Pub Date : 2018-09-01DOI: 10.3167/fpcs.2018.360304
Melanie C. Hawthorne
This article assesses the work of best-selling French historian Ivan Jablonka by setting his work in the context of biographies of ordinary people and by evaluating the success of his stated goal of reconciling lifewriting with social sciences. The article attempts to explicate his methodology of “searching for what is already found,” and considers the relevance of the critique of historicism in general articulated by some branches of the social sciences. It concludes that there is more to restorative biography than merely an explanation of causality.
{"title":"Searching for What Is Already Found","authors":"Melanie C. Hawthorne","doi":"10.3167/fpcs.2018.360304","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/fpcs.2018.360304","url":null,"abstract":"This article assesses the work of best-selling French historian Ivan\u0000Jablonka by setting his work in the context of biographies of ordinary people\u0000and by evaluating the success of his stated goal of reconciling lifewriting\u0000with social sciences. The article attempts to explicate his methodology of\u0000“searching for what is already found,” and considers the relevance of the critique\u0000of historicism in general articulated by some branches of the social sciences.\u0000It concludes that there is more to restorative biography than merely\u0000an explanation of causality.","PeriodicalId":35271,"journal":{"name":"French Politics, Culture & Society","volume":"88 23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84072228","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-01DOI: 10.3167/FPCS.2018.360302
Sarah Fishman
Although published in 2014, Jablonka’s History is a Contemporary Literature provides important insights into the Trump phenomenon. Why does a significant portion of the American population overlook Trump’s litany of lies and falsehoods? Journalist Adam Kirsch argued after the election that popular culture, Reality TV for example, blurred the line between fiction and truth, creating a “post-truth” atmosphere that paved the way for Trump. Kirsch echoes Jablonka, who advocates that historians use literary techniques in the interest of truth. Jablonka insists that history as contemporary literature must rest on historical research and methodology, using good historical story-telling to reach broader audiences, increase knowledge and deepen understanding. Jablonka’s manifesto defines writing history as a form of public service and presciently warns of the potentially catastrophic results of relinquishing the quest for historical truth.
{"title":"Jablonka's History","authors":"Sarah Fishman","doi":"10.3167/FPCS.2018.360302","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/FPCS.2018.360302","url":null,"abstract":"Although published in 2014, Jablonka’s History is a Contemporary Literature provides important insights into the Trump phenomenon. Why does a significant portion of the American population overlook Trump’s litany of lies and falsehoods? Journalist Adam Kirsch argued after the election that popular culture, Reality TV for example, blurred the line between fiction and truth, creating a “post-truth” atmosphere that paved the way for Trump. Kirsch echoes Jablonka, who advocates that historians use literary techniques in the interest of truth. Jablonka insists that history as contemporary literature must rest on historical research and methodology, using good historical story-telling to reach broader audiences, increase knowledge and deepen understanding. Jablonka’s manifesto defines writing history as a form of public service and presciently warns of the potentially catastrophic results of relinquishing the quest for historical truth.","PeriodicalId":35271,"journal":{"name":"French Politics, Culture & Society","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91238659","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-01DOI: 10.3167/fpcs.2018.360307
I. Jablonka
Amid the current crisis in the humanities and the human sciences, researchers should take up the challenge of writing more effectively. Rather than clinging to forms inherited from the nineteenth century, they should invent new ways to captivate readers, while also providing better demonstrations of their research. Defining problems, drawing on a multitude of sources, carrying out investigations, taking journeys in time and space: these methods of inquiry are as much literary opportunities as cognitive tools. They invite experimentation in writing across disciplines, trying out different lines of reasoning, shuttling back and forth between past and present, describing the process of discovery, and using the narrative “I.” We can address the public creatively, decompartmentalize disciplines, and encourage encounters between history and literature, sociology and cinema, anthropology and graphic novels—all without compromising intellectual rigor. Now more than ever, the human sciences need to assert their place in the polis.
{"title":"The Future of the Human Sciences","authors":"I. Jablonka","doi":"10.3167/fpcs.2018.360307","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/fpcs.2018.360307","url":null,"abstract":"Amid the current crisis in the humanities and the human sciences,\u0000researchers should take up the challenge of writing more effectively. Rather\u0000than clinging to forms inherited from the nineteenth century, they should\u0000invent new ways to captivate readers, while also providing better demonstrations\u0000of their research. Defining problems, drawing on a multitude of sources,\u0000carrying out investigations, taking journeys in time and space: these methods\u0000of inquiry are as much literary opportunities as cognitive tools. They invite\u0000experimentation in writing across disciplines, trying out different lines of reasoning,\u0000shuttling back and forth between past and present, describing the\u0000process of discovery, and using the narrative “I.” We can address the public\u0000creatively, decompartmentalize disciplines, and encourage encounters between\u0000history and literature, sociology and cinema, anthropology and graphic\u0000novels—all without compromising intellectual rigor. Now more than ever,\u0000the human sciences need to assert their place in the polis.","PeriodicalId":35271,"journal":{"name":"French Politics, Culture & Society","volume":"59 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82313071","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-01DOI: 10.3167/FPCS.2018.360305
Donald Reid
This essay examines how two French individuals in the third generation of Holocaust victims/survivors, Christophe Boltanski and Ivan Jablonka, research and present their grandparents and how they challenge contemporary memory culture. Their works differ in their ambitions and the strategies used to achieve them, but both Boltanski and Jablonka take the most disrespected of historical genres, the history of the author’s family, and reveal its potential in an arena where the duty to remember what was done to Jews as a group can obscure the complex individuals who were victims. These forgotten selves and what they reveal about the societies in which they lived are the subject of Boltanski’s and Jablonka’s work. Particular attention is devoted to the Communist parties in Poland and France and the relations of their grandparents to them.
{"title":"To Bear Witness After the Era of the Witness","authors":"Donald Reid","doi":"10.3167/FPCS.2018.360305","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/FPCS.2018.360305","url":null,"abstract":"This essay examines how two French individuals in the third generation\u0000of Holocaust victims/survivors, Christophe Boltanski and Ivan\u0000Jablonka, research and present their grandparents and how they challenge\u0000contemporary memory culture. Their works differ in their ambitions and the\u0000strategies used to achieve them, but both Boltanski and Jablonka take the\u0000most disrespected of historical genres, the history of the author’s family, and\u0000reveal its potential in an arena where the duty to remember what was done\u0000to Jews as a group can obscure the complex individuals who were victims.\u0000These forgotten selves and what they reveal about the societies in which they\u0000lived are the subject of Boltanski’s and Jablonka’s work. Particular attention\u0000is devoted to the Communist parties in Poland and France and the relations\u0000of their grandparents to them.","PeriodicalId":35271,"journal":{"name":"French Politics, Culture & Society","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89210747","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-01DOI: 10.3167/FPCS.2018.360303
J. Fette
This article melds family history with History, tracing the lives of my daughter’s grandparents, Marcelle Libraty and Pinhas Cohen. Products of the social mobility and integration offered by the Alliance israélite universelle, they became schoolteachers in Morocco and opted for France after independence. Currently in their eighties, Marcelle and Pinhas’s lives are connected to sweeping events in history: French colonialism, Vichy anti- Semitism, Moroccan independence, Jewish emigration. Inspired by Ivan Jablonka’s L’Histoire des grandparents que je n’ai pas eus, I experiment as both narrator of the past and participant in the family story, and demonstrate new ways of writing history. This auto-historiographical project shows how a family succeeds in preserving identities of origin and maintaining relationships despite socio-political upheaval and global mobility.
{"title":"From Casablanca to Houston","authors":"J. Fette","doi":"10.3167/FPCS.2018.360303","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/FPCS.2018.360303","url":null,"abstract":"This article melds family history with History, tracing the lives of\u0000my daughter’s grandparents, Marcelle Libraty and Pinhas Cohen. Products of\u0000the social mobility and integration offered by the Alliance israélite universelle,\u0000they became schoolteachers in Morocco and opted for France after\u0000independence. Currently in their eighties, Marcelle and Pinhas’s lives are\u0000connected to sweeping events in history: French colonialism, Vichy anti-\u0000Semitism, Moroccan independence, Jewish emigration. Inspired by Ivan\u0000Jablonka’s L’Histoire des grandparents que je n’ai pas eus, I experiment as both\u0000narrator of the past and participant in the family story, and demonstrate\u0000new ways of writing history. This auto-historiographical project shows how\u0000a family succeeds in preserving identities of origin and maintaining relationships\u0000despite socio-political upheaval and global mobility.","PeriodicalId":35271,"journal":{"name":"French Politics, Culture & Society","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80530572","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-01DOI: 10.3167/fpcs.2018.360306
Nathan Bracher
With its compelling portrait of a young woman who was savagely murdered after having endured various forms of male violence throughout her life, Ivan Jablonka’s Laëtitia ou la fin des hommes also provides a stark depiction of French society and politics in the second decade of the twentyfirst century. In deconstructing the sensationalism of the conventional crime story, the researcher-narrator seeks to draw as near as possible to the vivacious, yet fragile young woman while at the same time viewing her life in relation to various sociological and historical contexts defining its parameters. Jablonka’s own singular investment in the investigation and narration of Laëtitia thus poses the question of subjectivity in the social sciences. Recalling the landmark stances of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Emmanuel Lévinas, this article argues that Jablonka’s insistence on the explicit intervention of the researcher-narrator offers an epistemological gain and more precise knowledge.
{"title":"Jablonka et la question du sujet en sciences sociales","authors":"Nathan Bracher","doi":"10.3167/fpcs.2018.360306","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/fpcs.2018.360306","url":null,"abstract":"With its compelling portrait of a young woman who was savagely\u0000murdered after having endured various forms of male violence throughout\u0000her life, Ivan Jablonka’s Laëtitia ou la fin des hommes also provides a stark\u0000depiction of French society and politics in the second decade of the twentyfirst\u0000century. In deconstructing the sensationalism of the conventional crime\u0000story, the researcher-narrator seeks to draw as near as possible to the vivacious,\u0000yet fragile young woman while at the same time viewing her life in relation to\u0000various sociological and historical contexts defining its parameters. Jablonka’s\u0000own singular investment in the investigation and narration of Laëtitia thus\u0000poses the question of subjectivity in the social sciences. Recalling the landmark\u0000stances of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Emmanuel Lévinas, this article argues\u0000that Jablonka’s insistence on the explicit intervention of the researcher-narrator\u0000offers an epistemological gain and more precise knowledge.","PeriodicalId":35271,"journal":{"name":"French Politics, Culture & Society","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73248956","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-01DOI: 10.3167/fpcs.2018.360308
Christina B. Carroll
In the 1880s and 1890s, a wave of histories of colonial empire appeared in France. But even though they were produced by members of similar republican colonial advocacy groups, these accounts narrated the history of empire in contradictory ways. Some positioned “colonial empire” as an enterprise with ancient roots, while others treated modern colonization as distinct. Some argued that French colonial empire was a unique enterprise in line with republican ideals, but others insisted that it was a European-wide project that transcended domestic political questions. By tracing the differences between these accounts, this article highlights the flexibility that characterized late nineteenth-century republican understandings of empire. It also points to the ways republican advocates for colonial expansion during this period looked both historically and comparatively to legitimize their visions for empire’s future in France.
{"title":"Republican Imperialisms","authors":"Christina B. Carroll","doi":"10.3167/fpcs.2018.360308","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/fpcs.2018.360308","url":null,"abstract":"In the 1880s and 1890s, a wave of histories of colonial empire\u0000appeared in France. But even though they were produced by members of similar\u0000republican colonial advocacy groups, these accounts narrated the history\u0000of empire in contradictory ways. Some positioned “colonial empire” as an\u0000enterprise with ancient roots, while others treated modern colonization as\u0000distinct. Some argued that French colonial empire was a unique enterprise in\u0000line with republican ideals, but others insisted that it was a European-wide\u0000project that transcended domestic political questions. By tracing the differences\u0000between these accounts, this article highlights the flexibility that characterized\u0000late nineteenth-century republican understandings of empire. It\u0000also points to the ways republican advocates for colonial expansion during\u0000this period looked both historically and comparatively to legitimize their\u0000visions for empire’s future in France.","PeriodicalId":35271,"journal":{"name":"French Politics, Culture & Society","volume":"1720 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86520335","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-06-01DOI: 10.3167/fpcs.2018.360205
E. Welch
During the presidency of Charles de Gaulle (1958–1969), state-led spatial planning transformed the Paris region. The aim of the Schéma directeur d’aménagement et d’urbanisme de la région de Paris (1965) was to improve urban life through modernization; but its scale and ambition meant that it came to represent the hubris of state power. This article examines the role of discourse and narrative in state planning. It explores the role of planning discourses in the production of space, as well as stories told about planning by the planners and those who live with their actions. It investigates perceptions of power in post-war France, placing the Gaullist view of the state as a force for good in the context of contemporary critiques of state power. Addressing the relationship between power, resistance, and critique, it sees the environments produced by spatial planning as complex objects of dispute, enmeshed in conflicting hopes and visions of the future.
在戴高乐总统任期内(1958-1969),国家主导的空间规划改变了巴黎地区。模式的目的说话'amenagement et d 'urbanisme de la地区巴黎(1965)通过现代化建设是改善城市生活;但它的规模和野心意味着它代表了国家权力的傲慢。本文考察了话语和叙事在国家规划中的作用。它探讨了规划话语在空间生产中的作用,以及规划者和那些与他们的行动生活在一起的人讲述的关于规划的故事。它调查了战后法国对权力的看法,将戴高乐主义的国家观点置于当代国家权力批评的背景下。它解决了权力、抵抗和批判之间的关系,将空间规划所产生的环境视为复杂的争议对象,陷入了相互冲突的希望和未来的愿景。
{"title":"Objects of Dispute","authors":"E. Welch","doi":"10.3167/fpcs.2018.360205","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/fpcs.2018.360205","url":null,"abstract":"During the presidency of Charles de Gaulle (1958–1969), state-led spatial planning transformed the Paris region. The aim of the Schéma directeur d’aménagement et d’urbanisme de la région de Paris (1965) was to improve urban life through modernization; but its scale and ambition meant that it came to represent the hubris of state power. This article examines the role of discourse and narrative in state planning. It explores the role of planning discourses in the production of space, as well as stories told about planning by the planners and those who live with their actions. It investigates perceptions of power in post-war France, placing the Gaullist view of the state as a force for good in the context of contemporary critiques of state power. Addressing the relationship between power, resistance, and critique, it sees the environments produced by spatial planning as complex objects of dispute, enmeshed in conflicting hopes and visions of the future.","PeriodicalId":35271,"journal":{"name":"French Politics, Culture & Society","volume":"63 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89095463","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-06-01DOI: 10.3167/FPCS.2018.360206
Itay Lotem
Between 1998 and 2006, the memory of slavery in France developed from a marginalized issue into a priority of the state. This article examines the process in which community activists and state actors interacted with and against one another to integrate remembrance and the commemoration of slavery and its abolitions into a Republican national narrative. It focuses on a series of actions from the protests against the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in 1998 to the creation of the 10 May National Memorial Day to Slavery and Its Abolitions in 2006. Basing its analysis on oral history interviews and various publications, this article argues that “memory activists”—and particularly new anti-racist groups—mobilized the memory of slavery to address issues of community identity and resistance within the context of twenty-first-century republicanism. In so doing, they articulated a new kind of black identity in France.
{"title":"Between Resistance and the State","authors":"Itay Lotem","doi":"10.3167/FPCS.2018.360206","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/FPCS.2018.360206","url":null,"abstract":"Between 1998 and 2006, the memory of slavery in France developed from a marginalized issue into a priority of the state. This article examines the process in which community activists and state actors interacted with and against one another to integrate remembrance and the commemoration of slavery and its abolitions into a Republican national narrative. It focuses on a series of actions from the protests against the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in 1998 to the creation of the 10 May National Memorial Day to Slavery and Its Abolitions in 2006. Basing its analysis on oral history interviews and various publications, this article argues that “memory activists”—and particularly new anti-racist groups—mobilized the memory of slavery to address issues of community identity and resistance within the context of twenty-first-century republicanism. In so doing, they articulated a new kind of black identity in France.","PeriodicalId":35271,"journal":{"name":"French Politics, Culture & Society","volume":"45 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76756123","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-06-01DOI: 10.3167/fpcs.2018.360202
Elise Franklin
{"title":"A Bridge Across the Mediterranean: Nafissa Sid Cara and the Politics of Emancipation during the Algerian War","authors":"Elise Franklin","doi":"10.3167/fpcs.2018.360202","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/fpcs.2018.360202","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35271,"journal":{"name":"French Politics, Culture & Society","volume":"1 1","pages":"28-52"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89327235","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}