Michael S. Christofferson | Faculty Profiles

Diplomas/Degrees

Ph.D., Columbia University (1998)

B.A., Carleton College (1988)

Personal Statement

Beyond teaching the history of different topics, my goal as an educator is to help students begin to practice history as a discipline with its own specific methods and techniques by which one understands the world and creates new knowledge.

Recent Courses

Seminar In The Humanities: Fascism And Nazism

Fascism And Nazism

Senior Seminar: European History

Sophomore Seminar Research Skills

Western Civilization I I

Specialization/Interests

French Revolution and modern France, 20th-century Europe, the global sixties, and modern European political and social thought.

Research Interests

My research focuses on 20th-century French history and, more recently, photography and its relationship with history. I am currently completing a book under contract with Verso Books on François Furet, an historian of the French Revolution and major figure in late 20th-century French intellectual life. A second project, Changing Queens, brings together photography and history to explore contemporary Queens, NY and the weight of history in its present.

Books

Michael Scott Christofferson, Terminating the Revolution: François Furet and the Politics of History. (Under contract with Verso Books and projected forthcoming in 2025.)

Michael Scott Christofferson (2018). Intelectualii francezi împotriva stângii: Momentul antitotalitar din anii 1970. Cluj-Napoca, Romania: Tact Editura. [Romanian translation of French Intellectuals Against the Left.]

Rafe Blaufarb, Michael S. Christofferson, and Darrin M. McMahon, eds. (2014). Interpreting the Ancien Regime: David Bien. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation.

Michael Scott Christofferson (2009). Les Intellectuels contre la gauche: L’idéologie antitotalitaire en France (1968-1981). Marseilles, France: Agone, (2nd, "pocket" edition, 2014). [French translation of French Intellectuals Against the Left.]

Thomas R. Christofferson (75%) with Michael S. Christofferson (25%) (2006). France During World War II: From Defeat to Liberation. New York: Fordham University Press.

Michael Scott Christofferson (2004). French Intellectuals Against the Left: The Antitotalitarian Moment of the 1970s. New York: Berghahn Books.

Chapters

Michael Scott Christofferson (2016). "‘The Best Help I Could Find to Understand our Present’: François Furet’s Antirevolutionary Reading of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America." In Stephen W. Sawyer and Iain Stewart (Eds.). In Search of the Liberal Moment: Democracy, Anti-totalitarianism, and Intellectual Politics in France since 1950. (pp. 85-109). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Michael Scott Christofferson (2015). "Foucault and New Philosophy: Why Foucault Endorsed Andre Gluckmann's The Master Thinkers." In Daniel Zamora and Michael C. Behrent (Eds.). Foucault and Neoliberalism. (pp. 6-23). Malden, MA: Polity Press [English language version of "Foucault et la 'nouvelle philosophie'."].

Michael Scott Christofferson (2015). Translation from French to English of Michel Foucault "The Great Rage of Facts". In Daniel Zamora and Michael C. Behrent (Eds.). Foucault and Neoliberalism. (pp. 170-75). Malden, MA: Polity Press.

Michael Scott Christofferson (2015). "François Furet: Eine antitotalitäre Geschichte der Französischen Revolution." In Frank Schale and Ellen Thümmler (Eds.). Den Totalitären Staat Denken. (pp. 179-97). Baden-Baden, Germany: Nomos. [Abridged translation of "An Antitotalitarian History of the French Revolution: François Furet’s Penser la Révolution française in the Intellectual Politics of the Late 1970s."].

Michael Scott Christofferson (2014). "Introduction: David D. Bien and the Paradoxical History of Old Regime France." In Rafe Blaufarb, Michael S. Christofferson and Darrin M. McMahon (Eds.). Interpreting the Ancien Regime: David Bien. (pp. 1-22). Oxford: Voltaire Foundation.

Michael Scott Christofferson (2014). "Foucault et la « nouvelle philosophie»: pourquoi Michel Foucault soutient Les maîtres penseurs d'André Glucksmann." In Daniel Zamora (Eds.). Critiquer Foucault: Les années 1980 et la tentation néolibérale. (pp. 13-35). Brussels: Editions Aden.

Michael Scott Christofferson (2013). "Les 'passeurs' du 'dépasseur' : les historiens américains de la Révolution française et François Furet." In Jean-Numa Ducange and Michel Biard (Eds.). Passeurs de Révolution. (pp. 57-67). Paris: Société des études robespierristes.

Michael Scott Christofferson (2004). "French Intellectuals and the Repression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956: The Politics of a Protest Reconsidered". In Julian Bourg (Eds.). After the Deluge: New Perspectives on French Intellectual and Cultural History. (pp. 253-76). New York: Lexington Books.

Articles

Michael Scott Christofferson (2023) Review Essay on Terence Renaud, New Lefts: The Making of a Radical Tradition. H-Diplo Roundtable XXV-1, 10-14.

Michael Scott Christofferson (2017), "François Furet, 20 ans après," LAVA, 24 September 2017. Also published in Dutch as "Het nieuwe centrum volgens François Furet," LAVA, 24 October 2017 and in a modified English version as "The Last Tocquevillian," Jacobin, 15 November 2017.

Michael Scott Christofferson (2015), "Scholarly Critique in the Twenty-First Century." H-France Salon, 7, 8 pages.

Michael Scott Christofferson (2014), "A Mind of the Left?" New Left Review, 86, 131-37. [Also published in the Spanish language edition of the New Left Review 88, 138-145.]

Michael Scott Christofferson (2014), "L'historiographie américaine de la gauche française des années 1970." Dissidences, 13, 113-24.

Michael Scott Christofferson (2013), "Maoism and the French Sixties." European Journal of Political Theory, 12, 2, 195-204. [Available in Chinese translation at http://www.4sbooks.com/archives/6319.html]

Michael Scott Christofferson, Jacques Guilhaumou, and Julien Louvrier (2010), "Aux Sources de la relecture de l’histoire de la Révolution française par François Furet: La Lutte des intellectuels français contre le ‘totalitarisme’ et ses effets sur l’histoire de l’historiographie de la Révolution française." Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 360, 227-38.

Michael Scott Christofferson (2009), "François Furet entre l’histoire et le journalisme, 1958–1965." Agone : Histoire, Politique & Sociologie, 41-42, 101-22. [Republished as an appendix to the second edition of Les Intellectuels contre la gauche].

Michael Scott Christofferson (2009), Review Essay on From Revolution to Ethics: May 1968 and Contemporary French Thought by Julian Bourg. H-France Forum, 4, 3, 61-68.

Michael Scott Christofferson (2008), "The French ‘Sixties’." French Politics, Culture & Society, 26, 3, 123-40.

Michael Scott Christofferson (2001), "François Furet Between History and Journalism, 1958-65." French History, 15, 4, 421-47.

Michael Scott Christofferson (1999), "An Antitotalitarian History of the French Revolution: François Furet’s Penser la Révolution française in the Intellectual Politics of the Late 1970s." French Historical Studies, 22, 4, 557-611.

Conference Presentations

(2019). The Historian and the Think Tank: François Furet's Presidency of the EHESS and the Origins of the Fondation Saint-Simon. In Annual Meeting of the Society for French Historical Studies. Indianapolis, IN.

(2015). Comment for panel "Bordering Exchanges and Liberal Circulation in 1970s France". In Annual Conference of the Western Society for French History. Chicago, IL.

(2014). François Furet's 'Le catéchisme révolutionnaire' (1971) Revisited. In Annual Meeting of the Society for French Historical Studies. Montréal, Canada.

(2013). Comment for panel “Left-wing Expatriates in Wartime France: Elsa Triolet, Victor Brauner, Tristan Tzara, and Albert Camus”. In Annual Meeting of the Society for French Historical Studies. Cambridge, MA.

(2012). François Furet’s Resistance. In Annual Meeting of the Society for French Historical Studies. Los Angeles, CA.

(2009). Comment for panel “The Left in France after May ’68”. In Annual Meeting of the Society for French Historical Studies. St. Louis, MO.

(2008). François Furet and America: The First Years, 1968-84. In Annual Meeting of the Society for French Historical Studies. New Brunswick, NJ.

(2005). The Concept of Totalitarianism in Cold War France: A Comparative Perspective. In Cold War France and America: New Perspectives. Florida State University. Tallahassee, FL.

(2003). A Reactionary Revolutionary Aftermath? François Furet’s Dialogue with Ernst Nolte. In Revolutionary Aftermaths. Carleton College, Northfield, MN.

(2002). Explaining Gauchisme’s Demise in the Early 1970s. In 30th Annual Conference of the Western Society for French History. Baltimore, MD.

(2001). Comment for panel “French Social Cinema of the 1990s”. In 29th Annual Conference of the Western Society for French History. Indianapolis, IN.

(2001). The Politics of French Intellectuals’ Protests Against the Repression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. In Annual Meeting of the Society for French Historical Studies. Chapel Hill, NC.

(2000). François Furet as a Journalist: The France observateur Years, 1958-64. In 28th Annual Conference of the Western Society for French History. Los Angeles, CA.

(1999). Political and Institutional Factors in the Divorce of Intellectuals from the Party Politics of the Left in the Aftermath of the Algerian War. In 27th Annual Conference of the Western Society for French History. Asilomar, CA.

(1999). East European Dissidence and French Intellectual Politics in the 1970s. In Cold War Culture: Film, Fact, and Fiction. Indiana University. Bloomington, IN.

(1998). From the Comité Tibor Déry to Solidarité avec Solidarnosc: French Intellectuals’ Protests Against Repression Under Communism Reconsidered. In Eleventh International Conference of Europeanists. Baltimore, MD.

(1996). The Gulag Effect: French Readings of Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, 1974-76. In Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association. Atlanta, GA.

(1995). The Origins and Significance of Esprit’s Critique of Totalitarianism. In 23rd Annual Conference of the Western Society for French History.. Las Vegas, NV.

Invited Presentations

(2024, May) From Metahistory to History: The Role of Historiography in François Furet’s Interpretation of the French Revolution, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.

(2022, December) Comment on paper "Napoleon as Technocrat: History and Historical Revisionism in the Interwar French Army (1919-1939)," by Sharmishtha Roy Chowdhury, New York French History Group, New York, NY.

(2019, May). François Furet’s engagement in and Reflection on War, 1944-62. "Guerre et paix dans la pensée française de la guerre froide,” Université de Caen Normandie/IMEC, Caen, France.

(2015, January). Du PCF au PSU: L’évolution de l’engagement politique de François Furet. Seminar “Territoires et militants communistes: Approches plurielles et comparées,” Centre d’histoire social du XXe siècle, Paris, France.

(2014, November). Communism and Decolonization: François Furet’s Politics in the 1950s and 1960s. History and Culture Colloquium, Drew University, Madison, NJ.

(2013, December). François Furet's Liberalism. New Perspectives on the French Liberal Renaissance, University of London Institute in Paris, Paris, France.

(2013, January). Presentation and discussion of my book "Les Intellectuels contre la gauche". Séminaire Les gauches alternatives en Europe : idées, cultures, évolutions, Centre d'histoire de Sciences Po, Paris, France.

(2013, January). Supplément aux Intellectuels contre la gauche (trad. fr. : Agone, 2009) : Penser la biographie de François Furet. Séminaire Marx au XXIe siècle, The Sorbonne, Paris, France.

(2013, January). L'historiographie américaine de la gauche française des années 1970. La décennie 70 en France. Inflexion, retournement, restauration politique?, Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, France.

(2013, January). Les 'passeurs' du 'dépasseur' : les historiens américains de la Révolution et François Furet. “Passeurs” de Révolution, Université de Rouen, France.

(2012, November). Paris, Cholet, Saint-Amand-Montrond: François Furet's Youth. New York Area Seminar in Intellectual and Cultural History, New York, NY.

(2010, June). Presentation and discussion of Les Intellectuels contre la gauche. Institut d’Études Politiques, Paris, France..

(2010, June). Presentation and discussion of Les Intellectuels contre la gauche. l'Institut d'histoire de la Révolution française (Université de Paris 1 / Panthéon-Sorbonne), Paris, France..

(2009, October). Presentations of Les Intellectuels contre la gauche. In the bookstores L’Atelier and Tropiques (Paris), Les Ombres Blanches (Toulouse), and La Machine à Lire (Bordeaux), France..

(2009, October). Les Intellectuels de gauche depuis mai 68: la cause ou le pouvoir ? Les Rendez-vous de l’histoire, Blois, France..

(2009, September). François Furet and the Algerian Independence War. Institute for French Studies Weekly Seminar Series, New York University, New York, NY..

(2005, April). Understanding the Collapse of the Intellectual Left and the Rise of Liberal Thought: A Reply to Perry Anderson. Institute of French Studies, New York University. New York, NY..

(2004, April). From the Antitotalitarian to the Liberal Moment. Conference on “Liberalism’s Return: French Social Thought Since 1968.” Columbia University, New York, NY..

(2001, February). Rethinking French Intellectual Politics: The Question of Communism Since World War Two. Lefler Lecture. Carleton College, Northfield, MN..

Other Work

BOOK REVIEWS in The Journal of Modern History; H-France Review; Michigan War Studies Review; The American Historical Review; Canadian Journal of History; La Revue internationale des livres et des idées; The Historian; French Politics, Culture & Society; History: Reviews of New Books; Choice; Patterns of Prejudice.

EXCERPT from Les Intellectuels contre la gauche published in Le Monde diplomatique 667 (October 2009): 27. Republished in the Norwegian, Korean, and Kurdish language editions of Le Monde diplomatique.

INTERVIEWS:

“May 1968’s Black Sheep.” Jacobin [online edition] (2015)

Libération, Oct. 9, 2009. 1pp.

“L’Invention du ‘totalitarisme’.” Contretemps 22 (May 2008): 108-14.

Creative Scholarship

Photograph in exhibit “#ICPConcerned: Global Images for Global
Crisis,” International Center of Photography (ICP), New York, NY, Oct. 1,
2020-Jan. 3, 2021. The photograph is in the permanent collection of the ICP and in the exhibition catalog #ICPConcerned: Global Images for Global Crisis (New York: G Editions, 2021), 78.

Grants

Faculty Development Grant, Adelphi University, 2012

Faculty Research Grant, Penn State Institute for the Arts and Humanities, summer 2008.

NEH Summer Stipend Research Grant, summer 2006 (used in December 2006-January 2007).

Global Fund Grant, Penn State University, spring 2003.

Faculty Research Grant, Penn State Institute for the Arts and Humanistic Studies, summer 2000.

NEH Summer Institute on “Memory, History, and Dictatorship: The Legacy of World War II in France, Germany, and Italy,” stipended participant, summer 1999.

Professional Activities

Series editor of "Berghahn Mongraphs in French Studies" published by Berghahn Books. (Beginning in 2013)