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Trained as both a historian and an economist, Professor Desbarats is a founding member of the听听Her research and writing concerns mainly the history of the early modern colonial state, particularly its financial aspects.听听In both her teaching and writing, she has a deep interest in decolonizing French imperial history, beginning with narratives relating to New France.听听She has published historiographic pieces on that topic in journals such as the听William and Mary Quarterly, the听Revue d鈥檋istoire de l鈥橝m茅rique fran莽aise听and the听Journal of Early American History.听听Her attempts to understand "early modern" indigenous vantage points have led her to think differently about the financing of empires, and the history of economic thought itself.听听Canada鈥檚 seventeenth-century playing-card currency appears less as a picturesque footnote known only to monetary specialists, and more of a window into technologies of imperial violence and expansion.听听Such themes are explored in her SSHRC-financed book- in-progress, 鈥淢oney and Empire in New France.鈥� In the same spirit, she is also co-writing, with Allan Greer, 鈥淣ew France: A Concise History,鈥� under contract with Oxford University Press.

听In cooperation with the Jesuit Archives in Montreal, and with graduate students Fannie Dionne and Sandra-Lynn Leclaire, she is also engaged in a pilot project to identify, transcribe and digitize early modern iroquoian/French听language material written down by Jesuit missionaries