From 2007-11-30 09:00:00 until 2007-11-30 18:00:00 FROM THE OLD REGIME TO THE NEW Interpreting the French Revolution with Isser Woloch Maison Française (Buell Hall), East Gallery Columbia University New York City Friday, November 30, 2007 9 a.m. Coffee 9:20 a.m. Welcome 9:30 a.m. Session 1: Institutions from the Old Regime to the New Chair, Alan Forrest, University of York From Slaves to Citizens and Back Again: The Colonies and the New Regime 1789-1805, Miranda Spieler, University of Arizona Beaumarchais and the Bastille: An Inadvertent Aristocrat in Revolutionary Paris, Gregory S. Brown, University of Nevada-Las Vegas Women and Criminal Justice in Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, Robert Allen, Stephen F. Austin State University A Civilizing Institution: The Rural Press in the French Revolution, Anthony Crubaugh, Illinois State University Institutions and Ideas: Why Welfare State Reform is So Difficult in France, Timothy B. Smith, Queens University, Ontario 11:10 a.m. Coffee 11:20 a.m. Session 2: Warfare: State-building and Political Culture in the Revolutionary Era Chair, David A. Bell, Johns Hopkins University The Conquest of the Periphery: Citizenship and Conscription under the Consulate and the Empire, Michael Broers, Oxford University War, Citizenship and the State in Revolutionary France, Alan Forrest, University of York Woloch, War, and Women, John Lynn, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 12:30 p.m. Lunch 2 p.m. Welcome, Alan Brinkley, Provost, Columbia University 2:10 p.m. Session 3: Political Economy: Civil Society and Revolutionary Transformations Chair, Jerrold E. Seigel, New York University Antoine Barnave, l'affaire des colonies and the Constitutional Monarchy, Paul B. Cheney, University of Chicago The Who Lost the Americas Debate of the Consular Corps in the 1790s, Allan Potofsky, Université de Paris 8 Economic Patriotism in the New Civic Order of the French Revolution, Charles Sullivan, University of Dallas Bourgeois Baby, Marxist Bathwater, Colin Jones, Queen Mary, University of London 3:30 p.m. Coffee 3:40 p.m. Session 4: Interpreting the French Revolution Chair, Jean-Paul Bertaud, Université de Paris 1 (Sorbonne) The Center-Periphery Problem during the Terror: The Perspective of the Robespierre Brothers During the Year II, Sergio Luzzatto, Università di Torino Interpréter l'histoire de la capitale en révolution, Raymonde Monnier, CNRS and Ecole Normale Supérieure, Lyons The Origins of a Revolutionary Mentality in 1789: An Experiment in Serial Biography, Timothy Tackett, University of California-Irvine TBA, Bernard Gainot, Université de Paris 1 (Sorbonne) Neither Marx Nor Furet: The Reaffirmation of the Revolutions Democratic Legacy, Melvin Edelstein, William Paterson College Isser Woloch and la troisième voie, Carla Hesse, University of California-Berkeley With a Reply by Isser Woloch, Columbia University 5:45 p.m. Reception Sponsors: Sterling-Currier Fund; Department of History, Columbia University; Vice President for Arts and Sciences, Columbia University; Consortium for Intellectual and Cultural History, New York City; Department of History, Barnard College; Maison Française, Columbia University |
From 2007-11-15 12:01:00 until 2007-11-15 14:00:00 "Negociating the Bourdieu Legacy in the Social Sciences From the Habitus To an Individual Heritage Of Dispositions" By Bernard Lahire (ENS, France) Event organized by the Alliance Program co-sponsored by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy Thursday, November 15, 2007 Columbia University/Department of Sociology 411 Fayerweather Hall 12:00 PM It is argued that the notions sociologists use to conceptualize psychological processes occurring at the level of social groups capitalize too strongly on the idea that these processes are general and homogeneous in nature. In particular, the notion of disposition, which is central to Bourdieus theory of the habitus and which is widely employed in sociological research, is found to rest upon these tacit and problematic assumptions, which have never been tested empirically. Instead, we should envision that social agents have developed a broad array of dispositions, each of which owes its availability, composition, and force to the socialization process in which it was acquired. A focus on the plurality of dispositions is at the core of a sociology at the level of the individual. About the Speaker Bernard Lahire is a critical sociologist renown for the very distance he has taken from mainstream critical sociology. He is a specialist of social stratification from the angle of multiple dispositional theory. He has been Professor of Sociology at the École Normale Supérieure in France since 2002 and Director of the CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research) research group on socialization. He has been a visiting scholar (Research Associate) at the University of California, Berkeley and Visiting Professor at the University of Lausanne and University of Geneva. |
From 2007-11-08 12:30:00 until 2007-11-08 14:00:00 The French Left & The Democratic Party In Search for A New Identity? Gérard Grunberg / Irène Finel-Honigman (Sciences Po) (Columbia) Event organized by the Alliance Program. After a third consecutive defeat, the French Socialist party is at a crossroads, struggling to adapt to a rapidly changing world. Has the left wing of the party become so weak and demoralized that it will have to redefine itself toward the center? As French Socialists are being forced to reevaluate their system of values, American Democrats appear to be moving toward the right. In order to go beyond their base in 2008 and regain the White House will they have to court conservative and religious voters by redefining the identity of the Democratic party and reshaping definition of values? About the Speakers Gérard Grunberg is professor of political science and research director at CEVIPOF-CNRS (Sciences Po Paris). He has been Deputy Director of Sciences Po and Vice-Provost for Research until June 2007. He has published widely on political behavior and value systems, the French and European socialist parties, French and European public opinion and politics. He has been a visiting professor at many universities abroad, including NYU and Oxford. Irène Finel-Honigman is Adjunct Professor of International Affairs at the Institute for the Study of Europe, Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. She served in the Clinton Administration as Senior Advisor on Finance policy at the United States Department of Commerce. She has published extensively on European financial and corporate issues, international relations and French intellectual and financial history. |
From 2007-10-26 09:00:00 until 2007-10-27 18:00:00 Literary Histories of Literatures Lhistoire littéraire des écrivains : une histoire créatrice CLICK HERE FOR CONFERENCE WEB SITE Friday 26 Saturday 27 October 2007 Maison Française, Columbia University This event is free and open to the general public.
Seating will be on a first come, first served basis.
No tickets, no reservations necessary. Organizers Antoine Compagnon, Blanche W. Knopf Professor, Department of French and Romance Philology, Columbia University Collège de France, chaire de « Littérature française moderne et contemporaine : Histoire, critique, théorie ». Vincent Debaene, Assistant Professor, Department of French and Romance Philology, Columbia University Description The Department of French and Romance Philology of Columbia University, and the Department of French and Comparative Literature of the Université de Paris-Sorbonne organize a two-day international colloquium to be held on October 26-27, 2007, at the Maison française of Columbia University. Academic literary history, written by professors and scholars, has experienced its autonomous development, both as a discipline and as a genre, from the end of the 19th Century, and its advancement has been widely researched. In contrast, not much attention has been paid to an alternative history of literature, which is told by the authors themselves. However, writers, just as scholars, keep producing histories of literature. In their works just as in their writings or interviews on their works, they give shape to their collective venture, create genealogies and invent precursors, in a global construction which can either complement or compete with the official scholarly history. The purpose of this colloquium is to examine the literary history of writers writerly literary history vs. scholarly literary history as a creative one, that is, to analyze the formative role of this other literary history and literary memory for literature itself, for literature in progress. One can indeed consider that literature constantly re-invents itself while constructing its own past and that it gives shape to its own present and future through such gestures as: inventing traditions, re-evaluating ancient works and, above all, locating contemporary works within long-term history. What makes the past relevant for a writer? How did Surrealist genealogies, for instance, affect Surrealism itself? How did Prousts Remembrance of Things Past reorganize and rearrange the 17th and 19th Centuries for 20th-Century literature and thought? This colloquium follows a series of conferences devoted to the literary history of writers. This series started in May 2005 with the colloquium Classicism and the Moderns, that was held at Reid Hall and at the Bibliothèque municipale de Versailles. After two conferences devoted to collective works (Collections décrivains and Anthologies décrivains, held at Paris-Sorbonne University in June and September 2006), the colloquium Literary Histories of Literatures aims to go beyond the conventional opposition between writers and scholars and to show that literature is based upon a constant mixing of memory and a continuous re-invention of the past in other words, that literature itself is producing history. This colloquium will consider not only French literature in the strict sense, but also American and Francophone literature. American literature will furnish a powerful point of reference, since such notions as national literature or patrimonial literature are not as pervasive in the United States as they are in France. As for Francophone literature, it will serve to remind us that progressively throughout the 20th Century, literatures have lost their national roots and that, in a post-modern world, literary history always implies literary geography as well. We propose a four-part event. The first morning will be centered on the theoretical issue of the relationships between invention and memory. We will examine a series of contrasts: from literature as a heritage to the idea of a post-modern collection of quotations, or from the notion of national canon to the idea of world literature, we will question the geographical and historical variations of the relationship to the past. The afternoon will be devoted to the forms taken by criticism by writers (narratives, interviews, forewords, souvenirs, etc.). Those forms are often neglected, but they create a particular relationship to the past and play a crucial role in the constitution of the history and the memory of literature. The second day will concentrate on case studies, and will distinguish between positions specific representations of the past, competing with scholarly literary history and interventions which give shape to the history of literature and prepare its future. Each day will end with a keynote speech by a writer namely Assia Djebar and Edmund White who will discuss his relationship with the history of literature.. The colloquium Literary History of Literatures is part of an international program involving the following institutions: the research group Littératures françaises du XXe siècle (Paris-Sorbonne University); the Jacques-Petit Center (Franche-Comté University, Besançon, France); the Centre for the Study of Arts and Language (CRAL, CNRS-EHESS, Paris); the Department of Romance Philology of Bonn University; Germany, the Department of French and Romance Philology of Columbia University. More information at: www.fabula.org/hle. We expect the colloquium, which will investigate a variety of objects, but will maintain a clear single focus, to appeal not only to scholars but also to those in the general public who have an interest in the writing of history and in the relationship between history and literary creation. Sponsors -Sterling Currier Fund The Sterling Currier Fund, a bequest from Mrs Edith Sterling Currier, supports program of adult education at Columbia University and ad Reid Hall for the furtherance of Franco-American understanding. -French Ministry of Research and Higher Education. Lhistoire littéraire des écrivains : une histoire créatrice Literary Histories of Literatures SITE DE LA CONFERENCE
vendredi 26 - samedi 27 octobre 2007 Maison Française de Columbia University New York Organisateurs Antoine Compagnon, Blanche W. Knopf Professor, Department of French and Romance Philology, Columbia University Collège de France, chaire de « Littérature française moderne et contemporaine : Histoire, critique, théorie ». Vincent Debaene, Assistant Professor, Department of French and Romance Philology, Columbia University Description Le Département de Français et Philologie romane de Columbia University organise un colloque international de deux jours qui se tiendra les 26 et 27 octobre 2007, à la Maison française de Columbia University. Ce colloque fait partie du programme de recherche international intitulé « LHistoire littéraire des écrivains » et sera consacré à lhistoire littéraire des écrivains comme « histoire créatrice ». Lhistoire littéraire sest développée, à la fois comme discipline et comme genre, à partir de la fin du XIXe siècle, mais on ne sest guère intéressé à lhistoire de la littérature telle quelle est racontée par les écrivains eux-mêmes. Or, autant que les professeurs, les écrivains ne cessent de produire des histoires de la littérature. Dans leurs uvres ou dans des textes périphériques, ils pensent et configurent leur aventure collective, élaborent des généalogies, sinventent des précurseurs, dans une construction globale qui entre en relation de concurrence ou de complémentarité avec lhistoire littéraire savante. Le but de ce colloque est denvisager lhistoire littéraire des écrivains comme histoire créatrice, cest-à-dire denvisager le rôle constituant de lhistoire et de la mémoire littéraires pour une littérature en train de se faire. On peut en effet considérer que la littérature sinvente et se produit dans le geste de construction de son propre passé et que la création de traditions, la relecture ou la réévaluation duvres anciennes, et surtout linsertion dans lhistoire duvres contemporaines, donnent forme au présent et orientent lavenir de la littérature. Quest-ce quun passé littéraire pertinent pour un écrivain ? Quel a été leffet, par exemple, des généalogies surréalistes sur le surréalisme lui-même ? Comment luvre de Proust a-t-elle redisposé les XVIIe et XIXe siècles à destination du XXe siècle ? Ce colloque prend la suite dune série de travaux consacrés à « lhistoire littéraire des écrivains », entamés en mai 2005 par le colloque « Le classicisme des modernes », qui sétait tenu à Reid Hall et à la Bibliothèque municipale de Versailles. Après des conférences consacrées aux tentatives collectives (« Collections décrivains » et « Anthologies décrivains » qui ont eu lieu à lUniversité Paris-Sorbonne en juin 2006 et septembre 2006), il vise à dépasser lopposition trop schématique entre écrivains et professeurs, et à montrer que la littérature repose sur un incessant brassage mémoriel et une continuelle réinvention du passé autrement dit quelle est elle-même productrice dhistoire. Il prendra en considération, outre la littérature française, des uvres issues des littératures américaine et francophone. La littérature américaine fournira en effet un point de comparaison éclairant en ce que les notions de patrimoine et de littérature nationale sont moins prégnantes aux Etats-Unis quen France. Quant à la littérature francophone, elle viendra rappeler quau cours du XXe siècle les littératures se sont progressivement défaites de leur ancrage national et que, à lère post-moderne, une histoire littéraire est toujours en même temps une géographie littéraire. Nous proposons dorganiser cet événement autour de quatre axes de réflexion. La première matinée sera consacrée à la question théorique des rapports entre invention et mémoire. De la littérature comme patrimoine au « stock citationnel » post-moderne, du canon national à la littérature mondiale, on sinterrogera en particulier sur les variations historiques et géographiques de la relation au passé littéraire. Les travaux de laprès-midi envisageront les diverses formes que peut prendre la critique des écrivains (récit, entretiens, souvenirs, portraits
), formes souvent négligées mais qui, tant par leur mode décriture que par le rapport au passé quelles instituent, jouent un rôle crucial dans la constitution de lhistoire et de la mémoire littéraires. La seconde journée regroupera des études de cas, en distinguant entre des positions cest-à-dire des représentations singulières du passé qui sopposent à lhistoire littéraire savante et des interventions qui reconfigurent lhistoire de la littérature et la réorientent pour lavenir. Chaque journée sera conclue par la conférence dun écrivain - Assia Djebar et Edmund White qui apportera son témoignage quant au rôle du passé littéraire dans son travail de création. Ce colloque clôturera les travaux menés au sein du programme «L'Histoire littéraire des écrivains», projet de recherche international qui réunit des chercheurs de cinq équipes: l'équipe «Littératures françaises du XXe siècle» de l'Université Paris IV-Sorbonne; le Centre Jacques Petit de l'Université de Franche-Comté; le C.R.A.L. (Centre de recherche sur les arts et le langage (CNRS-EHESS)), le Département de Philologie romane de l'Université de Bonn, et le Department of French and Romance Philology de l'Université Columbia (New York). Pour plus dinformations : voir le site Web : www.fabula.org/hle Nous espérons que ce colloque, à la fois par la variété de ses objets et lunité de son questionnement, attirera un large public, la question des rapports entre histoire et création étant propre à toucher non seulement les spécialistes de littérature mais aussi ceux quintéressent la construction du passé et lécriture de lhistoire. Sponsors -Sterling Currier Fund Le Sterling Currier Fund, créé par Mrs Edith Sterling Currier, soutient les programmes déducation pour adultes à Columbia University et Reid Hall et vise à lapprofondissement des relations franco-américaines. -Ministère de la recherche et de lenseignement supérieur. |
From 2007-10-04 12:00:00 until 2007-10-04 14:00:00 The paper will provide theoretical, methodological and empirical perspectives on the social conditions of cultural production and the external constraints imposed on it, based on Pierre Bourdieus theory of field. It will focus on the example of writing in France from the 18th to the end of the 20th Century. A sociological analysis of the cultural fact, considered as a social fact, has to study the mediations between social conditions and cultural works. These mediations can be divided, for analytical purpose, into three groups of phenomena : first, the material conditions of production and circulation of the works; second, the modalities of their production by their authors; third, the conditions of their reception. The conditions for autonomy must be defined at each of these three levels. For this purpose, field theory will be confronted with other theories in sociology of professions, Marxism, cultural studies and literature. Gisèle Sapiro, has been a Director of studies for the CNRS since 2005 and currently teaches sociology and epistemology of social sciences at EHESS. (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales). Gisèle Sapiro wrote her thesis, under the supervision of Pierre Bourdieu. In 2000 she received the CNRS bronze medal for this work. The medal recognizes a researcher's first work which makes that person a specialist with talent in a particular field. Her work contributes to a sociology of intellectuals, from the end of the XIXth Century to the late 1960s. In La guerre des écrivains (1940-1953) [the writers' war, 1940 to 1953] published by fayard in 1999, she retraces the history of the conditions of intellectual output under the Nazi Occupation of France, and provides above all a reflection on symbolic power within the intellectual field, the exercise of this power by writers remaining disputed by other intellectual fractions. The recognition enjoyed by this work confirms the eminent position held by Gisèle Sapiro in her discipline. She has been since 2004 member of the executive committee of the Association Française de Sociologie (Association for French Sociology) A member of the redactional committee for the "Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales" "Mouvement Social" and "Sociologos", she is also a member of the following scientific committees : Poetics, Journal of Empirical Research on Culture, the Media and the Arts, Target, International Journal of Translation Studies, Translation Studies, and CoNTextes. Selected Bibliography La guerre des écrivains (1940-1953) [the writers' war, 1940 to 1953] (Fayard Pub.) With J. Heilbron et R. Lenoir dir. Pour une histoire des sciences sociales, Paris, Fayard, 2004 With L. Pinto et P. Champagne dir. Pierre Bourdieu, sociologue, Paris, Fayard, 2004. Articles (or book chapters) available in English "The Writers Responsibility in France: from Flaubert to Sartre", French Politics, Culture and Society, upcoming. |
| From 2007-11-27 19:00:00 until 2007-11-27 21:00:00 « Du Rocaille au « retour à lantique » : la peinture française au 18ème siècle », a talk in French by Marc Fumaroli. Dès la fin du XVIIème siècle, en plein règne du Grand roi, le grand goût de Versailles évolue dans le sens de la grâce. Mais dès les années 17O6-1713, qui concluent la longue et terrible guerre de Succession dEspagne, le goût parisien se détourne des pompes de Versailles et sinvente un style gracieux et piquant qui retentit dans la peinture, le théâtre, larchitecture, la décoration, la mode, un style laïc et privé qui saccorde à lart de vivre gaiement dans la ou les sociétés que lon sest choisies. Le « rocaille », dont les Saint- Aubin, objet actuellement dune exposition à la Frick Collection, ont été les meilleurs témoins, va exercer pendant près de quarante ans une fascination émerveillée sur toute lEurope des cours et des villes. Et voilà que soudain, à Paris même, dès I73O, le soupçon de décadence est jeté contre le « rocaille ». Commence la dévolution progressive du « rocaille », style du bonheur privé, dans le « retour à lantique », style de la vertu civique et militaire, dans lequel vivront la Révolution et lEmpire. Comment comprendre cet extraordinaire renversement de goût et de style ? Tel est le sujet de cette conférence. |
From 2007-11-15 12:00:00 until 2007-11-15 14:00:00 "Littérature et savoirs sociaux dans la France du premier XIXe siècle", a talk in French by Judith Lyon-Caen. This talk proposes a historical reading of the great realistic novels of the 1830s and 1840s mainly, novels by Balzac, Eugène Sue, and George Sand by focusing on the social uses of literature, that is, what readers of the time made of these texts. The period was characterized by a great anxiety concerning the opaque and newly fragmented social world arisen from the fall of the Ancien Régime, as well as a real frenzy of description and knowledge of this new social world. Dr. Lyon-Caen will discuss the links between realistic novels and the numerous writings dealing with the depiction and deciphering of society of that time from tableau de moeurs to serious social surveys , and will show how novels can be appropriated as accurate knowledge about the contemporary world. Judith Lyon-Caen is maître de conférences at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris. She graduated from the École Normale Supérieure and the Sorbonne in Paris. She is also a Professeur Agrégée. She specializes in nineteenth-century social and cultural history with a focus on the social uses of literature in nineteenth-century France. Her publications include La Lecture et la vie: Les usages du roman au temps de Balzac (2006). She is currently working on the relationship between literature and social imaginary in nineteenth-century France, meaning the social uses of literature and the interaction between literature and other types of discourses on society, in the context of the rise of human sciences. |
From 2007-11-07 19:00:00 until 2007-11-07 21:00:00 "Memories of Slave Trade, Slavery and Colonialism in France Today: Race and Citizenship", a talk in English by Françoise Vergès More than a century after the abolition of slavery in the French colonies (abolition of slavery on April 27th 1848), forty years after the end of the colonial empire, debates about slave trade, slavery and colonialism continue to be controversial in France. The semantic field has been occupied on the one hand with terms like repentance, apologies, responsibility and on the other hand with demands for a revision of the national narrative. The controversy has marginalized the political debate. Indeed, the commitment to an abstract universalism of rights or to a politics of moral reparation has led to the habit of casting every political choice in binary terms. In this light, the battle for a moralization of the vocabulary appears seductive to groups which find in that battle the possibility of holding a moral upper hand. That position is shared by groups who have pushed for an inscription of slave trade in the European narrative as well as by groups which reject this inscription. Yet, it will be unjust to put both of these positions on the same level. The first contains subversive elements for a revision of the ways in which citizenship has been conceived, on the ways in which the vocabulary of free market economy has colonized the social field, whereas the second position which has access to the medias, to the university seeks to depoliticizes the debate, situating it on the psychological and cultural field. This is why the debate on the memories of slave trade, slavery and colonialism are not just about finding the historical truth² on the past but about present political questions: the demand for a revision of the European narrative of progress without catastrophes, the relation between citizenship and race, and a reflection on the funding role of the economy of predation and disposability in capitalism. What is at stake is a revision of the national narrative, a reconfiguration of citizenship, a reflection on the role and place of race in French republicanism. The presentation will first trace the history of new social and cultural emergences: the "question noire," the 2005 riots, the position of historians, the law of February 2005, the role of the Comité pour le Mémoire de l'Esclavage, then turn to the political issues revealed by this debate and the consequences of the color line in France, and will finally discuss the project of a museum where these questions will be "visualized". Françoise Vergès is a Reader at the Center for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths College, University of London. She obtained her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley. Her thesis Monsters and Revolutionaries. Colonial Family Romance and Métissage, received the 1995 Mark Joseph Rozance Memorial Award and was published under the same title by Duke University Press in 1999. She is also the co-director with Carpanin Marimoutou of the Cultural and Scientific Direction of a forthcoming museum, Maison des civilisations et de lunité réunionnaise , and the vice-president of the Comité pour la Mémoire de lEsclavage, in application of the 2001 law on slave trade and slavery. |
From 2007-10-09 19:00:00 until 2007-10-09 20:30:00 Les enfants de la colonie: Les métis de lempire français entre sujétion et citoyenneté The colonial encounter in the French Empire produced tens of thousands of métis children. Most were the product of short-term relationships between European men and native women. Many were abandoned by their fathers and condemned to illegitimacy. Colonial elites considered them a threat because they blurred the sharp distinction between citizens and subjects on which the colonial order rested. Colonial authorities met this challenge with an array of social and legal efforts to resolve this ambiguityto «reclassify» the « métis problem » out of existence. These attempts led to the introduction of the notion of race in French law as a condition for citizenship in the colonial context. The management of the métis population within the imperial order invites to a broader exploration of the longue durée intersection between sexuality, race and citizenship and a questioning of the republican model of nationhood that has dominated histories of France since the 19th century. Emmanuelle Saada is an Associate professor in the Department of French and Romance Philology and the director of the Center for French and Francophone Studies. A sociologist and historian by training, she works on colonization and immigration in the Francophone context, with a special interest in the intersection of race, gender and citizenship and in the rule of law in situations of domination. Her book Les enfants de la colonie. Les métis de lempire français entre sujétion et citoyenneté was published by La Découverte earlier this year. |
From 2007-09-27 12:00:00 until 2007-09-27 14:00:00 "Whats Feminist Theory Got to do With It? Republicanism, Liberalism and the Politics of Childhood in France, 1919-1945 A talk by Laura Lee Downs, EHESS, CRH One of the most important contributions of second-wave feminist scholarship lay in its relentless unmasking of the profoundly political nature of the family, subverting common understandings of this institution as a site of harmonious and mutually beneficial interactions grounded in natural/biological relations. Unveiling the socio-political nature of the family was crucial to feminisms critical project, namely, extracting women as individuals from a collectivity in which their interests were too often assimilated to the needs and interests of those around them. Yet scholars have been strangely reluctant to apply this same insight to the study of children, preferring to leave their chosen object of study immersed in the sole context of their families. This paper interrogates that reluctance by exploring a particularly revealing case study, drawn from the archives of French municipal socialism, and then placing that study in comparative context. Such comparative reflection will enable us to historicize a set of ideas and practices around the rearing and education of working-class children, revealing the precise mechanisms whereby socially and historically specific practices and relationships around child-rearing are repeatedly reified as natural and inevitable, driven by the dictates of that age-old universal, biological necessity. Laura Lee Downs is a historian at the Centre de Recherches Hisotoriques at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales; this semester she is a visiting professor at the Institute of French Studies at New York University. She is the author of Manufacturing Inequality: Gender Division in the French and British Metalworking Industries, 1914-1939 (1995), Childhood in the Promised Land: Working-Class Movements and the Colonies de vacances in France, 1880-1960 (2002), Writing Gender History (2004); and a coeditor of La France sous Vichy. Autour de Robert O. Paxton (2004) and of Why France? American Historians Reflect on Their Enduring Fascination (2006). . |
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