Gisèle Sapiro


Gisèle Sapiro is a French sociologist and historian whose specialty area is 19th and 20th century French literature. She is a laureate of the CNRS Silver Medal and the CNRS Bronze Medal.
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Career and research

Gisèle Sapiro's research focuses on the intellectual field, the international circulation of works and ideas, particularly with regard to writers and literature. A research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, where she received the bronze medal in 2000, she has been a director of studies at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales since 2011, and a member of the Centre de sociologie européenne, which became the European Centre for Sociology and Political Science, which Sapiro directed from 2010 to 2013. Her work is a continuation of Pierre Bourdieu's work. Currently she is Consulting Editor of the Journal of the History of Ideas.
In several books, she has questioned the notion of the writer's responsibility. In her essay "Les écrivains et la politique en France", published in 2018, Sapiro studies the role of the writer in French society, stating that contemporary literature is a place of social and political criticism.

Awards and honours

Selected works

La Responsabilité de l'écrivain. Littérature, droit et morale en France, XIX–XXI siècle, Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 2011
  • La Sociologie de la littérature, Paris, Éditions La Découverte, 2014, Les Écrivains et la politique en France : de l'Affaire Dreyfus à la guerre d'Algérie, Paris, Seuil, 2018Des mots qui tuent. La responsabilité de l'intellectuel en temps de crise, 1944–1945, Paris, Seuil, Points, 2020Peut-on dissocier l'œuvre de l'auteur ?, Paris, Seuil, 2020

Articles

  • « Le négationnisme en France », Revue de synthèse, vol. 125, 5th series, 2004, p. 217–228 ; reprinted in Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Les Assassins de la mémoire, augmented edition, Paris, La Découverte, 2005, p. 209–225
  • « Traduction et globalisation des échanges : le cas du français », in Jean-Yves Mollier, Où va le livre ?, Paris, La Dispute, 2007, chap. X
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