City Without a Face

Ronald Rosbottom. Photo by Kane-Haffey.

Ronald Rosbottom. Photo by Kane-Haffey.

2015 Pincus Lecture to explore German reactions to occupying Paris

Educator and author Ronald C. Rosbottom will present the 2015 Pincus Lecture, "City Without a Face: German Reactions to Occupying Paris, 1940-1944," on Monday, April 6, at 7 p.m. in the Holland Union Building (HUB) Social Hall.

In his recent book, When Paris Went Dark, Rosbottom looks at how the heart of France fared during the Nazi years. He concentrates on how ordinary Parisians coped with a wide range of problems—food and coal shortages, curfews, omnipresent German soldiers, ever-tightening restrictions and reprisals—and the spiritual demise that lingered following France’s rapid defeat by the Germans in May and June of 1940.

Rosbottom is the Winifred L. Arms Professor in the Arts and Humanities and professor of French and European studies at Amherst College. Rosbottom has published more than 100 articles and book reviews, edited three essay collections and written two monographs on French novelists. He has taught courses on:

  • the 18th-century British and French novel
  • the history of ideas
  • literary criticism
  • art history of the early modern and modern periods
  • the history of the European city, with a focus on Paris, in fictional and documentary film
  • Napoleon and his legends
  • the literature of World War I
  • and World War II and the European imagination.

The lecture is sponsored by the Marjorie M. and Irwin Nat Pincus Fund in honor of their daughters. It is cosponsored by The Milton B. Asbell Center for Jewish Life and the departments of French and history.

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Published March 31, 2015