Public Lecture on “Memory and Political Imagination: The French Resistance and Oral History”

On March 21, 2012 the  Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Institute of International Studies, the Department of History and Archeology, and the Faculty of Law and Public Administration hosted Professor Sudhir Hazareesingh, professor of political science at Balliol College,  University of Oxford, for a public lecture on “Memory and Political Imagination: The French Resistance and Oral History”. In this lecture, professor Hazareesingh discussed the oral history of the French resistance in the 1940’s, he also shed light on how we use oral history in the case of the French resistance. Moreover, he referred to some of the literature that on the gathering and organizing of oral testimonies concerning the French resistance, from Henri Michel to H.R Kedward.

Professor Hazareesingh also showed how resistance became the dominant narrative, yet it was not told in one voice. For instance, the first and most prominent narrative of the French resistance was that of De Gaulle himself. Nonetheless, the story of Nicole, a participant in the French resistance, was very different from De Gaulle’s. Likewise, oral history assumes that people are capable of transporting themselves to the past, completely wiping out their present, however wiping out the present something which is not possible. The massive role women played during the French resistance was mentioned, particularly how they undermine and minimize their own role.