Do You Hear the People? The Construction of the People of the 1789 French Revolution
Abstract:
The French Revolution marks a period of time in which the ideologies of individuals shifted dramatically from complacently oppressed to violently revolutionary. This senior project follows that shift to better understand how and why individuals gave up their individuality and became the collective known as the People. “Advocates,” as Rhetorical scholar Michael Calvin McGee terms, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jean-Paul Marat, and Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès wrote, spoke, and otherwise spread their ideas which influenced the collectivizing of individuals. Using History scholars and Communications scholars alike, this project pieces together the factors from both a factual and theoretical standpoint to create a fuller picture of the People who revolted in 1789 France.