
Profile
Pierre Azou is a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of French and Italian. He holds a Bachelor of Arts (2012) and a master’s degree in Public Affairs (2014) from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po.), as well as a master’s degree in French Literature from the Université La Sorbonne-Paris IV (2017).
From a critical theory perspective, he is broadly interested in the relationship between literature, cinema and politics as it evolved from the start of the 20th century to the present, and more specifically in their interaction when addressing (or giving birth to) extreme phenomena — from the Revolution to climate change to terrorism (the intended subject of his dissertation).
Theoretically, this translates into a particular interest for radical figures (whether progressive or reactionary) — and, formally, for the novel and the essay as the uncertain genres where words and actions, ethics and esthetics, facts and imagination, the individual and the collective, and other such binaries, meet in ambiguous, contradictory, and oftentimes paradoxical ways. Connecting the two, his dissertation examines the relationship — both opposition and attraction, both rivalry and fascination — between the figures of the writer and the terrorist in contemporary French and francophone essays and novels.
Practically, it also explains his eagerness to contribute to the work that is done at the crossroad between academia and the wider worlds of politics and cultural exchange. As part of this effort, he initiated and carried out a Social Impact Fellowship at the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in New York, and is the co-founder of the French and Francophone Society at Princeton.
Academic Publications
-“Anatomy of Two Falls, Investigating Masculinity in Anatomie d’une Chute”, Oxford French Studies Bulletin, July 2024.
-“Emmanuel Macron et Éric Zemmour entre roman et politique : parcours croisé”, Modern & Contemporary France, January 2024
- « Éric Zemmour : essayiste pamphlétaire, pamphlétaire essayiste », French Politics, Culture and Society (à paraître).
- « Levinas, le visage et Le Lambeau : une éthique (anti-)terroriste entre peur et destruction », Alkemie, n°31 « La destruction ».
- avec Pierre Damamme, « Henry de Montherlant ou La tentation du dandysme », in L’Artiste de la vie moderne. Le dandy entre littérature et histoire, ed. Edyta Kociubińska, Éditions Brill (à paraître).
- « Masculin/Féminin: La Force comme vertu contre-révolutionnaire dans Le Chevalier des Touches de Barbey d'Aurevilly », La Revue des lettres modernes, Série Barbey d'Aurevilly n°25, ed. Pascale Auraix-Jonchière, Collection Classiques Garnier.
Conference Presentations
- "L'écrivain et le terroriste en procès : Yannick Haenel et Emmanuel Carrère entre essai et roman", Colloque organisé par l'Université Américaine de Paris et l'Université Sorbonne Nouvelle: 2015 — récits et fictions du terrorisme, November 13-15, 2023.
- "Chat 'G.B.T.': Girard, Baudrillard, Terrorism", COV&R Conference organized at the Institut Catholique de Paris: "A celebration of René Girard’s 100th birthday : The future of Mimetic theory-
- “Apocalypse Always: Inhabiting the End with Jean-Baptiste Del Amo, Règne animal, and Yannick Haenel, Tiens ferme ta couronne”, Colloque Conference organized by the University of Stockholm: “Collapse and Extinction”, April 27th, 2021.
- “La critique de l’Orientalisme dans Djemilah de Ferrandez et La Rose de sable de Montherlant : entre l’exil et le retour”, Rutgers University’s Graduate Conference: “Ex·centri·cités : Marge et centre en relation”, March 15th, 2021.
- “Le terroriste et ses victimes entre innocence et Bildung : Les Justes de Camus”, Colloque annuel de l’Association des Professeurs de Français des Universités et Collèges Canadiens (APFUCC), University of British Columbia, June 5th, 2019."