Reading the State

Research theme: Government | Institutions, knowledge, norms
  • Ambrogio Lorenzetti, "Allégorie du Bon gouvernement", 1338-1340. Domaine publicAmbrogio Lorenzetti, "Allégorie du Bon gouvernement", 1338-1340. Domaine public

This collective reading workshop proposes a monthly discussion on a book, author, or field of research that has had a profound, cross-cutting intellectual influence on the way we think about the state, power, and the links between governments and the governed.

The texts studied are at the crossroads of history and the social sciences (anthropology, law, economics, philosophy, political science, sociology, etc.). They can relate to contemporary history or more distant periods, and to various geographical areas.

For each session, one or more people undertake to identify a corpus of about fifty pages (book excerpts, a chapter, a set of articles) that all participants read before the seminar. The session leaders introduce the theme and launch the group discussion, in which participants compare interpretations, develop critical arguments, and consider the broader scope of the work(s) for history and the social sciences.

Calendar 2021-2022

  1. 12/10/2020 | Emilien Ruiz (Sciences Po, CHSP), Autour de sa publication Trop de fonctionnaires ? (Fayard, 2021)
  2. 09/11/2021 | Autour de James C. ScottL'oeil de l'État. Moderniser, uniformiser, détruire. (Paris, La Découverte, 2021 [1998]). Séance préparée par Blaise Truong-Loï (Sciences Po, CHSP)
  3. 14/12/2021 | Marion Fontaine (Sciences Po, CHSP), Du paternalisme au Welfare State ? Les frontières de l'Etat social à l'épreuve (années 1940-années 1950)
  4. 11/01/2022 | Marc Olivier Baruch (EHESS) et Edenz Maurice (Sciences po, IHEMI), Autour de plusieurs publications en histoire des préfets en France
  5. 15/02/2022 | État et modernisation agricole dans la France du XXe siècle. Séance préparée par Léandre Mandard (Sciences Po, CHSP)
  6. 08/03/2022 | Renaud Meltz (UHA, IUF), Écrire l'histoire du Centre d'Expérimentation du Pacifique : quelles archives pour une politique du secret
  7. 12/04/2022 | Liane M. Hewitt (Princeton University), Nationalisation as Anti-Trust Policy: The Antifascist Moment in Britain, France and West-Germany, 1945-1951
  8. 10/05/2022 | Pierre Fuller (Sciences Po, CHSP), Have historians taken village governance seriously? The case of rural China a century ago
  9. 14/06/2022 | Du pluralisme juridictionnel à l'Etat administratif : les voies sinueuses (et les historiographies) de la "modernité" hispanique. Séance préparée par Mathieu Aguilera (Sciences Po, CHSP) ▸ sesslon canceled
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