After the Deluge

Motivated by a desire to narrate and contextualize the deluge of 'French theory,' After the Deluege showcases recent work by today's brightest scholars of French intellectual history that historicizes key debates, figures, and turning points in the postwar era of French thought.

Madame de Pompadour's famous quip, 'Apr_s nous, le deluge,' serves as fitting inspiration for this lively discussion of postwar French intellectual and cultural life. Over the past thirty years, North American and European scholarship has been significantly transformed by the absorption of poststructuralist and postmodernist theories from French thinkers. But Julian Bourg's seamlessly edited volume proves that, historically speaking, French intellecutal and cultural life since World War Two has involved much more than a few infamous figures and concepts. Motivated by a desire to narrate and contextualize the deluge of 'French theory,' After the Deluge showcases recent work by today's brightest scholars of French intellectual history that historicizes key debates, figures, and turning points in the postwar era of French thought. Relying on primary and archival sources, contributors examine, among other themes: left-wing critiques of the Left, the internationalizing of thought, the institutional and affective conditions of cultural life, and the religious imagination. They revive neglected debates and figures, and they explore the larger impact of political quarrels. In an afterword, preeminent French historian Fran_ois Dosse heralds the arrival of a new generation, a historiographical sensibility that brings fresh, original perspectives and a passion for French history to the contemporary French intellectual arena. After the Deluge adds significant depth and breadth to our understanding of postwar French intellectual and cultural history.

Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Is There Such a Thing as French Philosophy? or Why do We Read the French So Badly?
Chapter 3 Against Capitalism? French Theory and the Economy after 1945
Chapter 4 The Post-Marx of the Letter
Chapter 5 A New Generation of Greek Intellectuals in Postwar France
Chapter 6 Kostas Axelos and the World of the Arguments Circle
Chapter 7 Un contradicteur permanent: The Ideological and Political Itinerary of Daniel Guérin
Chapter 8 Guy Hocquenghem and the Cultural Revolution in France after May 1968
Chapter 9 The Myth of Emmanuel Levinas
Chapter 10 Raymond Aron: Nationalism and Supranationalism in the Years Following the Second World War
Chapter 11 French Intellectuals ant the Repression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956: The Politics of a Protest Reconsidered
Chapter 12 From l'Univers Concentrationnaire to the Jewish Genocide: Pierre Vidal-Naquet and the Treblinka Controversy
Chapter 13 French Cultural Policy in Question, 1981-2003
Chapter 14 Religion, Republicanism, and Depoliticization: Two Intellectual Itineraries-Régis Debray and Marcel Gauchet
Chapter 15 Afterword: For Intellectual History