Tyler Stovall was a historian of modern and twentieth century France, about which he wrote numerous books and articles. Our thoughts are with Denise and their family in this time of sorrow.'For me, history is the record not only of how things change, but how people make things change, how they act individually and collectively to create a better world.'ĭr.

Tyler’s wife is our colleague Denise Herd, Professor of Public Health and Associate Director of the Othering and Belonging Institute here at Berkeley. The History Department will post a full obituary on our website and in our newsletter. Vann’s biography (link is external) for his AHA Presidential address (link is external), along with his Perspectives columns (link is external) during that unsettling time.

Tyler’s life and scholarship are illuminated in Michael G. Most notable among his many forms of service to the historical profession, Tyler was elected President of the American Historical Association for 2017. In 2020 he embarked on his new position of Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Fordham University, where he was serving at the time of his passing. He returned to the University of California, Santa Cruz, as Dean of the Humanities Division and Distinguished Professor of History in 2015. Tyler was a professor in our department from 2001 to 2015, and served as Dean of the Undergraduate Division of UC Berkeley’s College of Letters and Science from 2008 to 2014. His scholarly works included The Rise of the Paris Red Belt (1990), Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light (1996), Paris and the Spirit of 1919 (2012), White Freedom: The Racial History of an Idea (2021), and edited volumes that showcased a generation of emerging scholarship on race and identity in French national, colonial, and post-colonial contexts. I am distressed to share the news that the distinguished historian of modern France and our former colleague Tyler Stovall passed away unexpectedly on Friday, December 10, at the age of sixty-seven.Ī prolific scholar, Tyler grappled powerfully with questions of Blackness, class, and empire in France’s national self-understanding and transnational connections.

Tyler stovall paris noir