Henri Peretz Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
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Henri, welcome to Berkeley.
Thank you.
Where were you born and raised?
I was born in 1940 in Montmartre, a very popular neighborhood, well known. I went to school in this neighborhood, also.
Looking back, how do you think your parents shaped your character?
My father was a very nervous person, I would say. Very active and very nervous. He was a doctor, working first in a working-class neighborhood. My mother was less nervous and she was nice. I am not very nice.
What was distinctive about the neighborhood you were in, Montmartre?
Montmartre is divided into two parts; you have the famous place where the painters used to go, and still the tourists, and the other part is more of, not slum, but ... the outer ring of Paris used to be there. And on the other side of the boulevard, the gypsies were there. We called this "la zone." My father was a doctor of a poor neighborhood, you see, and I went to school with those people. The other part of Montmartre is more trendy, more well known. Then I moved from one school to the other. I went to high school in the other neighborhood, on the other side of Montmartre.
Did you have any teachers that affected you when you were young, that made an impression, that led you to an academic life?
Yes, I had several. Especially in high school. I was very spoiled, because at that time, being a teacher in high school was really something. The lycée -- which is junior high school in the United States -- my lycée was a very political lycée, and we had there these figures of the Resistance. I had marvelous teachers, especially in history. I was fascinated. One of my teachers was a soldier in Verdun, the First World War, and then was arrested by the police, then became a famous leftist leader, and was very handsome man. When he was telling us the story of the French Revolution, we were enthusiastic. Also in philosophy, because in France we have this very strange system. The last class of high school you have nine hours a week a class in philosophy. So, it was very impressive. Yes, obviously. Most people were very impressive.
Any books that you remember from that period as a young person that impressed you?
Spontaneously, I would say, when I was young, a novel of Stendhal, concerning, I would say, social mobility and relations with women.
Which particular novel?
The Red and the Black. And then I was very impressed by Sartre, when I was young, about politics, the meaning of life. It's all the questions of our generation. We had no choice. Because at that time France was a very tough country, politically very tough during the Cold War. A very powerful Communist party. There was no center left. It was the Communist Party, nothing, and the right. So, it was a very political situation.
Going back to when you were younger, how did the war, or the memories of the war, affect you?
I was young. I think I don't have a lot of memories, because we moved very often for someplace where we could hide. Most of the memories I have are not my memories, they come from the telling of my sister, who is older, or from my father. But I have a very special memory. It's very funny. The first thing I really remember, when the Americans ... We were in the south, near Orange. I remember crossing the street where the American tanks were coming, and I was almost crushed.
By the liberators. Where did you do your college work?
When you say college ...
University.
The French system is very special. What you don't have. If you are a very good student in high school, you stay in a special high school. To be simple, I would say prep school, which is not exactly what prep school is here, but you stay in high school with the best students and you attend what we call the Grandes Écoles, high schools, the best schools. I did not get into, but I stayed two years in a special school, one of the best high schools in Paris, Lycée Henri IV, where you have the best students and the best teachers in the country. And then you go to the university.
What university did you go to?
The Sorbonne. At that time it was the Sorbonne. Before '68, things were very simple. We were few students, mostly upper-middle class or middle class, and we were maybe 200,000 students in France. Now you have almost three million. So, it was the Sorbonne or nothing.
And what about your studies there? Any particular theories attract you? What led you to become a sociologist?
To be honest, people from my generation did not think about becoming sociologists. Sociology was a minor field. One of the major fields was philosophy, and I was at a certain time very impressed by philosophy, so I became a graduate in philosophy and I was very influenced, to be honest, by people like Hegel. It was very fascinating. We thought at that time that history had a meaning, you see. Reading Hegel, you could read the actual history of the country, of the world.
I became a sociologist when I found that philosophy was a kind of dead end. I started being interested in concrete things. My other interest was always photography, and I think that was too abstract. The gap between philosophy and photography was some kind of impossible. So, I became very interested in concrete research, and I started a Ph.D. in sociology with someone who has just recently died, Pierre Bourdieu. He was my advisor. I got my Ph.D. in 1972. The subject was the career of art critique in France, which was a funny survey and field-work, especially because it took place during the events of 1968. So, I could attend to very strange situations.
Let's talk a little about the sixties, when you were getting your degree. How did the events of 1968 or of that decade change the course of your life or affect you?
Myself, I was more affected by the period before, because France was in a very strange situation with all the former colonies. My main commitment, like many people of my generation -- I was born in 1940 -- was against the colonialist wars. The events of '68 were perceived by myself as an anti-colonialist movement, leftist movement. I was not in the Parti Communiste Français, the communist party, but I was very cautious about that.
But I would say the events of '68 affected, mainly, my private life. One of the major events was the condition of women had changed. The woman I was married with was an expression of this new generation of women who are from the upper class, good in school, and taking jobs very early, leaving their parents, being very free, you see. No more cultural or sexual dominance. And this is what struck me the most, the women. I think my generation saw the change of the condition of the woman more than others. Of course, this affected our condition, because our relations were different from what I'd seen [among] my parents or other generations.
Was that a phenomenon that has endured? And in what ways? What has been the consequence of that change in consciousness of women about themselves and of men about women?
The division of labor between men and women changed. I raised my children, to put it simply. I raised my children. My wife used to travel a lot. I did too, but there was some kind of ... I washed the dishes, things like that. My wife became a famous linguist, and I was not affected by this. We divorced later, but for other reasons.
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