Ivan Jablonka is a French historian and writer.

Scholarship

Born in 1973 in Paris, an alumnus of the École normale supérieure, he is professor of Contemporary History at the Sorbonne Paris North University, editorial director of the collection "La République des idées" ( Éditions du Seuil), and one of the editors of the online magazine ''La Vie des Idées''. His scholarship encompasses abandoned children, the welfare state,

gender violence Gender-related violence or gender-based violence includes any kind of violence directed against people due to their gender or gender identification. Types of gender-related violence include: * Violence against women (sometimes referred to simply as ...

masculinity Masculinity (also called manhood or manliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles associated with men and boys. Masculinity can be theoretically understood as socially constructed, and there is also evidence that some behaviors con ...

, and new forms of historical writing. He documented the fate of his grandparents, Jewish refugees from Poland in occupied France, eventually murdered in

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

in 1943, in ''A History of the Grandparents I Never Had'' (Stanford UP, 2016). He received the Prix Médicis in 2016 for ''Laëtitia ou la fin des hommes'', « an openly feminist book » that tells the story of a young girl murdered at the age of 18, His book ''History Is a Contemporary Literature'' (Cornell UP, 2018) offers perspectives on the writing of History, and the relationship between Literature and the social sciences. Jablonka argues that History, along with Sociology and Anthropology, can "achieve greater rigor and wider audiences by creating a literary text, written and experienced through a broad spectrum of narrative modes and rhetorical figures". Conversely, a whole range of literary texts —travel logs, memoirs, autobiographies, testimonies, diaries, life stories, and news reports— can implement methods and lines of reasoning inspired by the social sciences. His book ''A History of Masculinity: From Patriarchy to Gender Justice'' (Allen Lane, 2022) reimagines the cultures and norms that shape ideas of the “male self”. Arguing that “men are trapped in a gender prison”, he offers a reflection on ancient and modern masculinities,

gender justice Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing d ...

, and a guide to being a ‘just man’ (''un homme juste'' in French).

Reception

He has given lectures all over the world, notably at the University of Geneva and the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, at the Free University of Berlin in Germany, at the National University of General San Martín in Argentina, at Nanzan University in Japan, and in the US: at Yale University, Boston University, UC Berkeley,

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, and Texas A&M. He was a visiting professor at New York University in 2020. His books have been translated into fifteen languages.

Awards

* In 2012, for ''Histoire des grands-parents que je n'ai pas eus'' (A History of the Grandparents I Never Had): ** Senate Prize for History Books, ** Guizot Prize from the

Académie française An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

** Augustin-Thierry Prize at the Rendez-vous de l'Histoire. * In 2016, for ''Laëtitia ou la fin des hommes'' (Laëtitia or the End of Men): ** Literary Prize from Le Monde. ** Prix Médicis of the French Novel. * In 2018, for ''En camping-car'' (Van Life) : ** France Télévisions Prize for the Best Essay.

Works in French

* * * * * * * * * * *

Works in English

* * * *Jablonka, Ivan (2008), « Fictive Kinship: Wards and Foster Parents in Nineteenth-Century France », in Susan Broomhall (ed.), ''Emotions in the Household, 1200-1900'', New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, p. 269 - 284. *Jablonka, Ivan (2011), « Children and the State », in Ed Berenson, Vincent Duclert, Cristophe Prochasson (eds.), ''The French Republic'', Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011, p. 315 – 323. *Jablonka, Ivan (2013), « Social Welfare in the Western World and the Rights of Children (19th–21st centuries) », in

Paula Fass Paula S. Fass (born May 22, 1947) is an American historian and the Margaret Byrne Professor of History (Emerita) at the University of California, Berkeley. A social and cultural historian, Fass has published numerous books on the history of chil ...

(ed.), ''The Routledge History of Childhood in the Western World'', New York: Routledge, 2013, p. 380 – 399. *Jablonka, Ivan (2016), « History and Comics, » ''Books and Ideas,'' 30 May 2016. *Jablonka, Ivan (2018), "The Future of the Human Sciences," ''French Politics, Culture, and Society'', Vol. 36, No. 3, December 2018, p. 109 – 117.

French Politics, Culture & Society ''French Politics, Culture & Society'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Berghahn Books on behalf of the Conference Group on French Politics & Society (sponsored jointly by the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard ...

References