Christian Jacobs | Associate Postgraduate
Home Institution
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Freie Universität Berlin
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Disciplines
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History
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Biography
Christian Jacobs is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Graduate School for Global Intellectual History at Freie Universität in Berlin and an associated scholar at the Centre Marc Bloch. He defended his PhD thesis in history in 2024 at the Freie Universität. His forthcoming book is based on the thesis and explores how political activists used concepts of culture in France from the 1960s to the 1980s. Previously, he has studied history in Freiburg, Martinique, Taipei, and Berlin. For his MA and PhD research projects, he has received fellowships at the German Historical Institute in Paris. He also was a guest scholar at EHESS Paris as well as Sciences Po Paris. Christian has published on Maoism in France, postcolonial memory culture in Western Europe, and (post)-migrant activism in France.
Researchtopic
Culture —Discovering a New Political Battleground in France and the World, 1962 -1984
The dissertation analyzes how three political movements used the concept of culture in France between the late 1960s and the early 1980s: the women's movement, the postmigrant movement, and the so-called New Right. I ask what culture meant for the movements and when and why activists evoked the concept. I argue that two overall trends shaped concepts of culture during the period of investigation. First, decolonization as an intellectual and political development redefined political key concepts such as culture. Second, change through culture replaced visions in which the state was the central instrument for political change. At the same time, I underline how specific surrounding contexts, such as legal, financial, and cultural resources, the movements’ sociologies, and the political environments with their dominant discourses, potential allies, and enemies shaped the intellectual histories of the political movements. I do not describe one conceptual development over time but several conceptual changes, such as the conceptual fragmentation in the 1970s women’s movement, the broadening of culture around 1980 in postmigrant circles, and the increasing usage of culture among far-right activists in the 1970s. By studying political movements as production sites of a concept, the dissertation connects intellectual history to political and social history. It studies intellectual labor beyond famous individuals and as much in practice as in theory.
Institution of thesis
Supervisor
Culture —Discovering a New Political Battleground in France and the World, 1962 -1984
Publications
Book
The Politics of ‚Culture‘ in France. Feminist, Far-Right, and “Immigrant” Movements in France, ca. 1965-1985 (Reihe: The Politics of Historical Thinking), Berlin: De Gruyter [Forthcoming].
Artikel
Culture as a Political Tool for Migrant Activists in France Facing Repression, in: Simone Paoli, Emmanuel Comte (ed.): The Migration Turn and the New International Order in the Long 1970s [Forthcoming].
Negotiations over the Past. 2009’s general strike in the French Caribbean and the Colonial Past: in: Stefan Berger, Christian Koller (ed.): Memory and Social Movements in Modern and Contemporary History (Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements), 2024, 157-174, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52819-4_8.
From anti-imperialism to multiculturalism. (Post)-migrant media in postcolonial France, in: Labor History 64/4 (2023), https://doi.org/10.1080/0023656X.2022.2148640.
Mehr als eine Projektion. Maoismus in Frankreich in den 1960er- und 1970er Jahren, in: Francia. Forschungen zur Geschichte Westeuropas 47 (2020), pp. 181-204, https://doi.org/10.11588/fr.2020.1.86568.
Placing German Colonialism in the City. Berlin Postkolonial’s Tour in the African Quarter, in: Global Histories 5/2 (2019), pp. 110 - 117, https://doi.org/10.17169/GHSJ.2019.341 (Together with Paul Sprute).
Book Reviews
Review of Cyril Cordoba: Au-delà du rideau de bamboo. Relations culturelles et amitiés politiques sino-suisses. Neuchâtel: Éditions Alphil, 2020, in: Traverse. Revue d’histoire (2021/3).
Review of Patrick Boucheron; Stéphane Gerson (ed.): France in the World. A New Global History. New York 2019, in: H-Soz-Kult, 15.07.2021.
Review Article of Ludivine Bantigny: 1968. De grands soirs en petits matins, Paris 2018, and Christina von Hodenberg: Das andere Achtundsechzig. Gesellschaftsgeschichte einer Revolte, München 2018, in: Arbeit - Bewegung - Geschichte (2020/3), pp. 147 – 149.
Review Article of Gilian Glaes: African Political Activism in Postcolonial France. State Surveillance and Social Welfare, Abingdon 2019, und Felix Germain: Decolonizing the Republic. African and Caribbean Migrants in Postwar Paris, 1946–1974, East Leansing 2016, in: French History 34/3, September 2020, pp. 402–405, https://doi.org/10.1093/fh/craa061.
Review of Julia Lovell: Maoism. A Global History, London 2019, in: Global Histories 5/2 (2019), pp. 160 - 163.
Review of François Hourmant: Les Années Mao en France. Avant, pendant et après mai 68, Paris 2018, in: Archiv für Sozialgeschichte (online) 59, 2019.