Email: john.westsooby@adelaide.edu.au
John West-Sooby is Professor Emeritus of French Studies at the University of Adelaide. He has a long-standing research interest in the nineteenth-century novel, including the works of Maupassant, Barbey d’Aurevilly and, in particular, Stendhal. He has also identified the existence of the picaresque tradition in twentieth-century writing and has applied this methodology to another of his great interests, French crime fiction. In collaboration with Jean Fornasiero, and as part of the Baudin Legacy team, he has worked extensively on the historiography of the Baudin expedition, co-writing the book Encountering Terra Australis. The Australian Voyages of Nicolas Baudin and Matthew Flinders, 1800-1803. In July 2005, this book was awarded the Frank Broeze Memorial Maritime History Book Prize. He is particularly interested in the iconography of the Baudin expedition (maps, sketches), but also in the personalities of the captain and his fellow expeditioners. In 2003 he was awarded the Palmes académiques by the French government. He is Australian correspondent for the specialist review L’Année Stendhal and is on the Editorial Board of the scholarly monograph series Monash Romance Studies. Professor West-Sooby has presented papers on all his research interests at international conferences and research seminars. These include the Baudin conference in Le Havre in 2007, the conference on Scientific Voyaging sponsored by the Greenwich Maritime Museum, the Royal Society of London and the University of Cambridge held in London in July 2008, and the 2009 conference on Baudin’s life and voyages held at the Royal Academy of Brussels. In 2014 (with Jean Fornasiero), he completed a book on François Péron and his ‘spy’ document on the colony of New South Wales.
Publications on the Baudin expedition
Books
With J. Fornasiero, French Designs on New South Wales, a critical edition of the Memoir on the British Settlements in New Holland by François Péron, Adelaide, Friends of the State Library of South Australia, 2014.
With J. Fornasiero & P. Monteath, Encountering Terra Australis: The Australian Voyages of Nicolas Baudin and Matthew Flinders, 1800-1803, Kent Town, Wakefield Press, 2004 (411p.)
Revised edition 2010, 426p.
Frank Broeze Memorial Maritime History Prize 2005
Edited Volumes
With J. Fornasiero, ‘Roaming freely throughout the universe’: Nicolas Baudin’s Voyage to Australia and the pursuit of science, Mile End, Wakefield Press, 2021.
With J. Fornasiero & Lindl Lawton, The Art of Science: Nicolas Baudin’s Voyagers 1800-1804, Mile End, Wakefield Press, 2016.
Discovery and Empire. The French in the South Seas, Adelaide, University of Adelaide Press, 2013.
Articles and Chapters
With J. Fornasiero, “Expédition Baudin – Science et politique. Les enjeux politiques du Voyage aux Terres australes“, Australie / Le Havre – l’intimité d’un lien, Paris, MkF éditions, 2021, pp. 22-27.
“The Construction of the Scientific Voyager”, in J. Fornasiero & J. West-Sooby (eds), ‘Roaming freely throughout the universe’: Nicolas Baudin’s Voyage to Australia and the pursuit of science, Mile End, Wakefield Press, 2021, pp. 11-27.
“An Emotional Voyager: Stanislas Levillain (1774-1801), Trainee Zoologist on the Baudin Expedition”, in J. Fornasiero & J. West-Sooby, ‘Roaming freely throughout the universe’: Nicolas Baudin’s Voyage to Australia and the pursuit of science, Mile End, Wakefield Press, 2021, pp. 286-301.
With J. Fornasiero, “Towards a New Historiography: Re-reading the Archives of the Baudin Expedition“, French–Australian Shared Histories, 2018 Symposium, Imagination, Exploration, Memory, Canberra, National Archives of Australia, 2019: http://naa.gov.au/naaresources/documents/french-symposium2018/JeanFornasiero-and-JohnWest-Sooby_English.pdf. French version : “Retour aux archives: un nouveau regard sur l’expédition Baudin“, Colloque Histoires partagées France-Australie,Symposium 2018, Imagination, Exploration, Mémoire, Canberra, National Archives of Australia, 2019.
With J. Fornasiero, “A Contested Coast? The Baudin-Flinders Encounter of April 1802”, in R. Foster & P. Sendziuk (eds), Foundational Fictions in South Australian History, Mile End, Wakefield Press, 2018, pp. 13-27.
With J. Fornasiero, “Matthew Flinders through French Eyes : Nicolas Baudin’s Lessons from Encounter Bay, Journal of Pacific History, 2017, pp. 1-14.
With J. Fornasiero, “The French Revolution and the Politics of Scientific Voyaging”, French Australian Review, 64, Winter 2017, pp. 3-18.
With J. Fornasiero, “The Baudin Expedition: Glory, Disgrace and Redemption”, in J. Fornasiero, L. Lawton & J. West-Sooby (eds), The Art of Science: Baudin’s Voyagers 1800-1804, Mile End, Wakefield Press, 2016, pp. 33-46.
With J. Fornasiero & L. Lawton, “Unlocking Mysteries: Charting and Naming the Australian Coasts” in J. Fornasiero, L. Lawton & J. West-Sooby (eds), The Art of Science: Baudin’s Voyagers 1800-1804, Mile End, Wakefield Press, 2016, pp. 101-119.
“Cartography and the Art of Politics”, in J. Fornasiero, L. Lawton & J. West-Sooby (eds), The Art of Science: Nicolas Baudin’s Voyagers 1800-1804, Mile End, Wakefield Press, 2016, p. 114.
“Studying Seals on Kangaroo Island”, in J. Fornasiero, L. Lawton & J. West-Sooby (eds), The Art of Science: Nicolas Baudin’s Voyagers 1800-1804, Mile End, Wakefield Press, 2016, p. 119.
“The Dynamometer “, in J. Fornasiero, L. Lawton & J. West-Sooby (eds), The Art of Science: Nicolas Baudin’s Voyagers 1800-1804, Mile End, Wakefield Press, 2016, p. 39.
With J. Fornasiero, “Voyages et déplacements des savoirs. Les expéditions de Nicolas Baudin entre Révolution et Empire”, in Jean-Luc Chappey & Maria-Pia Donato (eds), Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 382, 2016, pp. 23-45. English version: “Voyaging and shifting knowledge. The expeditions of Nicolas Baudin from Revolution to Empire”, “Travels, travellers and the transfer of knowledge from Révolution to Empire”, Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 385, 3, 2016, pp. 23-46.
With J. Fornasiero, “Cross-cultural Inquiry through Art and Performance: the Baudin Expedition to Australia, 1800-1804”, in K. Darian-Smith & Penelope Edmonds (eds), Conciliation on Colonial Frontiers: Conflict, Performance, and Commemoration in Australia and the Pacific Rim, New York/Abingdon, UK, Routledge, Studies in Cultural History series, 34, 2015, pp. 17-35.
With J. Fornasiero & M. Sankey, “Nicolas Baudin (1754-1803): From Seafarer to Philosophical Traveller”, in I. Barko & E. Berti (eds), French Lives in Australia, North Melbourne, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2015, pp. 36-56.
With J. Fornasiero, “The Narrative Interruptions of Science: the Baudin Expedition to Australia (1800-1804)”, Forum for Modern Language Studies, special number on ‘Interrupted Itineraries’, 49, 4, 2013, pp. 457-471.
With J. Fornasiero, “The Acquisitive Eye? French Observations in the Pacific from Bougainville to Baudin“, in J. West-Sooby (ed.), Discovery and Empire: the French in the South Seas, Adelaide, University of Adelaide Press, 2013, pp.
“Introduction”, in J. West-Sooby (ed.), Discovery and Empire: The French in the South Seas, Adelaide, University of Adelaide Press, 2013, pp. 1-14.
“A Case of Peripheral Vision: Spanish and French Perceptions of the British Colony at Port Jackson“, in J. West-Sooby (ed.), Discovery and Empire: the French in the South Seas, Adelaide, University of Adelaide Press, 2013, pp. 141-169.
With J. Fornasiero, “Cartography as Narrative: the Maps of the Baudin Expedition”, in Rupert Gerritsen & Peter Reynders (eds), The Freycinet Map of 1811: the 200th Anniversary of the Publication of the First Map of Australia, Canberra, Australia on the Map, 2012, pp. 20-32.
With J. Fornasiero, “Naming and Shaming: The Baudin Expedition and the Nomenclature of Terra Australis”, in A. Scott, A. Hiatt, C. McIlroy & C. Wortham (eds), European Perceptions of Terra Australis, London, Ashgate, 2011, pp. 165-184.
“Une expédition sous haute surveillance: le voyage aux Terres Australes vu par les Anglais“, in M. Jangoux (ed.), Portés par l’air du temps, les voyages de Nicolas Baudin, Etudes sur le XVIIIe siècle, 38, 2010, pp. 187-201.
With J. Fornasiero, “Doing it by the Book: Breaking the Reputation of Nicolas Baudin“, in J. Fornasiero & C. Mrowa-Hopkins (eds), Explorations and Encounters in French, Adelaide, University of Adelaide Press, 2010, pp. 135-164.
With J. Fornasiero & P. Monteath, “Old Quarrels and New Approaches: Matthew Flinders and Nicolas Baudin“, South Australian Geographical Journal, 106, 2007, pp. 1-15.
“Baudin, Flinders and the Scientific Voyage“, in M.S. Rivière & K. Issur (eds), Baudin et Flinders dans l’océan Indien: Voyages, Découvertes, Rencontre, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2007, pp. 179-194.
With J. Fornasiero & P. Monteath, “Hydrographic Reputations: Matthew Flinders, Nicolas Baudin and South Australia’s Unknown Coast“, Hydrographic Journal, 121, 2006, pp. 17-23.
With J. Fornasiero, “A Cordial Encounter? The Meeting of Nicolas Baudin and Matthew Flinders (8-9 April 1802)“, French History and Civilization: Papers from the George Rudé Seminar, 1, 2005, pp. 53-61.
With J. Fornasiero, “An Appetite for Discovery. The Culinary Adventures of Matthew Flinders and Nicolas Baudin in Terra Australis“, in A. L. Martin & B. Santich (eds), Gastronomic Encounters, Brompton, SA, East Street Publications, 2004, pp. 21-34.
“Le Sourire grinçant du capitaine Baudin“, Australian Journal of French Studies, 41, 2, 2004, pp. 79-97.
With J. Fornasiero, “Notes in the Margin: Bougainville, Freycinet and the Baudin Expedition“, Australian Journal of French Studies, 41, 2, 2004, pp. 186-193.
With J. Fornasiero, “Baudin’s Books“, Australian Journal of French Studies, 39, 2, 2002, pp. 215-249.
With J. Fornasiero, “Taming the Unknown: The Representation of Terra Australis by the Baudin Expedition 1801-1803“, in A. Chittleborough, G.Dooley, B. Glover & R. Hosking (eds), Alas, for the Pelicans! Flinders, Baudin and Beyond. Essays and Poems, Kent Town, Wakefield Press, 2002, pp. 59-80.
Translations
With J. Fornasiero, Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, Painter and Naturalist: A Forgotten Treasure (English Translation of Cédric Crémière & Gabrielle Baglione, Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, peintre et naturaliste, un trésor oublié, 2009), Paris, MkF éditions, 2016.
With J. Fornasiero, “The Artists of the Baudin Expedition: Charles-Alexandre Lesueur and Nicolas-Martin Petit” (English translation of J. Bonnemains, “Les Artistes de l’expédition Baudin: Charles-Alexandre Lesueur et Nicolas-Martin Petit”), in Sarah Thomas (ed.), The Encounter 1802. Art of the Flinders and Baudin Voyages, Adelaide, Art Gallery of South Australia, 2002, pp. 126-138.