Lecture - Where Is New France?

Where was New France located? How can we define its borders, its extent, and its place in the history of North America?

Far from being easily delineated, the territory of New France is a complex reality, shaped by population movements, trade networks, diplomatic alliances, and Indigenous territories.

As part of a discussion moderated by Sylvain Lumbroso, vice president of the Montréal Historical Society, Professor Catherine Desbarats and Professor Emeritus Allan Greer will revisit a historiographical debate they helped launch in 2011.

Expanded upon in the most recent issue of the Revue d’histoire de la Nouvelle-France, dedicated to borders, this exchange will provide an opportunity to explore the various ways of conceiving and mapping New France, as well as the issues underlying these representations of the past.

A discussion offering a fresh perspective on borders, territories, and the way history shapes our understanding of the past.

Catherine Desbarats
Trained as both a historian and an economist, Catherine Desbarats has focused her work on the history of the colonial state in the modern era, particularly its financial aspects. She has a deep interest in the decolonization of the history of modern French imperial expansion.

Allan Greer
Allan Greer is Professor Emeritus of History at McGill University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. A specialist in the early history of Canada within the context of the Americas and the Atlantic world, Greer has published several books, the most recent of which is Canada in the Age of Rum.

This lecture is presented by the Société historique de Montréal.