Historian Claire Mauss-Copeaux is the author of several books on the Franco-Algerian war and the traces it has left in the individual and collective memories of French, Algerians, and French from Algerian origin. Her most recent book, La source: Mémoires d’un massacre: Oudjehane, 11 mai 1956 (Payot: 2013) examines the various versions given of one massacre, in which half the civilian population of a village (mostly women, children and old men) were killed by the French army. Going back to the Franco-Algerian war is timely in the aftermath of the Charlie-Hebdo events. The two perpetrators of the massacre at the Charlie-Hebdo offices (Saïd and Chérif Kouachi) were French citizens, born in France, from Algerian origin.

Sponsors:  France and the World Seminar, Mahindra Humanities Center, the Bacon Fund and

the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures