Emma Kuby

Assistant Professor

Fields of Study: Modern French History, European Cultural and Intellectual History, Violence, Decolonization, Gender

Email: ekuby@niu.edu
Phone: 815-753-0131
Office: Zulauf 710

Education: Ph.D., Cornell University, 2011

Current Research:

My current research centers on the problem of political violence in post-WWII France, both as a social reality and as an object of intense intellectual dispute. In my first book project, I examine how the legacy of wartime violence by Germans, the Vichy state, and Resistance movements shaped the country’s postwar political culture and intellectual life. This work traces debates from 1944 to 1962 about the legitimacy of purges and lynchings, labor militancy and government repression of workers, the Soviet gulag, and torture and terror in France’s wars of decolonization. I am also interested in post-conflict justice, the politics of memory, intellectuals’ role in the Cold War, and twentieth-century feminist and anti-war movements. 

Publications:

“In the Shadow of the Concentration Camp: David Rousset and the Limits of Apoliticism in Postwar French Thought.” Modern Intellectual History (forthcoming). 

“A War of Words over an Image of War: The Fox Movietone Scandal and the Portrayal of French Violence in Algeria, 1955-56.” French Politics, Culture & Society, Spring 2012 (30: 1), 46-67.

Teaching Interests:

My teaching interests include courses on modern European and French history, intellectual history, and the history of French overseas empire, as well as thematic classes related to violence, justice, memory, and religious minorities in modern Europe. 

Courses Taught:

HIST 112 - Western Civilization Since 1815
HIST 295 - Historical Methods
HIST 312 - France Since 1815