Sophia Khadraoui-Fortune, California Lutheran University

Dr. Sophia Khadraoui-Fortune, assistant professor of French and Francophone Studies in the Department of Languages and Cultures at California Lutheran University, will discuss the reckoning of France's slave past. 

As anti-racism protests have been on the rise throughout major western societies of former colonial Empires, the discussion of colonialism, diversity, identity and immigration has brought questions of representation, reparation and recognition back to the surface, forcing several nations to rethink their selective amnesia and face their highly whited-out official history.  

In continental France, the national unrest of 2005 and the current burning societal shock-wave have galvanized some to write a new inclusive French national history. This unredacted history would include slavery and mark the public space with new monuments and memorials. Unlike the French Caribbean territories who have been more prolific in their remembrance of slavery and its abolition, with a rapid upsurge of monuments since 1995, metropolitan France has only seen a slow emergence of sculptures and memorials since 2007. Looking at the first Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery in Nantes and the sculpture to the Abolition of Slavery in Toulouse, it is clear that the memorialization process about what to remember, but also how, where and why, reveals a French society still grappling with its past.

Register to attend Dr. Khadraoui-Fortune's talk. If you have a question about the event, please contact Dr. Leila Ennaili at ennai1l@cmich.edu. This presentation is sponsored by the Department of World Languages and Literatures and the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences' Critical Engagements initiative.