Public Seminar 'From the Memorial Laws’ Quarrel to the Reflections on the Outline of a European Memory. On the Alleged Wanderings of the French Legislator'

Tuesday 28 April 2009, 1:00-2:00pm
at Room 212, Level 2, 234 Queensberry Street, The University of Melbourne

presented by

Mickael Ho Foui Sang

(PhD Candidate, Law, University of Melbourne)

download audio mp3 (9MB)

Abstract:

Since 2005 the adoption of four “memorial laws” by the French parliament has given rise to strong engagements of scholars and intellectuals in the French public arena. The various attempts of the legislator to deal with the history and memory of the Holocaust, the Negro Trade and Slavery, Colonization and the Armenian Genocide has often been perceived as an unacceptable instrumentalization of historical science. The criticism of opponents to memorial laws has become even fiercer with a recent mobilisation of European historians (Appel de Blois) in October 2008. This paper will look at the difficulties raised by the handling of memories by law, and will explore the questions: why have laws on memory; and are such laws compatible with democratic and republican principles?

Bio:

Mickaël Ho Foui Sang is a PhD Cotutelle candidate at Melbourne Law School (The University of Melbourne). He completed his undergraduate law studies at the University of Paris II (Panthéon-Assas, France) and his Masters at the University of Paris Ouest – Nanterre La Défense (France) specialising in legal theory and European law. His current research explores the tension between the State, collective memory and history in contemporary France and Australia.