Alain Corbin is a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 historian, specialist of the 19th century in France.

Trained in the Annales School

Annales School

The Annales School is a group of historians associated with a style of historiography developed by French historians in the 20th century. It is named after its scholarly journal Annales d'histoire économique et sociale, which remains the main source of scholarship, along with many books and...

, Corbin's work has moved away from the large-scale collective structures studied by Fernand Braudel

Fernand Braudel

Fernand Braudel was a French historian and a leader of the Annales School. His scholarship focused on three main projects, each representing several decades of intense study: The Mediterranean , Civilization and Capitalism , and the unfinished Identity of France...

 towards a history of sensibilities which is closer to Lucien Febvre

Lucien Febvre

Lucien Febvre was a French historian best known for the role he played in establishing the Annales School of history. He has designed the Encyclopédie française together with Anatole de Monzie.-Biography:...

's history of mentalités

History of mentalities

The term history of mentalities is a calque on the French histoire des mentalités , a term referring to the manner of doing history associated with the Annales School.The history of mentalities focuses not on the wars and politics which have been the subject matter of most...

. His books have explored the histories of such subjects as male desire and prostitution

Prostitution

Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...

, sensory experience of smell and sound, and the 1870 burning of a young nobleman in a Dordogne

Dordogne

Dordogne is a départment in south-west France. The départment is located in the region of Aquitaine, between the Loire valley and the High Pyrénées named after the great river Dordogne that runs through it...

village.

Works

• • Translation: Women for Hire: Prostitution and Sexuality in France after 1850, (published 1996)
  • Translation: The Foul and the Fragrant: Odor and the French Social Imagination (published 1988)
  • Translation: Sound and Meaning in the Village Bells, (published 1998)
  • Translation: The Life of an Unknown, (published 2001)

External links