I graduated in Political Studies (Sciences Po) from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques, Lyon and in Modern History from the University of Toulouse. A former Lavoisier Research Fellow at the Maison Française d'Oxford, I also studied at the University of California, Berkeley and at Pembroke College, Oxford.

Prior to my arrival at Birmingham I worked as a Junior Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Toulouse. I also taught a range of European and World History papers at the University of Oxford.

I was also a Visiting Lecturer (Maître de conférences) at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris, where I contributed to their postgraduate programme.

I will be Marie Curie Research Fellow at Yale University in 2013 and 2014 and at Trinity College, Dublin in 2015.

Undergraduate

• “War, Armed Forces, and Society”; “Practising History”; “Group Research”; “Reviewing History”; “Historical Reflections”
• Special Subjects: “A Comparative History of the First World War, 1912-1923”; “The British Army on the Western Front”
• Optional Unit: “France. From the Popular Front to the Liberation”

Postgraduate

• “Research Skills”, “Bullets and Billets”, MA in First World War Studies
• Guest Lecturer, Europaeum M.A. Programme in European History, Universities of Leiden, Oxford and Paris I –Sorbonne – 2009, 2010
• Visiting Lecturer, Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Paris, Masters Programme (2009-2010)

 

Doctoral research

 

• Ms R. Crites, The continuation of war by other means: domestic violence in Britain, 1914-1936  (AHRC Studentship) - Start date: Oct 2011
• Mr R. Deeks, Rank and leadership in the British Expeditionary Force, 1914-1918 – Start date: Oct 2010
• Mrs C. Morelon, Imperial mobilization and national upheaval: the war experience in Prague, 1914-1920 (AHRC Studentship & College Scholarship) – Start date: Oct 2010

 

MA

 

• Ms R. Crites, The continuation of war by other means: domestic violence in Britain, 1914-1936 – 2010-11
• Mr S. Haynes, British militarism and strategic defence policy, 1919-1936 – 2010-11

 

I am interested to hear from potential postgraduate students interested in the European History of the First World War, on the comparative history of Britain and France, and on Twentieth-Century French History

My research to date has focused on the comparative history of the First World War and especially on the experience of the French, British, and Belgian populations. I have researched and published on wartime social mobilization, the experience of refugees, and pictorial humour.

I am currently writing on the process of nationalization and political mobilization in Britain and France in the early Twentieth Century, on the historiography of the First World War, on the reconstruction and demobilization of belligerent societies after the conflict, and on resource mobilization in both world wars. My next project will investigate the transformations of the belligerent State in the era of the Great War.

I am the Scientist-in-Charge (PI) on two Marie-Curie Fellowship projects (WWI Allied Cultures / 28 June 1914: A day in European History and Memory).

I am also a Principal Investigator and Work Package Leader on a large-scale interdisciplinary project associating historians, archivists, e-science and digital humanities specialists. This project, CENDARI – Collaborative EuropeaN Digital/Archival Research Infrastructure for Medieval and Modern History, is funded by the European Union Framework Programme 7.

Grants and Awards

2012       

EU FP7 Marie Curie Programme 2013-2016 – Named researcher and grant writer: €371,166
International Outgoing Fellowship: “Rebuilding European Lives. The reconstitution of urban communities in inter-war Europe (1914-1939)” – Yale University (2013-4)/Trinity College, Dublin (2015)

Scientist in Charge: Prof. John Horne, Trinity College, Dublin
Host partner: Prof. Jay Winter, Yale University

2011       

EU FP7 INFRA-2011-1.1.3 – Collaborative EuropeaN Digital/Archival Infrastructure, 2011-2015 – Partner: €623,497
Total budget: €6.5M – UoB budget:  – (Evaluation report: 14/15)

EU FP7 Marie Curie Programme 2011-2013 - Scientist in Charge: €544.117
International Incoming Fellowship: 28 June 1914: A Day in European History and Memory (94.1/100)
Intra-European Fellowship: Inter-Allied Cultures and Identities during World War I (97.1/100)

2010  
UoB Sandpit  - £48,000
“Conceptualizing and measuring resilience: the critical role of redundancy” – Co-investigator

2008-2009  
Grant awarded by the Research and Knowledge Transfer Fund, College of Arts & Law, University of Birmingham - £1,000
Small Travel Grant awarded by Advantage West Midlands - £500

2004-2005  
Research Scholarship, Centre d’étude d’histoire de la Défense, Vincennes (France)

2003-2004  
Besse Research Scholarship, Pembroke College, Oxford
Research Scholarship, Centre d’étude d’histoire de la Défense, Vincennes (France)

2002-2003
Lavoisier Research Fellowship, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Research Scholarship, Centre d’étude d’histoire de la Défense, Vincennes (France)
Research Scholarship, Historial de la Grande Guerre, Péronne (France)

1999
University of California, Berkeley, EA Summer Grant

1998-2001
Research Scholarship, French Ministry of Education and Research

School and University duties:

• Admissions Tutor (Sept 2011- )
• Primary Appeals Committee

Professional affiliations

President and co-founder of the International Society for First World War Studies

The society gathers together over 300 scholars at every academic level in 27 countries worldwide. It runs a website and a discussion list (for further information see www.firstworldwarstudies.org). The Society has held five international conferences (Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Lyon in 2001; Oxford University, 2003; Trinity College, Dublin, 2005; Georgetown University / German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C, 2007; Imperial War Museum, London, 2009) and held its last biennial conference in Innsbrück, Austria in September 2011. 

I serve on the editorial board of the Society’s peer-reviewed journal, First World War Studies, as an Associate Editor.

• American Historical Association
• Society for the Study of French History
• North American Conference for British Studies
• Society for Military History
• Group for War and Culture Studies

Research groups

Partner & Executive Board Member, Collaborative EuropeaN Digital/Archival Infrastructure, European Consortium coordinated by the Long Room Hub, Trinity College, Dublin.

Member of the Editorial Board/Strategic Partner, 1914-1918 Online International Encyclopedia of the First World War, coordinated by Professor Oliver Janz (Freie Universität Berlin) and Professor Alan Kramer (Trinity College, Dublin)

Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Research Centre of the Historial de la Grande Guerre (France)

Co-Investigator, Conceptualizing and measuring resilience: the critical role of redundancy in physical, ecological and social system – interdisciplinary research group, University of Birmingham

Member of the“Mémoires Combattantes” international research group (France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Australia), coordinated by Professor Olivier Wieviorka (ENS Cachan) and Professor Antoine Prost (University of Paris I ‑ Sorbonne) – Project funded by the French Ministry of Defence

Associate Member, British Studies, Interdisciplinary Research Group, E.H.E.S.S., Paris

Member of the“Capital cities at war. Paris, London, Berlin. 1914-1919” research group, coordinated by Prof. Jay Winter, Yale University, and Prof. Jean-Louis Robert, University of Paris I – Sorbonne. Organiser of the final meeting of the group at the Maison Française, University of Oxford, 12-14 December 2003.

Books

• P. Purseigle, Mobilisation, Sacrifice et Citoyenneté. Des communautés locales face à la guerre moderne. Angleterre – France, 1914-1924, Paris, Les Belles Lettres (forthcoming)
• C. Berthezène, P. Purseigle, G. Vaughan, J. Vincent, Le Monde Britannique, 1815-1931, Paris, Editions Belin, 2010. ISBN: 978-2-7011-5410-7
• P. Purseigle, ed., Warfare and Belligerence. Perspectives in First World War Studies., Boston – Leiden, Brill, 2005, 420p. ISBN: 978 90 04 14352 4
• J. Macleod, P. Purseigle, ed., Uncovered fields. Perspectives in First World War Studies, Boston – Leiden, Brill, 2004, 302p. ISBN: 978 90 04 13264 1

Peer-reviewed articles

• Belligérances libérales : La Grande-Bretagne et la France face à la Grande Guerre », commissioned by Vingtième Siècle – in preparation
•  “A very French debate: The 1914-18 ‘war culture’, Journal of War and Culture Studies, 1, 1, 2008, 9-14. ISSN: 17526272
•  “On the Road to ‘Total War’. Exile and Resettlement in Western Europe, 1914-1918.”, Contemporary European History, 16, 4 (November 2007), 427-444. ISSN: 0960-7773
•  “Mirroring societies at war: pictorial humour in the British and French popular press during the Great War.”, in Journal of European Studies, Vol.31, 3/4, n°123, 2001, 289-328. ISSN: 0047-2441

Book chapters

• “Homefronts: The Mobilization of Resources” in R. Chickering, D. Showalter, H. van de Ven, The Cambridge History of War. Vol. 4. War and the Modern World, 1850-2005, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press (forthcoming 2012)
• “‘Wither the local?’ Nationalization, modernization, and the mobilization of urban communities in England and France, c.1900-1918”, in O. Zimmer, W. Whyte, eds., Nationalism and the Reshaping of Urban Communities in Europe, 1848-1914, London, Palgrave, pp. 182-203. ISBN-13: 978-0230246287
•  “Warfare and Belligerence. Approaches to the First World War”, in P. Purseigle, ed., Warfare and Belligerence. Perspectives in First World War Studies, Boston – Leiden, Brill Academic Publishers, 2005, 1-37. ISBN: 978900414352 4
• 1914-1918 : Les combats de l’arrière. Etude comparée des mobilisations sociales en France et en Grande-Bretagne, in N. Beaupré, A. Duménil, C. Ingrao, Experiences de guerre. 1914-1945. Tome I: “Violence, Mobilisations, Deuil. 1914-1918”, Paris, Agnès Viénot Editions, 2004, 131-151. ISBN: 2-914645-42-2

For an updated list of publications, conference & seminar papers, professional activities, research projects and more, see my personal website: www.pierrepurseigle.info and the website of the International Society for First World War Studies: www.firstworldwarstudies.org

•    Print: La Croix- Interview on British commemoration of the First World War, 13 November 2010

•    TV: “The Battle over Pension Reforms in France”, Inside Story - Al Jazeera English, 23 October 2010; “Debating Genocide”, Inside Story - Al Jazeera English, 29 February 2012

•    Radio: BBC Radio 4 News Briefing - The Chilcot Inquiry, 21 January 2010; BBC Radio 4, “The Moral Maze” – The French Riots, 16 November 2005