The Future of World War Two France in Academia

This book examines the intellectual trajectories of international mid-career scholars working on the Second World War and the Holocaust in France across a wide range of disciplines, including history, literature, and cultural studies. It scrutinises disciplinary and interdisciplinary dynamics, and explores the conceptual frameworks within which the contributors have developed their research. The volume considers how dominant narratives on France, the Holocaust and Vichy are reconfigured or challenged by emerging lines of enquiry, and how these are shaped both by recent academic 'turns'through shifts in focus to post-memorial, spatial, affective and digital approachesand by rapidly evolving academic contexts. The different contributors, from France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and the UK, also offer critical reflections on how positionalityparticularly in terms of gender, ethnicity, class and identityinforms academic research, thereby providing new insights into the role of subjectivity in the production of knowledge.

Examines the intellectual trajectories of mid-career scholars specialising in the history and memory of WWII France Illuminates evolving research dynamics in a multidisciplinary field spanning history, memory and cultural studies Assesses the institutional and international challenges shaping this sensitive area of scholarship

Autorentext

Fransiska Louwagie is Senior Lecturer in French Studies at the University of Aberdeen, UK. Her research examines literary testimony of the Holocaust and representations of memory. She co-edited Ego-histories of France and the Second World War: Writing Vichy (Palgrave, 2018) and is the author of Témoignage et littérature d'après Auschwitz (2020).

Manuel Bragança is an Associate Professor of French Studies at University College Dublin, Ireland. His research focuses on the memories of the Second World War in France and Europe. He co-edited Ego-histories of France and the Second World War: Writing Vichy (Palgrave, 2018) and is the author of Hitler's French Literary Afterlives (Palgrave, 2019).

Inhalt

1) Introduction: Contemporary Research Paradigms, Trajectories and Challenges; Fransiska Louwagie and Manuel Bragança.- 2) A European Education; Manuel Bragança.- 3) Encounters, Motherhood and the Digital Turn; Ludivine Broch.- 4) Back and Forth: From Jewishness to the Holocaust; Maxime Decout.- 5) Of Children, People and Affects in France During WWII; Lindsey Dodd.- 6) History and Public History: French Resistance and the Logics of German Repression and Deportation on French Soil; Thomas Fontaine.- 7) Stories from the Periphery: Interdisciplinary Encounters with France and the Second World War; Claire Gorarra.- 8) Hybrid Identity and Complex Thinking; Aurélia Kalisky.- 9) Memory, Silence and Trauma; Sébastien Ledoux.- 10) Complete Detachment?; Daniel Lee.- 11) Vichy in the Valley: Critical Reflections on 'Knowledge Exchange' and Public Engagement on the Occupation of France in the Second World War; David Lees.- 12) Testimony and Beyond; Fransiska Louwagie.- 13) From Literature to History: Rediscovering a Personal Jewish Heritage; Annelies Schulte Nordholt.- 14) A Step Sideways: Ego-histories and Scientific Investigations of the Holocaust; Claire Zalc.- 15) Conclusion: Ego-histories Revisited; Fransiska Louwagie and Manuel Bragança.