The French memory of WWII has evolved since the glorious days of the Liberation. In 1944-1945, it praised heroes and military exploits of the Shadow Fighters while it nowadays stresses the dark side of the hill – the Holocaust and the Vichy regime. This lecture aims to describe the mains steps of this “divided memory” and to question the part played by the State to impose its views – a view deeply challenged by civil society.

Olivier Wieviorka is Professor of History at the École Normale Supérieure de Paris-Saclay. He is the author of numerous books, including Histoire du Débarquement en Normandie, Des origines à la libération de Paris (Seuil, 2006), La Mémoire désunie : Le souvenir politique des années sombres, de la Libération à nos jours (Seuil, 2010), Histoire de la Résistance : 1940-1945 (Perrin, 2013), and Une histoire de la Résistance en Europe occidentale (Perrin, 2017).

5pm, October 4th in room 4202 at the CUNY Graduate Center (365 Fifth Avenue).

The event is co-sponsored by the French Program, by the Comparative Literature Program, by and the History Program.

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