Scholars and Their Kin

“[An] important, creative, and deeply moving collection of essays. … Many of the essays in this collection deal with difficult topics in microcosm and macrocosm: untimely death, secrets, scandal, silence, violence, untruth, myths of origin, identity, the desire to forget. But the authors never flinch away from the emotional nature of writing about ‘kin.’ The essays draw on personal and official archives, interviews, individual recollections, photographs, and objects. This unusual blend of emotional connection with deep, specialist research makes for profound storytelling and fascinating reading.” * History Today *“A fascinating and innovative collection of essays by scholars using their research, interpretive, and writing talents to explore their own family pasts, and to consider the threads that link those intimate inheritances to broader questions about history, memory, power, and love. Often beautiful, surprising, and urgent, Gerson’s volume is a gift.” – Ada Ferrer, author of “Cuba: An American History”“A volume that could be transformative for historical writing.” – Thomas Trezise, author of “Witnessing Witnessing: On the Reception of Holocaust Survivor Testimony”“A wonderful collection of essays, each of which uses the scholar’s own family to elucidate larger questions or themes within the historical discipline more broadly. Scholars and Their Kin contributes to an ongoing discussion in historiography about the nature and boundaries of the field, and specifically the relationship between professional history and family history, which has long been a site of tension.” – Katie Barclay, author of “Academic Emotions: Feeling the Institution”

Stéphane Gerson is professor of French, French studies, and history at New York University. Among other books, he is the author of Disaster Falls: A Family Story and The Pride of Place: Local Memories and Political Culture in Nineteenth-Century France.