The year 2014 is not yet over, but the commemorations of the centenary of the Great War have already been numerous. Everywhere, the First World War is arousing an interest that could not have been foreseen twenty or ten years ago, as if, after the disappearance of the last veterans, we were just taking the measure of the mark imposed by the war on the century that followed.
Everything seems to have been said about who was responsible for the outbreak of hostilities, about the horror of the trenches, about the failings of the peace treaties. Yet there are still many questions to be answered, not least the long road out of the war.
The colloquium will not deal with the events, which have been widely discussed elsewhere, but with the forerunners, the upheavals that occurred during the conflict, and their long-term effects. The emphasis will be on ruptures and reconfigurations in science, society, mentalities, representations, philosophy, literature and the arts, whether or not they were directly caused by the war.
Collège de France
