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Dr Chris Pearson

Research Associate

Office: B.48, 13 Woodland Rd: Office hours
Tel: 0117 331 8332
Email: Chris.Pearson@bristol.ac.uk

Research interests

My research interests lie in European environmental history, in particular the environmental history of war, contemporary French environmental history, and animal studies. One of the main aims of my work is to bring together material and cultural histories and explore human and nonhuman encounters. My current research divides into two main areas.

Militarized Landscapes in Twentieth Century France

As part of the AHRC-funded project, ‘Militarized Landscapes in the Twentieth-Century: Britain, France, and the United States Project,’ I am researching the environmental history of French military bases, exploring their creation, contestation, and conversion. The project also examines French Cold War landscapes and the “greening” of the French military in recent years.

Dog City: A Canine History of Paris

The number of dogs (and the mess they leave on pavements) is a striking feature of contemporary Paris. I am currently developing this project, which will uncover the place and role of dogs in Parisian history. It will examine petkeeping practices, ideas about dogs and disease, the displaying of dogs, and campaigns against their “merde.”

Undergraduate Teaching

I teach and run the first year special topic unit ‘France at War, 1940-1944: Experience and Aftermath’

Selected Publications

Book

• Scarred Landscapes: War and Nature in Vichy France (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)

Edited works

• Co-editor (with Peter Coates and Tim Cole), Militarized Landscapes: From Gettysburg to Salisbury Plain (London: Continuum, forthcoming 2010)

Journal articles and book chapters

• 'A Walk in the Park with Timmy: History and the Possibilities of Companion Species Research,' The Wild, No. 1 (2009): 87-96
• 'A 'Watery Desert' in Vichy France: The Environmental History of the Camargue Wetlands, 1940-1944,' French Historical Studies 32/3 (Summer 2009): 479-509
• Creating the Natural Fortress: Landscape, Resistance, and Memory in the Vercors, France,’ in Charles Closmann (ed.), War and the Environment (College Station, TX: Texas A & M Press, 2009), 150-76
• 'L'âge du bois: les forêts françaises pendant la Seconde guerre mondiale,' Revue forestière française 4 (July-August 2007): 393-416
• '“The Age of Wood': Fuel and Fighting in French Forests, 1940-1944,' Environmental History (October 2006): 775-803

Full Publications

Full list of Dr Pearson's publications as held in the University's IRIS publications database.