Kelly E. Summers

Immigration ranks as one of the most contentious topics in politics today. Dr. Summers’ book project focuses on a pivotal moment when states were preoccupied with illicit departures rather than arrivals. The quarter century of revolution and war that forms its backdrop unleashed an unprecedented wave of cross-border population flows. Rightly or wrongly, many migrants from France were classified as counter-revolutionary émigrés and banished in perpetuity on pain of death. By means both legal and otherwise, however, the vast majority managed to return home. Attuned to the letter of revolutionary law and its real-world implications, The Great Return reveals how attempts to enforce residency and police borders impacted every phase of the Revolution, and in the process established émigrés, refugees, and their repatriated counterparts as enduring political actors. The book will contribute to scholarship on voluntary and forced migration, political reconciliation, the rights and duties of citizenship, and the politics of exile and asylum. In a comparative vein, Dr. Summers is also revising a related article, “Fugitives from France: Huguenots, Émigrés, and the Origins of Modern Exile,” for The Routledge Handbook of French History (ed. David Andress). Dr. Summers regularly incorporates her research into lectures, seminar discussions, and extracurricular activities such as the History and Classics Club’s film series. Her students have deciphered archival images of the first modern passports, critiqued a noblewoman’s account of her dramatic escape during the Terror, and adjudicated the court martial of a soldier accused of desertion. Students’ incisive questions about the material have in turn enriched Dr. Summers’ scholarly work. Recent and upcoming courses HUMN 101 Humanism HUMN 201 Human Relationships: Isolation and Alienation HUMN 201 Human Relationships: Women in the Great Books Canon HUMN 204: The Human Experience and Gender HIST 209 Early Modern European History HIST 210 Modern European History, 1789-Present HIST 215 Modern France HIST 292 Women’s History HIST 301 Topics in World History: Comparative Revolutions HIST 315 Enlightenment and Revolution: The Origin of Human Rights HIST 410 Topics in European History: Enlightenment and Revolution HIST 410 Topics in European History: Napoleon and His Empire HIST 410 Topics in European History: Global Paris HIST 410 Topics in European History: The French and Haitian Revolutions HIST 410 Modern European History: The French Revolution HIST 410 Topics in European History: Migration, Asylum and Revolution HIST 490 Topics in Social History: Paris, Capital of Modernity | Migration and diaspora; Huguenots, émigrés, and refugees; the intellectual and cultural history of the Enlightenment; the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars; European gender and women's history; modern France; comparative revolutions

Kelly E. Summers is Assistant Professor, History | Discipline Coordinator & Advisor, Humanities at MacEwan University. Their stated interests include Immigration ranks as one of the most contentious topics in politics today. Dr. Summers’ book project focuses on a pivotal moment when states were preoccupied with illicit departures rather than arrivals. The quarter century of revolution and war that forms its backdrop unleashed an unprecedented wave of cross-border population flows. Rightly or wrongly, many migrants from France were classified as counter-revolutionary émigrés and banished in perpetuity on pain of death. By means both legal and otherwise, however, the vast majority managed to return home. Attuned to the letter of revolutionary law and its real-world implications, The Great Return reveals how attempts to enforce residency and. This summary considered all 2 collected sources.