Colloquium: The French Revolution and the Sacred – Global and Contemporary Perspectives (18th c. – present)

“Revolution continues Christianity, and it contradicts it. It is, at the same time, its heir and its adversary.” – Jules Michelet (1848)

In the years leading up to the bicentenary commemorations of 1989, a new liberal interpretation of the French Revolution challenged a long-lived socialist one. In contrast to the Marxist view of a “bourgeois revolution” with popular support (Jaurès, 1922-1924; Soboul, 1974; Mazauric, 1988), the liberal historiography has recurrently emphasized the role of “revolutionary ideology” and the “collective mentality” which led to the episode of the “Terror” (Furet, 2009). While Michel Vovelle attempted to fill the gaps by writing a social history of religious conflicts (Vovelle, 1988), we might take the end of Cold War binary frameworks as an opportunity to move beyond this long-lasting interpretive divide, and to reinvestigate how the Revolution transformed ideas of the sacred and has itself been sacralized.

Moreover, while modernity has long been equated with the fading of the sacred from our “horizons of expectation” (Koselleck, 1979) and with an increasingly disenchanted world (Gauchet, 1985), the worldwide resurgence of religion over recent decades has profoundly unsettled that narrative. This development calls for a new genealogy of modernity, to which this colloquium contributes by examining the role of the sacred both during the French Revolution and in its contemporary legacy, from a global, interdisciplinary, and contemporary perspective—especially as 2026 will mark the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

The colloquium will be held in two parts: at Princeton on 14–15 May and at Sciences Po on 26–27 May, 2026. Presentations may be delivered in English or French, at either institution. Participants are encouraged to attend both sessions if possible, though a hybrid option will also be available.