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Dr. Troy Feay

Associate Professor,

History

Meet Dr. Troy Feay

OF NOTE:
History is an Analytical Tool; it is Something You Think With.

KNOWN FOR:
From a Student Evaluation: “Dr. Feay is an amazing teacher, who keeps you interested and laughing. You never know what he is going to say. He knows his stuff and how to reach his students. Really laid back and fun! Easy to get an A if you read the material, participate, and write thoughtful papers. By far one of my most dear professors at Belmont Abbey.”

WHEN NOT IN THE CLASSROOM, CAN OFTEN BE FOUND:
In the Theater

POPULAR QUOTE:
“A first step in having a life of the mind is to know that other minds have had lives, which they explain to us – if we would listen.” — Fr. James Schall, SJ, The Life of the Mind

Classes

Examples of the classes taught by Dr. Troy Feay:

Western Civilizations I and II
World Civilizations I and II
Early Modern Europe
Modern Europe
Old Regime France
Modern France
Alexis de Tocqueville in His Time
Emile Zola and His Age
Americans in Paris
Hard in the Paint: Art and Society in European Culture, 1789-1914 Cezanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh: The Primal and the Eternal
Power and Culture in the Modern European Empires
Religion and Power: Christianity and Colonialism
Introduction to African History
West Africa Since 1400
Contemporary Africa on Film
The Atlantic World, 1500-1800
Antislavery in the Atlantic World
The Vietnam Wars, 1800 to the Present
The Crucifix and the Swastika: Christianity and Fascism
Genocide in the Twentieth Century
The Great War: 1914-1918
The Hollow Years: The 1920s and 1930s in Global History
Death and the Afterlife in Western Traditions
The Benedictine Tradition
Senior Seminar in Historical Method
First-Year Composition
First-Year Symposium

Education

Doctor of Philosophy in History, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana
M.A. in European History, University of Notre Dame.
M.A. in Theology, concentration in the History of Christianity, University of Notre Dame.
B.S. in Theology, Taylor University-Fort Wayne, Fort Wayne, Indiana; semesters of study in Brazil and the Dominican Republic.
Diploma, Sierra Leone, West Africa, from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Division of Continuing Studies Independent Study High School.

Representative Publications and Presentations

Publications:

“A History of HIV/AIDS Crisis: Global and National Contexts,” Thirty Years of Mercy, The House of Mercy, Belmont, NC (2021) https://www.thehouseofmercy.org/post/a-history-of-hiv-aids-crisis-global-and-national-contexts
“Creating the People of God’: French Utopian Dreams and the Moralization of Africans and Slaves,” in In God’s Empire: French Missionaries and the Modern World, JP Daughton and Owen White, eds., (Oxford University Press), 2012.
“Voltaire,” The Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy, Volume 3, J. Varacalli, R. Myers, and M. Coulter, eds., (The ScarecrowPress), 2012.

Conference Papers and Presentations:

2011 – Chair of the Panel, “Militarized Politics: Military Service and Militarism in French Politics and Policy from Napoleon to Pétain,” Annual Conference of the Society for French Historical Studies, Charleston, SC, February 10-12, 2011.
2006 – “The French Catholic Colony of Sierra Leone? Freetown under Sir Charles MacCarthy, 1814-1824,” American Historical Association, Atlanta, GA.
2003 – “The Marriage of the Sword and the Gospel: Ernest Psichari’s Novels of France and Africa,” Western Society for French History, Newport Beach, CA.
“Creating ‘The People of God’: French Catholic Utopian Dreams and the ‘Moralization’ of Africans and Slaves, 1815-1855,” French Colonial
Historical Society, Toulouse, France.
“Good Mothers, Great Men: Social Crises and Gender Identities in the French Slave Colonies,” Select Symposium of the Program in Gender Studies, University of Notre Dame.
2002 – “The Séminaire des jeunes africains: Constructing Catholic Identity in Senegal and France,” International Conference on Christianity and Native Cultures, Saint Mary’s College, IN.
“French Catholic Abolitionism: Missionaries, Politics, and the Antislavery Movement in France, 1830-1848,” American Society of Church History, San Francisco, CA.

Research / Area of Expertise

Areas of Expertise

Modern France
Modern Africa
European Imperialism
Slavery and Antislavery
History of Christianity and Christian Missions

Dissertation

“Mission to Moralize: Slaves, Africans, and Missionaries in the French Colonies, 1815-1852”.
Description: This dissertation explores contention over and appropriation of religious, ethnic, and gender identities in the French slave colonies throughout the nineteenth century. It further explores how religious definitions of culture and morality informed the broader political and ideological agenda of the French “civilizing mission.”

Research Projects