Tiphaine Lours, Class of 2022

>Can you tell us about your academic background?

After leaving high school with a Baccalaureate in Economics and Social Studies, I enrolled in the dual degree in History and Social Sciences at Sciences Po and Sorbonne University. I wanted a course that would be as interdisciplinary as possible, while also cultivating my passion for history through the courses taught at the Sorbonne.
During my third year abroad, I did an exchange in the archaeology department at University College Cork in Ireland. While I was there, I discovered the subdiscipline of paleopathology, which studies diseases and degenerative changes in past populations. This introduction to archaeology had a profound impact on me and completely transformed my vision of the historical discipline. When I returned to France to enrol in the Master’s in History at the School of Research, I felt that it was essential for me to work on a subject relating to the history of the body for my master’s thesis.
I therefore decided to put the anatomical skills I had recently acquired in Ireland to use by studying the history of medicine. My master’s thesis, supervised by Paul-André Rosental, looks at the history of tissue transplants in France between 1820 and 1880, and was awarded INSERM History Committee Prize for 2020. At the end of my master's degree, I was selected to represent the School of Research as Student of Honour at the 2022 graduation ceremony.
My academic career is not over yet because from September 2022, I will be beginning my first year of a PhD at the Sciences Po Centre for History and the SPHERE Research Unit.

What inspired your interest in history?

My passion for history goes back to my childhood: I vividly remember my fifth-grade teacher's lessons on the French Revolution! Of course, it was not until much later, when I started at university, that I discovered history as an academic discipline. At that point, I was able to appreciate the real wonder of the subject, which combines academic rigour and creativity, both in the way in which new historical topics are thought up and in the methods that researchers use to explore these original avenues of research. I should add that meeting Julie Pilorget, a doctor of medieval history, during my dual bachelor’s degree was fundamental in inspiring my career plans in history: it’s thanks to her example that I allowed myself to dream of a career in research. 

What skills did you gain from your years as a student at the School of Research?

The Master’s in History equipped me with a solid base of historiographic skills and knowledge, thanks to the range of courses offered and my discussions with teaching staff. The experience of writing my thesis also taught me how to conduct an extended research project in relative autonomy: coming up with a topic and a research question, choosing suitable methods for examining the source material, consulting archives, presenting my conclusions clearly and so on. The thesis process is very instructive because it pushes students both to explore a topic in depth and to synthesise the salient elements of the research. It also allows students to develop their academic writing skills, since historical writing has to reconcile clear communication of academic findings with literary flare and convincing storytelling.
On a more personal level, the research seminars of the Master’s, which encourage oral participation, gave me greater confidence in myself and in the legitimacy of my contributions to group discussions. This confidence also helped me to respond positively to criticism from others throughout the thesis-writing process, and to use it to improve my work and research methods.

What lecturer or course made the greatest impression on you?

It’s hard to narrow it down when there were so many rich discussions with lecturers across the different courses: they were all remarkably responsive and willing to help whenever I had questions, so I thank them for that. In particular, my thesis supervisor, Paul-André Rosental, taught me a huge amount over the course of the three years of the Master’s programme: his expertise, rigorous standards as well as generosity made the thesis an enriching and satisfying exercise. Elissa Mailänder, who had already inspired me during my second year at the Undergraduate College in her course “Gender, Sexuality and Mass Dictatorship: Revisiting Nazi Germany”, also made a big impression on me with her often emotionally demanding research topics and her gift for teaching.

What are your memories of your school, class and lecturers?

Since I have a disability, my Master’s at the School of Research was adapted to run over three years. The ease with which the necessary adjustments were put in place, together with the administrative staff’s regular monitoring of my evolving needs, made the years of the course particularly smooth for me from an accessibility perspective.
That said, several semesters of the degree were majorly disrupted by the various lockdowns and health regulations that came with the Covid-19 pandemic. Accessing archives proved complicated and interactions between students and faculty were also transformed by the new remote learning mechanisms. Despite these limitations, the diversity and complementarity of the seminars offered mean that my overriding memory is of an intense intellectual stimulation. My discussions with course mates were also fascinating and were doubly formative, contributing both to the gestation of my research and to the evolution of some of my own opinions on a variety of historiographical debates.

What are your plans now that you have graduated?

This first experience of research gained during my Master’s degree has convinced me to continue my studies in a PhD. I loved working on the history of tissue transplants between 1820 and 1880 for my dissertation and there was no way I could abandon the topic after only three years, given all the fascinating questions that it raises. So I applied for various PhD funding contracts, with a research proposal intended as an extension of my master’s thesis: it aims to study the development of medical expertise and operating practices relating to tissue and organ transplants in France between 1820 and 1920. Several of my funding applications were successful, so, as of September 2022, I will be undertaking a PhD in the History of Medicine at the Sciences Po Centre for History and at SPHERE, a CNRS research unit attached to Paris Cité University.

Do you have any advice for students hoping to apply for the Master’s in History?

I think it’s essential to find a research topic that you are especially interested in, given the amount of time you will spend on it over the course of the Master's, and given the periods of stress that the work can lead to. You also need to be open-minded enough to explore all potential avenues of research, so that you can let yourself be surprised by some of the results you obtain. Finally, on the point of disability, never censor yourself and don’t be afraid to aim high: the administrative staff of the Master’s in History are more than willing to support you and to ensure that your studies fully are accessible.

=> Tiphaine Lours was our honorary graduate at the Graduation Ceremony on 22 June 2022. Read her speech

Learn more

• The Master’s in History

=> See all the Graduates' Portraits

[ September 2022 ]