Home>Guillaume Piketty

Guillaume Piketty
Full Professor, Head of the Department of History
Centre for History (CHSP), Department of History
Research Interest(s): Historical anthropology of the warlike phenomenon and of the resistance phenomenon (19th and 20th centuries), Free France, Deportation of repression, World War II, Coming out of war (19th and 20th centuries), History of intimacy, History of senses and sensitivities, History of emotions.
Discipline(s): History
Research Group(s): Experiences. Social Actors, Movements, & Groups
Biography
Guillaume Piketty is a Full Professor of History at Sciences Po. He was a Visiting Research Scholar at Yale University (2010-2012), then a Visiting Fellow at Worcester College, a Senior Visiting Research Associate to the Modern European History Research Centre (MEHRC) and an Associate member of the Faculty of History at Oxford University (2012-2018).
He currently is head of the Department of History of Sciences Po.
His research focuses on the social and cultural history of World War II in France and in Europe, and, more broadly, on war, resistance, coming out of war, and society from the US Civil War onwards. Notably, his work includes working on these subjects from the perspectives of the history of senses and sensitivities as well as the history of emotions and the history of intimacy. He currently develops a research project on the deportation of repression during World War II.
At Sciences Po, he convenes with Damien Accoulon (Tours, CETHIS), Camille Mahé (Strasbourg, LinCS), Claire Miot (Sciences Po Aix, Mesopolhis), Gwendal Piégais (University College Dublin, Centre for War Studies) and Thomas Vaisset (Université Le Havre Normandie, UMR IDEES), the research seminar « Two Greater Wars » (De plus grandes guerres).
He delivers the lecture course “Narratives, Representations and Uses of the Past” about the social uses of the past (“Political Humanities” major of the Europe-North America Program, Bachelor degree, 2nd year, Reims campus), and the elective seminar “War on Screens” about the warlike phenomenon and the resistance phenomenon as showed and used in cinema (Europe-North America Program, Bachelor degree, 2nd year, Reims campus).
He was Dean of Undergraduate and Graduate Studies (1995-1999) and Vice-President (1999-2003) of Sciences Po.
Guillaume Piketty is also :
- Qualified personality appointed to the Select Board of the Centre for History at Sciences Po.
- Qualified personality appointed to the Scientific Board of Sciences Po.
- Qualified personality appointed to the Commission nationale de la médaille de la Résistance française (CNMRF).
- Founding member of the Society for the History of War (SHoW).
- Qualified personality appointed to the Conseil scientifique de la recherche historique de la Défense (CSRHD).
- Permanent member of the Scientific Committee of the Order of the Liberation.
- Permanent member of the Scientific Committee of the Fondation de la France Libre.
- Permanent Member of the Historical and Pedagogical Committee of the Fondation de la Résistance.
Thesis Supervision
Theses under way
- Elodie Charié, "Les troubles psychiques durant la guerre d'Indochine (1945-1954) : une histoire médicale, sociale et culturelle de la psychiatrie en contexte guerrier et colonial". Codirection with Claire Edington (Associate Professor, University of California, San Diego)
- Louise Guttin-Vindot, "R éparer la guerre d'Algérie. Indemnisation et statut de victime. France, 1954 à nos jours". Joint supervision with Research Professor Sylvie Thénault (CNRS, Centre d'histoire sociale du XXe siècle).
Defended theses
- Emma Papadacci, « ‘La leçon qu’ils n’oublieront pas’ ? Expériences scolaires dans les établissements du secondaire et du primaire supérieur au regard de la Grande Guerre – Angleterre, Pays de Galles, France, 1914-1940 ». Joint supervision with Dr. Emmanuel Saint-Fuscien (directeur d’études, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales). Defended on 2 December 2024.
- Romain Fathi. « ‘Do not Forget Australia’. Australian War Memorialisation at Villers-Bretonneux ». Joint supervision with Professor Martin Crotty (University of Queensland, Australia). Defended on 19 October 2015.
- Paul Lenormand. « Vers l'armée du peuple : Autorité, pouvoir et culture militaire en Tchécoslovaquie de Munich à la fin du Stalinisme ». Joint supervision with Professor Antoine Marès (Université Paris-I). Defended on 5 December 2019.
- Géraud Létang. « Mirages d’une rébellion. Être Français libre au Tchad (1940-1943) ».Defended on 29 November 2019.
- Camille Mahé. « D’un traumatisme à l’autre ? Les expériences enfantines de la sortie de guerre en Europe de l’Ouest : Allemagne – France – Italie (1943-1949) ». Joint supervision with Professor Pierre Purseigle (University of Warwick, UK)
- Paul Marquis. « Les fous de Joinville. Une histoire sociale de la psychiatrie en Algérie (1933-1963 ». Joint supervision with Professor Richard Keller (University of Madison, Wisconsin, USA).
- Claire Morelon. « Street Fronts. War, State, Legitimacy and Urban Space, Prague 1914-1920 ». Joint supervision with Professor Pierre Purseigle (University of Birmingham, UK). Defended on 12 May 2015.
AWARDS
Guillaume Piketty, Français, libre. Pierre de Chevigné, Paris, Tallandier, 2022 :
- Prix Jean Sainteny 2022 de l’Académie des sciences morales et politiques.
- Prix Philippe Viannay – Défense de la France 2022.
publications
- Guillaume Piketty, “The Second World War in Europe”, p. 226-246 in Isabelle Duyvesteyn & Beatrice Heuser (eds.), The Cambridge History of Strategy. Volume II. From the Napoleonic Wars to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025).
- Guillaume Piketty, “À la recherche d’une princesse ou d’une madone” (p. 14-18). Introduction to Vincent Giraudier & Sylvie Le Ray–Burimi (eds.), Un exil combattant. Les artistes et la France (1939-1945), Paris, Gallimard – Musée de l’Armée, 2025.
- Géraud Létang & Guillaume Piketty (eds.), Special issue “La France libre en Méditerranée (1940-1945)” in Les cahiers de la Méditerranée n° 109, December 2024.
- Charlotte Faucher, Laure Humbert, Guillaume Piketty & Thomas Vaisset (eds.), Françaises et Français libres. Une identité née de la pluralité, coordination Sylvain Cornil-Frerrot, Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2024.
- Guillaume Piketty, “Bienfaits de la tolérance et du partage” (p. 265-275). Postface to Vincent Duclert (ed.), En attendant la victoire. Messages à de Gaulle et à la France Libre, Paris, Gallimard Folio, 2024.
- Guillaume Piketty, Français, libre. Pierre de Chevigné, Paris, Tallandier, 2022.
- Guillaume Piketty, “Schnee Eifel, 19 décembre 1944 : le nadir américain de la bataille des Ardennes” / “Schnee Eifel, 19 December 1944: the American Nadir of the Battle of the Bulge”, p. 123-139 in Claire Miot, Thomas Vaisset & Paul Vo-Ha (dir.), Cessez-le-feu, cesser les combats ? De l'époque moderne à nos jours (Villeneuve d’Ascq : Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2022).
- Guillaume Piketty, “Le long chemin vers la résistance active aux dictatures. Pierre Brossolette et la Guerre d’Espagne”, p. 122-130 in Europe, “Écrivains et reporters dans la Guerre d’Espagne”, n° 118-119-120, June-July-August 2022.
- Steven O’Connor & Guillaume Piketty (eds.), Foreign Fighters and Multinational Armies. From Civil Conflicts to Coalition Wars, 1848-2015 (London: Routledge, 2022); Reed. 2024 (Paperback).