Remembering the French Resistance: Ethics and Poetics of the Epic Author(s): Nathan Bracher Source: History and Memory , Vol. 19, No. 1 (Spring/Summer 2007), pp. 39-67 Published by: Indiana University Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/his.2007.19.1.39 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Indiana University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to History and Memory This content downloaded from 95.183.180.42 on Wed, 11 Mar 2020 17:03:40 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Remembering the French Resistance Remembering the French Resistance Ethics and Poetics of the Epic NATHAN BRACHER From its very inception to the present day the French Resistance has been rep- resented and commemorated in the epic mode. While Laurent Douzou’s book, La Résistance française: Une histoire périlleuse, reaffirms this heroic vision, Pascal Convert’s sculpture honoring executed Resistance fighters on Mont Valérien and his documentary film Mont Valérien, aux noms des fusillés propose a more human, even anti-heroic approach which nevertheless aims to unite a community in memory by celebrating the courage and sacrifice, but also the specific persons, of previously forgotten résistants.