Listen, watch or read Roger Griffin's keynote address at Blackwell Compass Interdisciplinary Virtual Conference "Breaking Down Barriers" -
'The Rainbow Bridge’: Reflections on Interdisciplinarity in the Cybernetic Age
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October 19, 2009
September 27, 2009
Blackwell Compass Interdisciplinary Virtual Conference
Roger Griffin will deliver a keynote address at Blackwell Compass Interdisciplinary Virtual Conference "Breaking Down Barriers" that will take place online on 19-30 October 2009.
Participants can attend at any time during the conference, when it suits their schedule, to download the keynote address, read and comment on it. Registration is free. Read more...
Participants can attend at any time during the conference, when it suits their schedule, to download the keynote address, read and comment on it. Registration is free. Read more...
Plenary address: (Post-)modern (wo-)man in search of a soul
Listen to Roger Griffin's opening plenary address at the conference "Sacred Modernities: Rethinking Modernity in a Post-Secular Age":
'(Post-)modern (wo-)man in search of a soul: Reflections on the contents and discontents of the first post-secular civilization'
You can also download his plenary address in mp3. Read more...
'(Post-)modern (wo-)man in search of a soul: Reflections on the contents and discontents of the first post-secular civilization'
You can also download his plenary address in mp3. Read more...
August 10, 2009
Review: The Extreme Right in France: From Petain to Le Pen
Roger Griffin's review of:
The Extreme Right in France: From Petain to Le Pen. By James Shields. London, Routledge, 2007. xx + 412 pp. Pb £21.99.
Now in its thirty-sixth year on the French political scene, the National Front (FN) of Jean-Marie Le Pen has become probably the best documented form of post-war right-wing radicalism in the world. It is thus all the more remarkable that, against all the odds, James Shields has managed to produce a truly original, scholarly and valuable book on the subject which significantly enriches French Studies. It is not just that he organizes the fruits of meticulous research into the vast panoply of the far-right in France over some seventy years with narrative and stylistic clarity, reconstructing the various itineraries with considerable tenacity in the process. He also supplies Anglophone students of France with a truly historical understanding of the Le Pen phenomenon that is denied to conventional political scientists and contemporary historians. Shields has a thesis which he resolutely works through with impressive scholarship, namely that Lepenism cannot be understood without a deep familiarity with the Vichy collaborationist government and its legacy, the significance of Poujadism as a manifestation of populist disillusion with the Fourth Republic, and the bitter reaction of the far-right to the nation’s defeat in the Algerian war. An equally important factor was the disillusionment experienced by many unrepentant fascists whose mindset was forged in the 1950s and 40s in the face of the general consensus for liberal Republicanism in the 1950s and the rise of a powerful youth movement of left-wing radicalism in the 1960s. Some fascists went underground to form shadowy avant-garde groupuscules with national and pan-European linkages, and others abandoned activism altogether to concentrate on the battle for establishing the cultural hegemony of right-wing ideas of pan-European cultural renaissance. However the founding fascist fathers of the FN deliberately set out to create a new form of parliamentary politics which would disseminate radical right ideas in a non-revolutionary, euphemized and electable format. Shields’s complex and fascinating story is mercifully unencumbered by lengthy excursi on the definitional issues raised by his topic. It nevertheless offers lucid, well-informed judgements on the thorny taxonomic problems posed by the various phenomena under discussion which eschew the simplifications of left and right, and demonstrates how well he understands not just European fascism but its remarkably extended family of anti-liberal siblings that thrived throughout twentieth century France. Perhaps an introductory chapter on the far-right in France before Vichy, and a concluding chapter to spell out the radical implications of his history for evaluating its contemporary importance would have made the book more complete. However, they would also have made it alarmingly long for his publishers if not for his readers. As it stands, it still manages to be simultaneously a history textbook and a perceptive interpretation of the Le Pen phenomenon which deserves a wide readership by students and researchers in this area. It would not do some FN voters any harm to read a reconstruction of their movement which exposes in such irrefutable detail its fascist roots and subtext, even if Shields is on the ‘wrong’ side of the ‘English’ Channel. In fact, it is a book not just begging for importation into France, but translation into French.
Roger Griffin
Oxford Brookes University Read more...
The Extreme Right in France: From Petain to Le Pen. By James Shields. London, Routledge, 2007. xx + 412 pp. Pb £21.99.
Now in its thirty-sixth year on the French political scene, the National Front (FN) of Jean-Marie Le Pen has become probably the best documented form of post-war right-wing radicalism in the world. It is thus all the more remarkable that, against all the odds, James Shields has managed to produce a truly original, scholarly and valuable book on the subject which significantly enriches French Studies. It is not just that he organizes the fruits of meticulous research into the vast panoply of the far-right in France over some seventy years with narrative and stylistic clarity, reconstructing the various itineraries with considerable tenacity in the process. He also supplies Anglophone students of France with a truly historical understanding of the Le Pen phenomenon that is denied to conventional political scientists and contemporary historians. Shields has a thesis which he resolutely works through with impressive scholarship, namely that Lepenism cannot be understood without a deep familiarity with the Vichy collaborationist government and its legacy, the significance of Poujadism as a manifestation of populist disillusion with the Fourth Republic, and the bitter reaction of the far-right to the nation’s defeat in the Algerian war. An equally important factor was the disillusionment experienced by many unrepentant fascists whose mindset was forged in the 1950s and 40s in the face of the general consensus for liberal Republicanism in the 1950s and the rise of a powerful youth movement of left-wing radicalism in the 1960s. Some fascists went underground to form shadowy avant-garde groupuscules with national and pan-European linkages, and others abandoned activism altogether to concentrate on the battle for establishing the cultural hegemony of right-wing ideas of pan-European cultural renaissance. However the founding fascist fathers of the FN deliberately set out to create a new form of parliamentary politics which would disseminate radical right ideas in a non-revolutionary, euphemized and electable format. Shields’s complex and fascinating story is mercifully unencumbered by lengthy excursi on the definitional issues raised by his topic. It nevertheless offers lucid, well-informed judgements on the thorny taxonomic problems posed by the various phenomena under discussion which eschew the simplifications of left and right, and demonstrates how well he understands not just European fascism but its remarkably extended family of anti-liberal siblings that thrived throughout twentieth century France. Perhaps an introductory chapter on the far-right in France before Vichy, and a concluding chapter to spell out the radical implications of his history for evaluating its contemporary importance would have made the book more complete. However, they would also have made it alarmingly long for his publishers if not for his readers. As it stands, it still manages to be simultaneously a history textbook and a perceptive interpretation of the Le Pen phenomenon which deserves a wide readership by students and researchers in this area. It would not do some FN voters any harm to read a reconstruction of their movement which exposes in such irrefutable detail its fascist roots and subtext, even if Shields is on the ‘wrong’ side of the ‘English’ Channel. In fact, it is a book not just begging for importation into France, but translation into French.
Roger Griffin
Oxford Brookes University Read more...
July 30, 2009
Chapter: I am no longer human. I am a Titan. A god!
The first chapter of Roger Griffin's The Fascist Century is available online:
'"I am no longer human. I am a Titan. A god!": The Fascist Quest to Regenerate Time: Modernity under the New Order: The Fascist Project for Managing the Future' (pp. 3-23).
This chapter is based on the written-up version of a talk given in November 1998 at the Institute of Historical Research as part of the seminar series Modern Italian History: 19th and 20th Centuries organized by Carl Levy. Read more...
'"I am no longer human. I am a Titan. A god!": The Fascist Quest to Regenerate Time: Modernity under the New Order: The Fascist Project for Managing the Future' (pp. 3-23).
This chapter is based on the written-up version of a talk given in November 1998 at the Institute of Historical Research as part of the seminar series Modern Italian History: 19th and 20th Centuries organized by Carl Levy. Read more...
July 27, 2009
Chapter: The Evolutions and Convolutions of Political Religion
Roger Griffin's 'Introduction' to The Sacred in Twentieth-Century Politics: Essays in Honour of Professor Stanley G. Payne is available online:
'Introduction: The Evolutions and Convolutions of Political Religion' (pp. 1-18). Read more...
'Introduction: The Evolutions and Convolutions of Political Religion' (pp. 1-18). Read more...
July 12, 2009
Conference paper: A New "New Consensus" on the Definition of Fascism
The paper presented by Roger Griffin at the conference "Europe's Radical Right and World War II" on 10 July 2009:
A new "new consensus" on the definition of fascism? or is the new consensus getting "old" and are we witnessing "a new wave" in the comparative study of extremism? (PDF)
For more info on the conference, check the web-site of Alfred Krupp Science College. Read more...
A new "new consensus" on the definition of fascism? or is the new consensus getting "old" and are we witnessing "a new wave" in the comparative study of extremism? (PDF)
For more info on the conference, check the web-site of Alfred Krupp Science College. Read more...
July 02, 2009
Conference paper: Lingua Quarti Imperii
Roger Griffin's paper '"Lingua Quarti Imperii": The Euphemistic Tradition of the Extreme Right', presented at the International Symposium on the Language of Far-right Movements "Speaking with Forked Tongues: The Rhetoric of Right-Wing Extremism Today".
Click here to view or download the paper in PDF.
For more info on the Symposium, check the blog "Speaking With Forked Tongues". Read more...
Click here to view or download the paper in PDF.
For more info on the Symposium, check the blog "Speaking With Forked Tongues". Read more...
May 30, 2009
Symposium: Speaking with Forked Tongues
School of Social Sciences (the University of Northampton) presents:
A one-day International Symposium on the Language of Far-right Movements "Speaking with Forked Tongues: The Rhetoric of Right-Wing Extremism Today" that will be held at the University of Northampton, Park Campus (Northampton, UK) on 26 June 2009.
Keynote Speakers: Professor Roger Griffin, Professor Janet Wilson, Mr. Michael Ellis.
From Holocaust "revisionism" in places like Central Europe to "white nationalist" parties in Britain and France to veiled anti-Semitic conspiricism by the American ideologue, Lyndon LaRouche, the recourse to language as a political veil, rather than a transparent means of communication, has been a key feature of radical right-wing movements since 1945. This daylong event promises to uncover salient techniques and relevant practices employed in far-right rhetoric, for the benefit of contemporary researchers, policy-makers and the wider public.
Registration and lunch £25 (£10 unwaged).
For further information, or to register, please contact the organizers:
Dr. Matthew Feldman (matthew.feldman@northampton.ac.uk) and Dr. Paul Jackson (paul.jackson@northampton.ac.uk). Read more...
A one-day International Symposium on the Language of Far-right Movements "Speaking with Forked Tongues: The Rhetoric of Right-Wing Extremism Today" that will be held at the University of Northampton, Park Campus (Northampton, UK) on 26 June 2009.
Keynote Speakers: Professor Roger Griffin, Professor Janet Wilson, Mr. Michael Ellis.
From Holocaust "revisionism" in places like Central Europe to "white nationalist" parties in Britain and France to veiled anti-Semitic conspiricism by the American ideologue, Lyndon LaRouche, the recourse to language as a political veil, rather than a transparent means of communication, has been a key feature of radical right-wing movements since 1945. This daylong event promises to uncover salient techniques and relevant practices employed in far-right rhetoric, for the benefit of contemporary researchers, policy-makers and the wider public.
Registration and lunch £25 (£10 unwaged).
For further information, or to register, please contact the organizers:
Dr. Matthew Feldman (matthew.feldman@northampton.ac.uk) and Dr. Paul Jackson (paul.jackson@northampton.ac.uk). Read more...
May 04, 2009
Article: Modernity, modernism, and fascism. A "mazeway resynthesis"
'Modernity, modernism, and fascism. A "mazeway resynthesis"', published in Modernism/Modernity 15/1 (2007), available online: HTML | PDF.
Read more...
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