French Concentration Camps (1939-2007): New Perspectives
This roundtable will showcase three works-in-progress that address other questions: the social relationships generated by and within the camps of Gurs, Les Milles, and Rivesaltes as well as the memorial afterlives of these interactions.
Concentration camps became a feature of the French carceral space in the 20th century, targeting Spanish refugees, political prisoners, Jews, Harkis, Roma, German prisoners or war, and others. Scholars have produced much-needed political and institutional histories of these camps. The speakers will also discuss the methodological challenges they are confronting in their current research.
Stéphane Gerson will provide a historical ethnography of policing practices and refugee strategies in Rivesaltes during the fall of 1942. A Professor of French, French Studies, and History at NYU, he is currently writing a personal family history entitled Les gestes de notre guerre, 1994-1942 (La Découverte).
Emily Marker will contrast modes of cultural production in the camps of Gurs and Les Milles during WW2. An Associate Professor of European and Global History at Rutgers-Camden, she is working on a book entitled Lessons From My Grandparents: Reflections on the Future of Reparations in Transnational Europe.
Terrence Peterson will compare the experiences of Jews and Harkis in Rivesaltes between the 1940s and 1950s, tracing social relationships across broken institutional and cultural genealogies. An Associate Professor of History at Florida International University, he recently launched a long-term, longitudinal study of Rivesaltes across eight decades.
Co-sponsored by the NYU Institute of French Studies.