Emile Chabal (born 1984/5) is a British historian specialising in twentieth-century European intellectual and political history. He is currently Professor of Contemporary History at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

, and previously held teaching and research positions at

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College, formally the College of St John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge, is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge, founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch L ...

, and

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1263 by nobleman John I de Balliol, it has a claim to be the oldest college in Oxford and the English-speaking world. With a governing body of a master and aro ...

Education

Chabal received his BA in History from the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

in 2005, and then studied for a year at

Rice University William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres. Rice University comp ...

as a CD Broad Scholar. He returned to Cambridge to complete an MPhil in Historical Studies, graduating in 2007, and continued there for a PhD. During his doctoral research, Chabal was a

Kennedy Scholar Kennedy Scholarships provide full funding for up to ten British post-graduate students to study at either Harvard University or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Susan Hockfield, the sixteenth president of MIT, described the scho ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

and a visiting student at the

École Normale Supérieure École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...

in Paris. He completed his PhD in 2011, and was awarded the History Faculty's Prince Consort & Thirlwall Prize and Seeley Medal for the best doctoral dissertation across all periods.

Career

Following his PhD, Chabal took up a post as department

lecturer Lecturer is an academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. They may also conduct re ...

in modern European history at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

, attached to Balliol College. In 2012, he began a year-long

research fellow A research fellow is an academic research position at a university or a similar research institution, usually for academic staff or faculty members. A research fellow may act either as an independent investigator or under the supervision of a p ...

ship at

. In 2013, he was appointed Chancellor's Fellow in History at the University of Edinburgh, promoted to Reader in 2018 and to Professor of Contemporary History in 2024. Chabal's research has focused on modern and contemporary French and European politics, and migration and citizenship in Western Europe. Since 2015, he has led an ongoing project into the intellectual life and history of

Eric Hobsbawm Eric John Ernest Hobsbawm (; 9 June 1917 – 1 October 2012) was a British historian of the rise of industrial capitalism, socialism and nationalism. His best-known works include his tetralogy about what he called the "long 19th century" (''Th ...

. In 2021, he launched th
Eric Hobsbawm Bibliography
the first fully-searchable database of Hobsbawm's published and unpublished works. He is due to publish an intellectual biography of Hobsbawm with Harvard University Press in 2026. He is currently an editor of ''Contemporary European History''.

Publications

As author: * ''A Divided Republic: Nation, State and Citizenship in Contemporary France,'' Cambridge University Press, 2015 * ''France'', Polity Press, 2020 As editor: * ''Britain and France in Two-World Wars: Truth, Myth and Memory,'' Bloomsbury Academic, 2013 (co-edited with

Robert Tombs Robert Paul Tombs (born 8 May 1949) is a British- French historian of France and Britain. He is professor emeritus of French history at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. Prior to this, he was a reader in ...

) * ''France since the 1970s: History, Politics and Memory in an Age of Uncertainty,'' Bloomsbury Academic, 2014 * ''States of Ignorance: Governing Irregular Migrants in Western Europe,'' Cambridge University Press, 2023

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chabal, Emile 1980s births Alumni of the University of Cambridge Rice University alumni 21st-century British historians University of Edinburgh Balliol College, Oxford 21st-century British male writers Living people