The Intellectual and La Nation in Jean Guhennos Journal des annes noires Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • This article explores Jean Guhennos perspectives on the role and function of the intellectual both in the context of the Occupation, and in relation to la nation, understood in the original revolutionary sense of the people constituted into the body politic. Clandestinely written, Guhennos Journal des annes noires seems at first blush a solitary exercise in thought and observation. Closer analysis reveals, however, that although Guhenno takes pains to distance himself from the ambient confusion and propaganda, he understood both his writing and his career as a professor at the Lyce Henry IV to derive their full significance only as acts of a citizen in la nation. Contrasting sharply with the model of the matre penser or institutional iconoclast, Guhennos conception of the intellectual proves to be consonant the contemporary reality of the French intellectual as observed by Michel Winock, Luc Ferry, Pierre Nora and Jacques Julliard.

published proceedings

  • French Cultural Studies

author list (cited authors)

  • Bracher, N.

citation count

  • 0

complete list of authors

  • Bracher, Nathan

publication date

  • February 2012