Ideas
Can Cities Save the Day? French elections, sanctuaries, social ties, and the witness of IFE alumni (now) city planners
Increasing attention is being paid in Europe and America to how politics and policy at the municipal level can open up avenues of change. Recent France-wide municipal elections brought this theme to the fore. Speaking of Europe turns to three program alums who are now seasoned urban...
Should They Stay or Should They Go? Humanities questioned abroad as well
Arts, humanities, and even social sciences are under pressure in university systems in many places, but they are also fighting back a bit everywhere. Some suggest that their fight is the university’s own fight, against utilitarian oversight and authoritarian overreach.
A Historian’s Timely Clarity on Elites and Demagogues: Reading Gerard Noiriel’s Le Peuple Français: Histoire et polémiques
One of the first French scholars to study the history of immigration, Gérard Noiriel has devoted his career to this subject in the context of historical research on workers’ movements, xenophobia, racism and populism. An eminent social historian, Noiriel is also widely known in France and...
Neither Cancel nor Glorify: Digging into the “Histoire (dé)Coloniale de la Philosophie Française” by Thierry Hoquet
Bringing light to one of today's most heated debates, Thierry Hoquet’s Histoire (dé)Coloniale de la Philosophie Française examines how European exploration and colonization formed French and European thought from the 16th century onward, tracing the interactions between...
“Une Société Désirable” – or how to care for the world
One of France's finest public intellectuals, Dominique Meda's new book Une Société Désirable, subtitled “How to care for the world”, is a short but remarkably complete blueprint for an ecological transition based on redefining what is wealth to promote work which enhances...
Heads out of the Sand: Why is fascism on the rise (not only) in France?
A collective volume dissects the rise of Fascism in France, drawing ample lessons on how we got here, the many facets of this clear and present danger, and how to get somewhere better. Lessons for France and elsewhere.