In the Presence of Enemies

A History of Domestic Threats in Modern Societies (XVIIIth-XXIth)

Patrick Farges et Alexandre Rios-Bordes

Mercredis, 9-11h, salle 145, bâtiment Olympe de Gouges, Université de Paris

This seminar offers to explore the comparative and transnational history of domestic threats in modern societies. At the crossroads of political, social, and cultural history, we wish to distance ourselves from the dominant ‘pathological’ understanding and take these anxieties seriously in a sociological perspective. We will wonder how the successive figures of internal enemies took roots, socially and politically, how they came in conflict with some of the referent distinctions of modern societies (between peace and war, domestic and foreign, politics and violence, citizens and adversaries, etc.), and what kind of transformations they engendered in terms of institutions, laws, practices, and conducts. What is a domestic enemy? In what contexts and through what processes did their successive figures emerged? What types of discourses framed the threats? Drawing from what kind of cultural references, repertoires, and experiences? How did these representations travelled and transformed? What kind of political and social reconfiguration did they produced? These are a few of the questions we will address and discuss through a series of historical cases chosen on both sides of the Atlantic, from the XVIIIth century to the present day.

1. Introduction (15/01)

 The Domestic Enemy in Modern Societies

 Alexandre Rios-Bordes (Université de Paris, ICT)

2. The Subversive (1) – Political Violence in Latin America (22/01)

« La place de l’inimitié dans la construction du politique entre norme et exception. Une tension irrésolue de l’Argentine moderne ? »

Edgardo Manero (CNRS, EHESS-Mondes Américains) – María Laura Reali (Université de Paris, EILA-ICT)

3. The Minority – A Familiar Enemy (29/01)

“Jews as Domestic Enemies in Pre-War Nazi Germany”

Patrick Farges (Université de Paris, ICT)

4. The Subversive (2) – The ‘Objective’ Enemy (05/02)

« In the Name of National Security: the Emergence of an ‘Objective’ Enemy, 1917-1954”

Alexandre Rios-Bordes (Université de Paris, ICT, Lier-Fyt)

5. The Plotter – An Enemy in the Shadows (12/02)

« L’invention de l’anarchiste ? L’affaire des communistes matérialistes sous la monarchie de Juillet » (1847)

Jean-Noël Tardy (Centre d’Histoire du XIXe siècle, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

6. The Revolutionary – Enemies in Industrial Societies (26/02)

« Les Communards après la Commune : des ennemis universels ? Cristallisation, usages et effets d’une figure de l’ennemi ‘moderne’ (1870-1880).

Quentin Deluermoz, Université Paris 13 – Laboratoire Pléiade

7. The Suspect – Immigrants under Suspicion (04/03)

“’His Majesty’s Most Loyal Internees’: German-Jewish Refugees in British Internment 1940-1943”

Patrick Farges (Université de Paris, ICT)

8. The Opponent – The Age of Revolutions (Jean-Clément Martin) (11/03)

« L’ennemi du dedans » et du dehors pendant la Révolution française, indécisions, confusions et mystifications, entre philosophie, drame et manœuvres ».

Jean-Clément Martin, Professeur émérite, Paris I – Panthéon Sorbonne.

9. The Former Slave – Emancipation under Control (18/03)

« Abolition de l’esclavage et ‘engagisme’: des sociétés antillaises sous contrôle ? »

Céline Flory, CNRS, UMR 8168 Mondes Américains – USR 2002 CIRESC

10. The Rebel – The Colonial Wars (Thenaut) (25/03)

« Indésirable, colonisé, résistant, militant : les Algériens dans l’œil des autorités coloniales. XIXe-XXe siècles »

Sylvie Thenault (UMR 8058 – Centre d’histoire sociale du XXe siècle

11. The Criminal – Organized Crime as an Enemy Force (01/04)

“The Sicilian War against Crime (1970-1990): The Transformation from the Mafioso into a Public Enemy Figure”

Sarah Fouiden (University of Paris/University of Bologna)

12. The Terrorist – Threats in the Age of Globalization (22/04)

« Genèse et circulation du Droit pénal de l’ennemi »

Cédric Moreau de Bellaing, ENS, LIER-FYT