Associate Professor Emerita - Senior Scholar (January 2021-)
slanglois@glendon.yorku.ca
Langlois, Suzanne (abridged cv June 2021) Glendon profile.pdf
Suzanne Langlois has taught Modern European
History and Twentieth-Century History. Specializing in French History,
she has published on the history, memory and representation of the
French Resistance, and on the resources of film archives and collections
for twentieth- century history.
Her current research projects examine
film propaganda commissioned by the United Nations at the end of the Second World
War, first to support the mission of UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) and later under the direction of the United Nations Film Board.
Modern European History
World conflicts - Twentieth-century
Film history - film archives
Doctorate:
History, McGill University
Masters:
History, University of Montreal
Research Interests Keywords
Cultural history of world conflicts - twentieth-century
The uses of visual collections and film archives in modern history
Propaganda for peace / postwar international organizations
Projects
Grants
Articles in edited volumes
"Réflexions autour du film The Monuments Men (2014)", Ethnologies, thème « Géopolitique, conflits et patrimoine », 39(1), 2017, p. 139-154 https://doi.org/10.7202/1051055ar
"La contribution du cinéma documentaire en faveur de l’Administration des Nations unies pour les secours et la reconstruction (UNRRA) 1944-1947", Lendemains de guerre, Roch Legault and Magali Deleuze, eds, Montréal, Lux Éditeur, 2006, pp. 129-147.
Book reviews
Zoë Druick, Projecting Canada. Government policy and documentary film at the National Film Board (Montreal/Kingston : McGill – Queen’s University Press, 2007), TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, 19, Spring 2008, 201-205.
Visiting Professor
Dec. 2017: Visiting Professor for graduate seminars Masters Erasmus
Mundus DYCLAM (paysage culturel) and Master HCP (Histoire Civilisations
Patrimoines), Université Jean Monnet, Saint-Étienne (France) :
« Cinéma et conflictualité »; « Le patrimoine cinématographique
des organisations internationales »; « Cinéma et patrimoine ».
Guest speaker
« Monuments Men: La guerre pour sauver le patrimoine victime de guerre », colloquium Géopolitique, conflits & Patrimoine, Université Jean Monnet, Saint-Étienne (France), 11 Dec. 2017; presentation, screening and Q&A at the Cinémathèque de Saint-Étienne.
“The Coordination of Films : UN and UNESCO (1945-1951)”, UNESCO Anniversary Conference, Maison de l’UNESCO, Paris, 28-29 October 2015
“Our friends in need. The National Film Board of Canada at work for UNRRA (1944-1947)”, UN at 70 Symposium, Wilson Institute for Canadian History at McMaster University, Hamilton, 12 June 2015.
“Jean Benoit-Lévy and public health propaganda in international context (1935-1949)”, Information, persuasion, propagande. Le film médico-sanitaire comme mode de communication entre science, médecine, sphère publique et société en France, 1900-1960, Faculté de Médecine, Université de Strasbourg, 20 June 2014.
Inaugural conference on a cycle of films on the French Resistance during the Second World War, Centre mondial de la Paix, Verdun (France), 16 March 2010.
Presentation of archival films produced during the years 1944-1947 for UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration), Balzan Conference Post-War Reconstruction in Europe, Birkbeck College, University of London, 3-5 June 2008.
Colloquium history and film : Résistances européennes : une mémoire en chantier, Laboratoire de recherche RECITS, Université de Technologie de Belfort Montbéliard, 2-3 décembre 2004.
Presentation of films on the French resistance, summer seminar of the National Endowment for the Humanities, War and Memory : Postwar Representations of World War II and the Occupation in France, Susan R. Suleiman, Center for European Studies, Harvard University, 10-12 July 1995.
Scholarly papers
“French films in New York / 1 June 1942 to 31 May 1943”, workshop and symposium « Movie Theatres in Wartime: Film Distribution and Exhibition During World War II », planned in Amsterdam 4-6 June 2020, but moved online. Virtual meetings and presentations took place on 30 September and 19-20 November 2020.
“That All May Learn (1949): the power of literacy”, The Annual Conference of the Film Studies Association of Canada, Panel The United Nations on Film, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 4 June 2019
“The UN and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948-1949): Visual strategies for a common humanity”, Conference Culture & International History VI: Visions of Humanity, Freie Universität, Berlin, 7 May 2019.
“Circuits of French Moving Pictures in 1930s New York”, HoMER Network Conference – Circuits of Cinema. Histories of Movie and Media Distribution, Ryerson University, Toronto, 24 June 2017.
“On Distant Shelves. The sounds and images of the filmstrip UNRRA Goes into Action (1945)”, conference of the Entangled Media Histories (EMHIS) research and teaching network, Tracing Entanglements in Media History, University of Lund (Sweden), 18 May 2017.
“Blanche et Marie (1985): A Film about women in the French Resistance”, symposium Gender & Historical Film and Television, Gender & History, University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, 6 May 2017.
“Mission to New York – 1935. French Educational and Medical Motion Pictures”, Society for French Historical Studies, panel on “Scientific, Artistic, and Cinematographic Education in Modern France”, Colorado Springs, 17 April 2015.
“Paradoxes of UN internationalism in film”, Society for Cinema and Media Studies, panel on “Orphan Documentary and the Global Imaginary, 1948-1967”, Montréal, 26 March 2015.
“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: a visual challenge (1948-1949)”, The Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, panel “Gendered Justice”, Toronto, 25 May 2014.
“Neglected sources: The postwar films of the United Nations”, Society for Cinema and Media Studies, panel “Useful Media and the global public sphere”, Seattle, 21 March 2014.
“Knocking on all Doors: a Jewish Family’s Journey out of France in 1941”, journée d’études “New Perspectives on World War II France and its Colonies”, University of Toronto, 15 March 2013.
« Histoire(s) d’un cinéaste réfugié : Jean Benoit-Lévy à New York, 1941-1950 », Société d’histoire de Toronto, 18 Junuary 2012.
« Rupture et retour? Jean Benoit-Lévy entre New York et Paris », Society for the Study of French History, University of Cambridge, 15 July 2011.
“A risky change-over: United Nations films and the transition to peace at the end of the Second World War”, IAMHIST (International Association for Media and History), University of Copenhagen, 8 July 2011.
“The case of UNRRA filming in the Ukraine and Byelorussia (1947)”, Canadian Historical Association, Montréal, Concordia University, 1 June 2010.
« L’UNESCO et le Conseil du cinéma des Nations unies : la coordination de l’information cinématographique (1945-1951) », conference UNESCO and the Cold War, Heidelberg, 4-5 March 2010.
« La mise en images des droits universels : un défi d’information publique pour les Nations unies, 1948-1950 », Groupement interuniversitaire pour l’histoire des relations internationales contemporaines, Université de Montréal, 25 February 2010.
« Le cinéma et la paix. Réflexions sur les
après-guerres », conference Regards croisés sur les deux
guerres mondiales, Université de Caen (France), 29-30 November 2007.
“A Filmmaker in exile: Jean Benoit-Lévy in New York
1941-1950”, Society for French Historical Studies, Houston, 15-17 March 2007.
« Histoire d’un film prototype : In the Wake of the Armies : UNRRA (ONF, 1944) », Colloque Media History in Canada / Histoire
des médias au Canada, séance ‘Media and war / Les médias et la
guerre’, Ryerson University, Toronto, 1 June 2006.
“Our friends in need. The contribution of the National
Film Board of Canada to European reconstruction 1944-1948”, conference After
Fascism : Re-Democratization of Western European Society and Political
Culture since 1945, Archives of the Bruno Kreisky Foundation and the Renner Institut,
Vienna, 19-21 May 2005.
“Not enough of anything. The precarious life of women in post-war
Europe”, colloquium Gender, Security and (In)security, UQAM, Montréal, 1
April 2005.
“From Sierra
de Teruel to Espoir. The attempted political takeover of
André Malraux’s film on the Spanish Civil War”, conference War in Film,
Television, and History, Film and History League, Dallas, 11-14 November
2004.
« Le
cinéma documentaire au service de l’Agence des Nations unies pour la
reconstruction », Colloquium Lendemains de guerre,
Collège militaire royal du Canada, Kingston, 11-12 March 2004.
« La
création du Conseil du cinéma des Nations unies (1946-1947) », Colloque de l'Association
québécoise d'études américaines (AQÉA), Montréal, 29 October 2002.
“War and Justice in France. The Political and
ideological dimension of reconciliation”, séance
‘Justice and National Reconciliations : Some Historical Perspectives’, European
Social Science History Conference, The Hague (Netherlands), 28 February
2002.
«
Problématiques de la représentation de la guerre au cinéma », Colloque international en
sociologie et histoire Les générations au cinéma, Ottawa, 11 May
1999.
« Les
missions du cinéma. L’ambiance de la reprise du cinéma français dans
l’après-guerre », Colloquium Cinéma
et société française, 66e congrès de l’ACFAS, Québec, 11 May
1998.
“An Ideal France : The Film Censorship
Board as Historian”, international colloquium Secret
Spaces / Forbidden Places, Hailsham (UK), 24 April 1998.
“Other Images of modern war : Unarmed
civilians resisting in the midst of total war”, international
symposium The Experience of War and the Creation of Myths, Erich Maria
Remarque-Zentrum, Osnabrück (Germany), 8 March 1998.
“Searching for the Just and Righteous :
The Holocaust in French Film (1970-1995)”,
International Scholars Conference on The Holocaust and the Churches, University
of Washington, Seattle, 2 March 1998.
“French-speaking Film Professionals Interpret
the Cold War – France and Québec (1945-1955)”, XVIIe international
conference of IAMHist (International Association for Media and History),
Salisbury State University, Maryland, 30 July 1997.
« Pour
une contribution du cinéma à l’historiographie », Colloque Histoire, cinéma,
société : questions de méthode, Association internationale des sociologues
de langue française (AISLF), Trois-Rivières, 16 May 1997.
“The Image of
the Resistance in French Film (1946)”, Conference World
War II : A Dual Perspective (1946 and 1936), Siena College,
Loudonville (NY), 30-31 May 1996.
«
Regards sur les femmes dans la Résistance. Cinquante ans de cinéma français », section Histoire et Colloque Sociologie
du cinéma et de la télévision, 64e congrès de l’ACFAS, Montréal,
16-17 May 1996.
“Visual Sedimentation : The Documentary Record and Holocaust Films”, joint session of the Société canadienne pour l’étude des idées européennes and the Association canadienne des études cinématographiques, Congrès des sociétés savantes, Université du Québec à Montréal, 3 June 1995.
Other public presentations
« Un cinéaste en exil. Les années américaines de Jean Benoit-Lévy, 1941-1950 », joint seminar York University and University of Toronto, France – Histoire et sciences sociales, Toronto, 23 February 2007.
" Les cinéastes s’emparent de l’histoire », for the graduate seminar HST 6010 Sciences et pratiques historiques, Université de Montréal, 18 November 2002.
« Rosa Luxemburg », Living and Learning in Retirement, Glencon College, 24 February 2006.
« La photographie et le cinématographe dans la France fin-de-siècle: les images du réel au service de l'éducation », for the seminar HIS 538A Histoire intellectuelle de l'Europe contemporaine, Université du Québec à Montréal, 21 October 1999.
“Postwar Film and the History of the French Resistance (1944-1946)”, Seminar Series, Department of History, McGill University, 5 March 1996.
Workshops
“Canada’s National Film Board and the World. Proposals for a Research Agenda”, Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Montréal, 29 March 2015.
« Itinéraires collectifs et individuels », teaching workshop for the Holocaust Education Week’s activities for French-speaking high school teachers, Journée de formation professionnelle sur l’enseignement de l’Holocauste, Glendon College, 6 November 2012.
“The Visual in History : Television, Film, and Photos”, History Thursdays. Questions of method and interpretation, York University, 3 April 2008.
« Regard sur le monde. Les films du Conseil du cinéma des Nations unies, 1945-1950, théorie et méthodologie des sources cinématographiques en histoire », Les Jeudis d’histoire, Groupe d’Histoire de Montréal, Université de Montréal, 21 February 2008.
“Film at the service of peace and democracy. New sources for the history of the United Nations
(1943-1950)”, series ‘Historian’s Craft’, Department of History, York
University, 7 December 2005.
« Les archives cinématographiques et audio-visuelles », workshop on archives, Graduate Program in History, York University, 8 March 2005.
Research grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (2007-2012)
Title: Le rôle du cinéma dans la mission civile des Nations unies en Europe (1943-1950).