Eugene Henry

Ph.D. Candidate

B.A. Honours (University of Toronto), M.A. History (Concordia), B.Ed. (OISE U of T)
Email Eugene Henry

Current Program (including year of entry): Ph.D. History (2023)

Supervisor:

Academic Interests:

French history, American history, environmental history, transnational history, history of wine, terroir, place, sensory history, food history, commodity regimes, labour history.

Select Publications and Current Projects:

Projects:

2023-2024 Co-Chair Underhill Graduate Student Colloquium “Echoes: Memory, Narrativity, and Dimensions of Historical Discourse.”

Publications:

Henry, Eugene. “I, Telemarketer.” In Lynne Gaetz (ed.) The Writer’s World: Paragraphs and Essays, 2nd ed. Toronto: Prentice Hall, (2008).

Henry, Eugene. “In the Shadow of the Bomb’s Apocalypse: American Culture in the Nuclear Age, 1957-1963.” MA Thesis, Concordia, 2007.

Select Conference Contributions:

“Prime Sites: Perceptions of Soil and Geological Determinism in Late 20th Century Viticulture.” Underhill Graduate Student Colloquium (February 2025)

“Naked Truths in the Climat: (Re)constructions of Viticultural Heritage and Climatic Shifts in Burgundy.” 17th Annual Heritage Conservation Symposium at Library and Archives Canada, (April 2025)

Teaching Experience:

Teaching Assistant: Europe in War and Cold War HIST 1004 (S. Eedy), Winter 2025; Social History of Alcohol HIST 3109 (R. Phillips), Winter & Fall 2024.

Social History of Alcohol HIST 3109, Guest Lecture on Prohibition (November 2024)

Select Wine Education Workshops: “Burgundy vs. Beaujolais: A History” for the Future Design School, (Spring 2023); “French Revolution: Bread & Wine” for the staff of Greenwood College School (Spring 2022).

Greenwood College School – Independent school in Toronto, Ontario:

Department Head: History & Social Science, 2020-2023.

History Teacher: World History (CHY4U); American History (CHA3U); Interdisciplinary Studies (IDC4U); Canadian History since WW1 (CHC2D), 2012-2023.

Description of Research:

Drawing upon cultural history, environmental history, and transnational history, my doctoral project examines why the polymorphic French concept of terroir, originally articulated as a combination of geographical, cultural, and human influences that constituted a unique place, came to almost exclusively designate an amalgam of geographically determined environmental factors. I am studying how the concept of terroir, which overtly carried considerable cultural freight, became scientized around the apparently non-human factors of climate, soil, and physical geography. In itself, this constitutes an intriguing central element of terroir: the tensions between local and universal knowledge.

Many of the debates on terroir implicitly intersect with constructivist understandings of nature through explorations of authenticity, locality, identity, and place. Analyzing these debates illuminates the power of these cultural constructions, revealing how shifting, socially constructed concepts of value and taste underpin often elitist notions of delimited locales. I will engage with this discourse by charting how terroir was strategically deployed in different regions. Extending the scope of my research to include the United States, I will consider the extent to which the American experiences of incipient popular ecology and environmentalism led to a paradigmatic shift in conceptions of terroir in the second half of the 20th century. It will address the increasing need to understand the complex entanglements of nature and culture amid the political pressures of internationalism and globalization.