Undergraduate Research & Scholarships

Gene Marie Tempest Humanities and Social Science

Anti-Nazism and the Atelier Populaire: The Memory of Nazi Collaboration in the Posters of Mai '68

My project examines the revolutionary role of the art students at the cole Nationale Suprieure des Beaux-Arts, France’s elite college of painting in Paris, and the historical significance of the posters they produced for the French student movement of May through June 1968. Of the 150,000 posters, I will primarily focus on those anti-fascist and anti-Nazi in scope, seeking to answer the question: What was the relationship between the soixante huitards (the sixty-eighters) and the memory of the collaboration years? Through oral history interviews I will engage the artists themselves in dialogue about the historic purposes of their posters.

Message To Sponsor

Having the enthusiastic support of a professor and of my university is both emboldening and academically satisfying. I feel this support legitimizes my project. My recent correspondence with archivists and curators has been exciting because not only are these professionals willing to help and advise me, but, because I am on fellowship from Berkeley, they treat me as a serious researcher. (Rarely in the classroom do undergraduates feel like anything but-well, undergraduates.) The opportunity to travel to Paris to research for a project that is a synthesis of many of my interests is a student's dream. Most importantly perhaps, my work will be a concrete contribution to the research community: my oral history interviews will be included in the Bancroft Library's collection for future use.