Around a Book: Discoveries and Perspectives – Andrée Michel (1920–2022)
Maison Suger is pleased to host the presentation of Andrée Michel’s book, Around a Book: Discoveries and Perspectives – Andrée Michel (1920–2022), published by Éditions Frantz Fanon.
The seminar will be held in French.
This event will explore the bonds Andrée Michel forged with women subjected to "millennia of oppression", whom she empowered, either directly or through her writings. It will also reveal little-known connections between these women and their social, cultural, and political environments.
Born on the Mediterranean coast, Michel became aware of women's oppression at a very early age and tried to support her mother, whom she saw as unhappy. Her unique career and the scope of her work – 29 books and numerous articles in scientific journals – are marked by two major contributions to sociology: interdisciplinarity, bridging the humanities and the "hard" sciences, and the transcending of boundaries – geographical, cultural, and political – on a global scale. These aspects of her work emerge gradually through her writings and resonate with today's pressing social challenges.
"Our book was born out of a desire to highlight the life and work of Andrée Michel (1920–2022), sociologist and feminist. Drawing on written and oral sources – including discussions with her colleagues, researchers, journalists, and activists – the book offers insight into her scientific and personal journey. Her 29 books and 150 articles, some little known, risk being overlooked today.
Born in Vallauris into a bourgeois, patriarchal family, Michel was shaped by the two world wars and joined the army in 1944. A pioneer in the sociology of immigration and racism, she conducted surveys among Algerian workers (her 1956 thesis) and in working-class communities. In La condition de la Française d'aujourd'hui (The Condition of French Women Today, 1964), she documented women’s oppression – a theme central to all her later work.
After teaching in Algeria and North America, Michel turned to studies of the family and anti-militarism. Her Surarmement, pouvoirs, démocratie (1995) denounces the arms race, while Justice et vérité pour la Bosnie-Herzégovine (2001) condemns the Srebrenica genocide. In Féminisme et antimilitarisme (Feminism and Antimilitarism, 2012), she critiques the ethnocentrism of French feminism and extends her perspective globally.
Andrée Michel remains an inspiring example of a free-thinking, humanist sociologist, whose work continues to enrich the social sciences on labour, feminism, North-South relations, and militarism."
- Christiane Veauvy - Sociologist
- Michelle Perrot - Historian, Preface Writer and Co-Author
- Amar Ingrachen - Founder and Director of Éditions Frantz Fanon
- Kamel Chachoua - Sociologist and Anthropologist
- Mireille Azzoug - Multidisciplinary Approach
- Evelyne Accad - Comparative Literature
- Yves Duroux - Philosopher
- Sadzida Jerlagic - Sociologist (born in Sarajevo), Journalist for 30 years at RFI
- Laura Pisano - Contemporary History, University of Cagliari
Feeling, thinking, acting
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