Where are you speaking from, comrade?

During the events of May ’68, it was common practice to question a stranger in this way if they wished to speak at a General Assembly, in order to ascertain their social position (at the time, people spoke of ‘classes’) and thus their legitimacy to speak. The historian Philippe Artières, who co-curated the exhibition Images en Lutte: The Visual Culture of the Far Left in France (1968–1974) at Beaux-Arts de Paris in 2018, has been conducting research since the 1990s into ‘minor’ writing and archives. This has led him, amongst other things, to prison archives, the papers of a 20th-century philosopher, people living with HIV, and a psychiatric asylum in La Manche. This vast undertaking has involved examining places, people, objects and events. During this session, we will discuss traces that are, by definition, not archived, and the opportunities available to the historian to bring them to life through fiction and by collaborating with others. We will also discuss comrades and enemies, the ‘I’ and the ‘We’.

A discussion moderated by François-René Martin and Audrey Illouz.

Philippe Artières, is a historian of contemporary society and Senior Research Fellow at the CNRS, based at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Social Issues (IRIS) at the EHESS in Paris-Condorcet, he has devoted part of his work to the contemporary history of writing (19th–20th centuries). In particular, he has published *Clinique de l’écriture* (La Découverte-poche, 2013), *La Banderole* (Autrement-poche, 20), *La police de l’écriture* (La Découverte, 2013) and *Décrire. Études sur la culture écrite contemporaine (1871–1981) (Editions de la Sorbonne, 2016) and La Experiencia escrita, Buenos Aires, Ampersand, Colección Scripta Manent, 2019). This interest in writing led him to a series of research projects on the uprisings of the 1968 era and their archives from a Foucauldian perspective, focusing on highlighting the modes of subjectivation at work in these events. In particular, he co-edited with Michelle Zancarini-Fournel, *68, une histoire collective* (La Découverte, 2008/2018), coordinated La révolte de la prison de Nancy - 15 janvier 1972 (Le Point du Jour, 2013), Attica USA 1971 (Le Point du Jour, 2017) and wrote Le peuple du Larzac (La Découverte, 2021), La mine en procès. Fouquières-les-Lens, 1970 (Anamosa, 2023). He has organised several exhibitions, including co-curating with Eric de Chassey in 2018 the exhibition at the ENSBA, Images en lutte.

Photo credit: © Léo Bertocchi