(photography : École des Chartes)

On Monday June 3, Lucie Guillemer defended her thesis, Édition de l’Indicateur du réseau (1977-1980), topographic “Contre-mémoires” by Françoise d’Eaubonne, at the École des Chartes, which “trains students in the analysis and conservation of historical sources, the auxiliary sciences of history and the exploitation of data through digital technologies” (website).

Lucie, going back over Françoise’s biography and her struggles, drawing in particular on Isabelle Cambourakis’s excellent work published as an introduction to Contre-Violence ou la Résistance à l’État, proposes an “Eaubonnienne geography” to analyze l’Indicateur du réseau, this distinctive autobiography written not chronologically but geographically, by station.

By tracing the editorial history of this text, part of which has never yet been published, Lucie offers keys to understanding Françoise’s choice of this particular memorial form (for example, the potential influence of Malraux’s antémémoires on the form), and argues that it demonstrates authenticity rather than historical truth (her relationship to history being as personal as her relationship to geography).

The subject of my thesis obviously interested the teachers present, and I heard some interesting reflections on d’Eaubonne, so much so that I asked the author if they could be the subject of an article.

Following on from this thesis, the École des Chartes has expressed the wish that L’Indicateur du réseau be republished in its entirety, with Lucie Guillemer’s critically-acclaimed apparatus.

To be continued. In the meantime, you can find Lucie’s thesis position here.