French literary polemics: Céline's 'Londres', Sartre's 'Résistantialisme' and the 'case of the Jew Isou'
When:
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Venue:
Birkbeck Clore Management Centre
ind out more about the French politics, literature and philosophy of the 1940s, and discover influential but little-known writers. This talk explores the polemic between the three men as yet uncovered by academics. The lecture explores why Isou was so incensed by Sartre and took the side of the notorious Jew-hater Céline. It explains the backlash against Sartre's Humanism in French thought and politics in the post-war period.
The posthumous publication of Céline's early work Londres demonstrates that Céline's anti-Humanist worldview - the guiding philosophy of Voyage au Nuit - is already intact and in place. It is this 'same anti-Humanism' in the late 1940s which compels Céline to attack Jean-Paul Sartre, partly in self-defence (Céline was about to go on trial for his life when Sartre had first attacked him). In 1949, when Céline was in exile in Denmark, his defence was taken up by Isidore Isou, a young Jew who had escaped the Romanian Holocaust and come to Paris to found a new avant-garde called Lettrisme.
Professor Andrew Hussey is a historian of French culture, an eminent biographer and has maker of media documentaries. Among his multiple publications, are highly acclaimed books on Guy Debord, Isidore Isou and Louis-Ferdinand Céline. Chair is Biirkbeck's Damian Catani.
Contact name: Sue Wiseman
Speakers- Andrew Hussey
- Dr Damian Catani
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