Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters

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 Human Rights in the 21st Century

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 Democracy Today: Lessons from Dreyfus and Zola

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 The Dreyfus Affair and Contemporary Anti-Semitism

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As part of the Collection’s mission to document the history and impact of the Dreyfus Affair,
we present a series of interviews with leading scholars in fields including history, literature, law, and human rights.

Interviewees have been asked to speak for five to ten minutes on topics relating to the Affair and their own scholarship. Transcripts of each interview are available, and interviews are illustrated with examples from the Dreyfus Affair Collection at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries. These interviews are ongoing, and new ones will be posted as they become available. Interviews may be consulted and cited for study, teaching, and research, but may not be repurposed or reposted without permission of the University of Pennsylvania Libraries. For further information, please contact jpollack@pobox.upenn.edu.

   Interviews:

• Jean-Max Guieu, Professor of French, Department of French and School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University “Caricatures: The Visual Impact of the Dreyfus Affair”
• Jeffrey Mehlman, Professor of French, Boston University “The Dreyfus Affair and the Shock of Anti-Semitism” [forthcoming]
• Henri Mitterand, Professor Emeritus, Sorbonne Nouvelle, and Professor Emeritus of French, Columbia University, with Lance Donaldson-Evans, Professor of French, University of Pennsylvania “Dreyfus et Zola” [forthcoming]
• Clemens Nathan, Director, Clemens Nathan Research Centre “The Affair and Human Rights in the Twenty-First Century”. [forthcoming]

Jean-Max Guieu, Professor of French,
Department of French and School of Foreign Services, Georgetown University

Bibliographer Emeritus, Lorraine Beitler Collection of the Dreyfus Affair

Professor Jean-Max Guieu lectures and publishes on Provencal and French Society and Literature in relation to the Arts, including opera. A noted Emile Zola scholar, Professor Guieu in 1986 organized at Georgetown the first US full-scale colloquium about the author. He has finally established his life project of an electronic data-bank of scanned images generated by the infamous Dreyfus Case and organized an international conference for the Centennial of Zola's "J'Accuse!..." in February 1998. The topic -- "Human Rights vs. prejudice, intolerance and demonization" -- is a résumé of ideas he steadfastly supports.   Dr. Guieu's home page

Entire Interview (17 minutes)    Transcript of the Interview

Chapters: 1. Titles, Introduction (3:20)   2. Caricaturing Zola (4:40)   3. Attacking Dreyfusards and Jews (6:40)   4. Conclusion, Credits 2:05)
 

Jeffrey Mehlman, Professor of French,
Boston University

Professor Mehlman is a literary critic and a historian of ideas. Over a number of years, he has been writing an implicit history of speculative interpretation in France in the form of a series of readings of canonical literary works. His books include A Structural Study of Autobiography (1974), Revolution and Repetition (1977), Cataract: A Study in Diderot (1979), Legacies: Of Anti-Semitism in France (1983), Walter Benjamin for Children: An Essay on His Radio Years (1993), Genealogies of the Text (1995). 

Interview:
Part 1 (11:40   1. Will They Go That Far?,  2. The Affair,  3. Rennes )  
Part 2 (10:19   4. Rehabilitation,  5. Aftermath )                                      Transcript of the Interview
 

Henri Mitterand,
Professor Emeritus, Columbia University

Henri Mitterand, a former fellow of the Ecole normale supérieure, agrégé de l'Université, docteur ès lettres (1969), Professor Emeritus at the Sorbonne Nouvelle, Professor Emeritus of French at Columbia, has edited the five volumes of Zola's Rougon-Macquart in the "Bibliothèque de la Pléiade" (éditions Gallimard) and also the fifteen volumes of Zola's Oeuvres complètes with Cercle du Livre précieux, Paris.

Lance K. Donaldson-Evans. 16th- and early 17th-century French literature. His interests include the major authors of the 16th century and the devotional poets of the early 17th century. He has published books on Jean de La Ceppède and on eye images in the poetry of the Ecole lyonnaise (Labé, Du Guillet, Scève, Magny), as well as critical editions of four devotional poets: Pierre de Croix; Lazare de Selve; Cesar de Nostredame; and Antoine Favre.

Interview is forthcoming.

Clemens Nathan,
Director, Clemens Nathan Research Centre

Clemens Nathan worked with René Cassin at the Alliance Israelite Universelle and has carried on his tradition of working for human rights at the Clemens Nathan Research Centre, an organization devoted to the promotion of international human rights. The Centre is the research arm of the Consultative Council of Jewish Organizations, a human rights NGO. Its published conference proceedings include Terrorism and Human Rights (2007) and Foreign Policy and Human Rights (2007). 

Interview is forthcoming.