The Political History Group (PHG), a committee affiliated with the Canadian Historical Association, is pleased to award a prize for the best article in political history (French language).

The prize will be awarded in 2019 for an outstanding French-language article judged to have made an original, significant, and meritorious contribution to the field of Canadian political history.
 
Eligible articles must have been published between 1 December 2017 and 30 November 2018.
The award will be given in June 2018 at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Historical Association at the University of British Columbia. The prize will not be awarded if there are fewer than four nominations; in that event, any articles submitted will be considered in the following year’s competition.
 
Authors are invited to submit their article directly to each member of the prize committee or to contact their journal editors or book publishers and ask them to submit an article on their behalf. The deadline for submissions is February 8, 2019.
 
Members of the Selection Committee:

Prof. Donald Fyson
Département des sciences historiques
Université Laval
donald.fyson@hst.ulaval.ca  

Prof. Valérie Lapointe-Gagnon
Faculté Saint-Jean
Université de l’Alberta
valerie.lapointe-gagnon@ualberta.ca  

Prof. Sean Mills
History Department
University of Toronto
sean.mills@utoronto.ca 

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Winners

2017

Eric Fillion, « Jazz libre : "musique-action" ou la recherche d'une praxis révolutionnaire au Québec (1967-1975) ». Labour / Le Travail 77 (2016), p. 93-120.

In this innovative article, Eric Fillion offers an in-depth exploration of Jazz libre and its multi-faceted connections to oppositional political movements in Quebec in the 1960s and 1970s. He situates his work in broad international literature on jazz, and highlights the transnational context in which the musicians understood the meaning of their musical and cultural activities. In so doing, he demonstrates – making use exhaustive research and nuanced analysis – the centrality of culture and cultural democracy to Quebec social movements of the period.

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2015

François-Olivier Dorais, « Gaétan Gervais : témoin et agent d'une mutation référentielle en Ontario français », MENS Volume 13, numéro 2, printemps 2013.

In "Gaétan Gervais: témoin et agent d'une mutation référentielle en Ontario français", François-Olivier Dorais explores the little-studied subject of the relationship between francophone intellectuals outside of Quebec and their communities’ evolving identities.  By focusing on Gaétan Gervais, a professor of history at Laurentian University and a central figure in the intellectual life of francophone Ontario, Dorais traces both the creation of a new intellectual sphere and the evolution of Franco-Ontarian identity from the late 1960s to the present. In this richly documented, cogently argued and elegantly written article, Dorais weaves together biography, historiographical reflection, and Franco-Ontarian social and cultural history.  In doing so, Dorais’ article not only looks beyond Gervais and towards broader questions of cultural identity since the 1960s, but it also connects Quebec historiography with that of francophones outside of Quebec. 

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2013

Mourad Djebabla, « Le gouvernement fédéral et la diète de guerre proposée et imposée aux Canadiens ». Bulletin d’histoire politique (vol. 20, no 2) Automne 2011.

This article has several qualities. The author addresses the issue of food consumption during World War one. Mourad Djebabla demonstrates that the war context requiring the maximization of resources for the final victory dictated Canadian rationing policy, and that this policy depended strongly on the evolution of the conflict and international relations. The author’s article analyzes the state efforts to reorient production of the 3 Bs (blé-bacon et boeuf or wheat, beef and bacon) to help the allies. Finally, the author used a variety of excellent sources and his article is supported by a sophisticated analysis.
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2012

Stéphane Savard, « L’instrumentalisation d’Hydro-Québec par l’Union nationale (1944-1960) : quels rôles pour le développement hydroélectrique? » published in the edited collection Duplessis, son milieu, son époque (Québec : Septentrion, 2010), edited by Xavier Gélinas and Lucia Ferretti.

Savard’s article deals with a key symbol of Quebec modernity: Hydro-Quebec. The author examines the development strategies of this crown corporation during the period when the province was led by Premier Maurice Duplessis, an individual known for his conservative ideology regarding the role of the state in the economy. Far from dismantling this new crown corporation, created by his predecessor Adélard Godbout, Maurice Duplessis granted substantial responsibilities in the sectors of industrial and regional development to this new state-run corporation.   Moreover, he made this crown corporation a symbol of technological and scientific innovation that would permit francophones to work in sectors in which few had done so before. The section of this article which deals with the symbolism of Hydro-Québec as a business capable of taming the forces of nature is particularly innovative. Primarily using the parliamentary debates of the Quebec Legislative Assembly, this article reveals the strategies employed by this crown corporation.