SARAH GENSBURGER CNRS Researcher in Social Sciences PhD /// Habilitation
Institute for the Social Sciences of Politics /// University Paris Nanterre 200 avenue de la République / 92001 Nanterre Cedex + 33 6 18 48 47 40 /// [email protected]
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Memory studies /// Remembrance public policies /// Sociology of the state /// Images and history /// Social history of WWII Paris /// Rescue and spoliation of Jews in France /// Social reactions to terrorist attacks /// Memory and urban landscapes /// Digital humanities
EDUCATION
- Habilitation in Political Science, Sciences Po Paris, 2019 - PhD in Sociology, EHESS, 2006 - MA in Social Sciences, Sciences Po Paris, (1999-2001) - MA in Social Sciences, Ecole Normale Supérieure (1996-2000)
PROFESSIONAL CAREER
- Visiting Professor, Institute for French Studies, New York University, Spring 2019. - Deputy Director of the Institute for the Social Sciences of Politics, since 2018 - CNRS researcher in social sciences (tenured position), since 2010. - Post-doctoral fellow at Sciences Po Paris, 2007 and 2009 - Researcher, French Prime Minister’s Office, 2008 - Summer 2001, Visiting Fellow, USHMM, Washington D.C. - Summer 2000, Visiting Fellow, CRFJ, Jerusalem
AWARDS
- CNRS Bronze Medal (French national distinction for highly promising early career researchers), 2019 - French Voices Award 2017 for Memory in my doorstep, http://frenchculture.org/books-and-ideas/7347-french-voices-award-2017-recipients - Winner of 2016 Gold Decibel special award, with Gens de Paris/ Gens de la Seine, https://inshs.cnrs.fr/fr/cnrsinfo/le-projet-gens-de-la-seine-recoit-le-prix-special-du- jury-decibel-dor - 2013 Best Article Award, Dapim. Studies on the Holocaust, 2014, https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/journal-prize-ah-dapim-studies-on-the-holocaust- article-prize/ - French Political Science Association Prize for best dissertation, 2007 - Auschwitz Foundation Special Prize for best dissertation, 2007
1
MAIN RESEARCH GRANTS
- CNRS PRIME AWARD, “Building a science of memory”, between social and neurosciences, 2019-2022, 120 000 euros, hiring one PhD candidate. - Principal Investigator of “PHOTO-TOPO-GRAPHY”, COMUE Paris Lumière University, 2019-2021, 40 000 euros, supervision of one research assistant. - PI of “Revisiting Commemoration”, LABEX Past in Present, Excellence Research Cluster, 2013-2016, 180 000 euros, management of two post-doctoral fellows. - PI of “Local memories”, LABEX Past in Present, Excellence Research Cluster, 2013- 2016, 60 000 euros, supervisor of one research assistant. - City of Paris Research Grant, “Political Sociology of Memory in Paris”, 2013-2015, 25 000 euros. - PhD Grant, French Ministry for Research, 2001-2005.
ENGLISH PUBLICATIONS
Books Beyond Memory. Can we really learn from the past?, London, Palgrave, forthcoming in 2020, with Sandrine Lefranc, to be translated into Arabic and Spanish.
Memory on my doorstep. Chronicles of the Bataclan Beighborhood (Paris, 2015-2016), Leuven University Press, 2019.
Visites scolaires, histoire et citoyenneté. Les expositions du centenaire de la Première Guerre mondiale, La Documentation française, with Sylvain Antichan, Jeanne Teboul and Gwendoline Torterat.
National Policy, Global Memory. The Commemoration of the Righteous among the Nations from Jerusalem to Paris, New York, Berghahn Books, 2016.
Witnessing the Robbing of the Jews. A Photographic Album, Paris 1940-1944, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2015.
Nazi Labor Camps in Paris, New York, Berghahn Books, paperback edition, 2013, hardcover edition, 2011, with Jean-Marc Dreyfus.
Edited books
Les terrains de la mémoire. Approches croisées à l'échelle locale, Presses de l’Université Paris Nanterre, 2017, with Michèle Baussant, Marina Chauliac and Nancy Venel (ed.).
Resisting Genocides. The Multiple Forms of Rescue, New York, Columbia University Press, 2011, with Claire Andrieu and Jacques Semelin (ed.).
2 Journal special issues
L’espace de la persécution des Juifs. Paris dans la Seconde Guerre mondiale, numéro spécial de Histoire Urbaine, co-edited with Isabelle Backouche and Eric Le Bourhis, to be published in 2020.
Administrations of Memory, special issue de International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, n°2, 2019, co-edited with Sara Dybris McQuaid.
La commémoration en pratiques. Usages et appropriations du Centenaire de la Première Guerre mondiale, Matériaux pour l’histoire, 2017, co-edited with Sylvain Antichan and Jeanne Teboul.
Localiser le passé, special issue of Genèses, 92, vol. 3, 2013.
D’une “mémoire européenne” à l’européanisation de la “mémoire”, special issue of Politique Européenne, co-edited with Marie-Claire Lavabre, 37, 2012.
Peer-reviewed articles in English (out of 30 total published in French, English, Spanish, Chinese and German)
“Administrations of memory: Transcending the nation and bringing back the state in memory studies”, International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, vol. 32, 2, 2019, with S. Dybris McQuaid, 125-143.
“Visiting History, Witnessing Memory. A study of a Holocaust Exhibition in Paris in 2012”, Memory Studies, On-line first, final publication 2020.
“Halbwachs’s studies in collective memory: a founding work for contemporary ‘memory studies’?”, Journal of Classical Sociology, 16(4), 2016, 396-413.
“Antisemitism and Urban Development in France in the Second World War: The Case of Ilot 16 in Paris”, with I. Backouche, Contemporary European History (Cambridge), 23 (3), 2014, 381-403.
“Picturing the Looting of Jewish Belongings During the Holocaust: What Can History Do With Images?”, Dapim. Studies on the Holocaust (Routledge), Summer 2014, 2013 best article award, 1-23.
“History’s Contributions to the Renewal in the Sociology of the State. Crossed Franco- American Perspectives”, Tocqueville Review (University of Toronto Press), XXXIII, 2, 2013, 43- 70.
“From Jerusalem to Paris: the Institutionalization of the Category of the 'Righteous of France'”, French Culture Politics and Society (Berghahn Books), special issue on “Rescue in France”, Summer 2012, 30, 2, 150-171.
3
“The Righteous among the Nations as elements of collective memory”, International Social Science Journal (Blackwell), special issue on “Social Memory and Hyper Modernity”, n° 203/204, March-June 2012, 135-146; translation in Chinese, Revue de l'Académie chinoise de sciences sociales, 2013.
Book chapters published in English (out of 25 total in French, English, Polish, Spanish, Japanese, Arabic and German)
“From here because from abroad? Migrants and Grassroots Memorials in Paris in this Aftermath of November 13, 2015” in Sabine Marschall (ed.), Monuments in the Context of Migration, London, Palgrave, to be published in 2020, 10 000 word, with Gérôme Truc.
“Memory and Space: (Re)reading Halbwachs and the remembrance of Austerlitz” in Sarah De Nardi, Hilary Orange, Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto and Steven High (ed.), Handbook of Memoryscapes, Routledge, New York, 2019, 69-76.
“Beyond Trauma. Researching Memory on My Doorstep” in Danielle Drozdzewski and Carolyn Birdsall (ed.), Doing Memory Research: New Methods and Approaches, Palgrave, 2018, 109-128.
“Does the French State Conduct a Politics of Memory?”/ "Practica el Estado francès una politica de la mémoira?” in Jordi Guixé i Coromines (ed.), Past & Power. Public policies on Memory debates, from global to local, Publications and Editions of the University of Barcelona, Barcelona, 2016, 89-101 et 337-349.
Digital humanities, Op ed articles and exhibitions (a few examples) https://happened-here.com/ : digital humanity project giving voice to Parisians from the past in the streets and buildings where history took place.
New York Times “The Banality of Robbing the Jews”, November, 2013.
Curator of the exhibition C’étaient des enfants. Déportation et sauvetage des enfants juifs à Paris: Hotel de Ville de Paris, 200 000 visitors, June-October 2012 and catalogue, Skira Flammarion, 2012).
EDITORIAL ACTIVITIES
Member of editorial board of Memory Studies (SAGE) Journal Citation Reports 2019: 2 year impact factor: History 1 out of 95 / Cultural Studies 2 out of 41, and 5 year impact factor: History 3 out of 95 /Cultural Studies 6 out of 41 Scopus CiteScore 2018: Social Psychology 105 out of 260 / Experimental and Cognitive Psychology 74 out of 135
4 Frequent reviewer for American Historical Review ; Sociological Forum ; Memory Studies ; Revue Internationale de Politique Comparée ; Historein; Critique internationale ; Revue d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine ; Les Annales; Politique Européenne ; Pole Sud ; Mémoire et politique ; European Review of History / Revue Européenne d’Histoire ; Revue d’Etudes Comparatives Est Ouest; Genèses ; Ethnologie française; Holocaust and Genocide Studies ; Journal of Educational Media, Memory and Society; Archives de Sciences Sociales de Religions ; Gouvernement et action publique ; Mouvement social.
TEACHING SINCE 2015
- “Memory, society and politics”, MA, Institute of French Studies, New York University, visiting professor, Spring 2019. - “History and Historiography of the Holocaust”, EHESS, since 2017, with Claire Zalc and others. - “Known at this Address”, social history of the Holocaust in Paris, EHESS (2017-2019), with Isabelle Backouche and others. - “Remembrance Public Policies”, MA in political science, Paris Nanterre University (2017-2019), with Gérôme Truc and Sandrine Lefranc. - “Social Reactions of Terrorist Attacks”, MA in political science, Paris Nanterre University and ENS Paris Saclay (2016-2018), with Gérôme Truc. - “WWII Paris and its afterlives”, MA, Program Abroad de New York University, Summer 2015.
RESEARCH SUPERVISION
Member of the official committee for annual oral examinations in social sciences of the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Paris-Saclay), since 2019
Thesis defense committees (Member)
- Member of the thesis committee for Morane Chavanon, political science, Lyon 2 University (2019). - Member of the thesis committee for Audrey Rousseau, sociology, Ottawa University (2017) - Member of the thesis committee for Simon Perego, history, Sciences Po Paris (2016)
PhD advisor (ongoing)
- Co-advisor of Mathieu Kunetz dissertation in neurosciences (PRIME award, CNRS excellence program) since 2019. - Advisor of Emmanuel Cayre, dissertation in political science, (Paris Nanterre University) since 2018. - Co-advisor of Malena Bastias dissertation in political science (Paris Nanterre University) since 2013.
5 Doctoral Advisory Committee (Member)
- Member of the dissertation committee of Mael Le Boc, Geography, Texas State University. - Member of the dissertation committee of Hillary Handin, History, New York University. - Member of the dissertation committee of Kedma Louis, History, EHESS. - Member of the dissertation committee of Delphine Griveaud, Political Science, UPN. - Member of the dissertation committee of Solveig Hennebert, Political Science, Lyon 2. - Member of the dissertation committee of Marie Janot, Sociology, UPN.
SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEES AND UNIVERSITY RESPONSIBILITIES
Regular reviews for the European Commission (ERC) and European national research agencies.
- Member of the Executive Committee (2017-2019) and of the Advisory Board of the Memory Studies Association (on-going) - Member of the Scientific Committee of the Center for the Study of Genocide, Human Rights and Conflict Prevention, American University in Paris. - Member of the Scientific Committee of the Izieu House. - Member of the Memory Commission of the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah. - Member of the Executive Committee of the November 13 Research Program (CNRS/Inserm) - Member of the Executive Committee of the French National Research Group (GDR) on Memory, between social sciences and biology, CNRS. - Member of the Advisory Board of the International Panel on Exiting Violence, co- organized by the Fondation de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme and the Carnegie Corporation of New York (2016-2019).
6