The Frenchmen: French Theory from Paris to America

How did a group of abstruse French thinkers become intellectual stars in America and why do their ideas still matter today?

When Emily Eakin arrived at Harvard in the late 1980s, she fell under the spell of French theory. Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, Louis Althusser, Gilles Deleuze, and Jacques Lacan had captivated American campuses with brilliant, often mystifying ideas. In her acclaimed new book, The Frenchmen: Or, My Life in Theory, Eakin, a leading critic and essayist,  intertwines her own youthful fascination with theory with the remarkable story of its rise in American intellectual and cultural life.

Blending memoir, biography, and intellectual history with wit and clarity, Eakin makes notoriously complex ideas accessible while revealing the fascinating and often scandalous lives, rivalries, friendships, and contradictions of the men behind them. The Frenchmen traces the improbable story of how French theory crossed the Atlantic, transformed American intellectual life, and became entangled in culture wars that continue today.

Eakin will be joined in conversation by Bruno Perreau, Cynthia L. Reed Professor of French Studies at MIT and author of Queer Theory: The French Response. Perreau's own work explores the transatlantic circulation of ideas between France and the United States, including the ways French theory helped inspire American queer theory before returning to France transformed, and sometimes perceived as a foreign American influence.

The author talk will be followed by an audience Q&A. Guests are then invited to continue the conversation over a reception and book signing, with copies of The Frenchmen available for purchase onsite from Harvard Book Store.

The evening will also mark the opening of a special exhibition in our gallery; When Ideas Took to the Streets, French Intellectuals, May ’68, and the Reinvention of Politics

Guests are invited to explore the exhibition before and after the conversation.