, Exceptional Politicians: What Do We Gain from an Embodied Social Biographical Approach to Leftist Leaders Like Germany's August Bebel and Brazil's Luis Inácio Lula da Silva?, International Review of Social History, vol. 68 no. 1 (April, 2023), pp. 111-121, Cambridge University Press (CUP) [doi]  [abs]
3. French, JD, Charisma's Birth from the Bottom Up: Lula, ABC's Metalworkers' Strikes and the Social History of Brazilian Politics, Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 54 no. 4 (November, 2022), pp. 705-729 [doi]  [abs]
4. French, JD, Jeffrey L. Gould. Solidarity under Siege: The Salvadoran Labor Movement, 1970–1990., American Historical Review, vol. 126 no. 4 (February, 2022), pp. 1670-1671, Oxford University Press (OUP) [doi]
5. French, JD, From Dictatorship to the Brazilian New Republic in Crisis: Understanding Lula's Political Leadership, Latin American Politics and Society, vol. 64 no. 1 (February, 2022), pp. 168-173 [doi]