Bruno Chaouat, Ph.D., discusses "lois mémorielles" (memory laws) in France, French limitations on free speech and the history of antisemitism in France in relation to Holocaust denial.

Seating is limited and attendees should RSVP via email to Dr. Emily Horowitz ([email protected]).

Bruno Chaouat (Professor, University of Minnesota) has written, among other things, on Holocaust testimony, Jews in France, and theories of antisemitism. Since 2002, Chaouat has been teaching in the Department of French and Italian, and the Center for Jewish Studies. He is an Honorary Fellow at the Center for the Study of Jewish Culture, Society and Politics, Durham University, UK, and Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques.

After publishing on the French romantic writer Francois-René de Chateaubriand, and especially on the question of autobiography, experience and death (Je meurs par morceaux. Chateaubriand, Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 1999), Chaouat focused his research on testimony and Holocaust studies. He has published numerous articles in France and the U.S. on authors such as Jorge Semprun, Robert Antelme, Marguerite Duras, Patrick Modiano, Jean Genet, Richard Millet, Albert Memmi, etc. He has edited several volumes and conference proceedings (Penser la terreur, 2009; Lire, écrire la honte, 2003).

Chaouat also dedicated a book to French thought in the aftermath of the Cold War (L’Ombre pour la proie, 2012). More recently he published a book on French responses to the resurgence of antisemitism, and the relations between postmodern thought and those responses (Is Theory Good for the Jews? French Thought and the Challenge of the New Antisemitism, Liverpool University Press, 2016). He is currently working on several different projects, among which is a book on the return of ancient Gnostic themes in French modern literature and philosophy in the long 20th century (Anywhere Out of the World: Gnostic Sparks in Modern French Literature and Thought). He is currently working on several articles and chapters on this question--one on Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Emmanuel Levinas, one on Georges Bataille, one on Maurice Blanchot.