Simone's Svengalis: A Petainist, a Missionary, and the Making of Simone Weil
Abstract
Two of the first books published in the name of the brilliant absolutist Simone Weil (1909-43),听La Pesanteur el la Gr芒ce听(Gravity and Grace) (1947/8) and听Attente au Dieu听(Waiting on/for God)听(1950), were tendentiously fashioned. Consequently the packaging that her Svengalis鈥攖he Petainist Gustave Thibon and the missionary Jean-Marie Perrin鈥攊mposed, so severely distorted her thought that the first is no longer considered by French specialists to be her own work and the second has no stable text. Nevertheless these two problematic books have defined Simone Weil. This talk reveals the origins and purposes of the books that Thibon and Perrin created.
Speaker Bio
Benjamin Braude听is an associate professor of history at Boston College. His research focuses on the construction of collective identities in the Middle East and Europe, as well as Jewish and Ottoman history. Specifically, he examines the formation of racial, religious and ethnic identity in Jewish, Christian and Muslim culture. He is currently at work on a projent entitled "Sex, Slavery, and Racism: The Secret History of the Sons of Noah," which examines the construction of attitudes towards identity from the ancient Near East to the present, and the role that the Biblical narrative of Noah鈥檚 sons played in the production of our modern racial imaginary. He is also the co-editor with Bernard Lewis of听Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University.
Event Photos
Benjamin Braude speaking at a Boisi Center lunch colloquium on Simone Weil on February 11, 2015.
Photos by MTS photography
Event Recap
Catholic scholars embrace Simone Weil for her Catholic conversion and writings on Christian mysticism. According to Boston College history professor Benjamin Braude, however, the prevailing narrative of Weil鈥檚 life has been severely distorted鈥攆irst by the men who edited her first two books, and then by scholars who have consistently preferred hagiography to history.
Speaking at the Boisi Center鈥檚 first lunch colloquium of the semester on February 11, Braude laid out an alternative history of Weil鈥檚 life that casts serious doubt on the conventional wisdom. According to Braude, Weil鈥檚 eventual embrace of Christianity was profoundly shaped by the wartime context of occupied Vichy France. Since Weil and her family were Jewish, Braude argued that her conversion was in part a form of protection against the notoriously anti-Semitic Vichy regime. Without questioning that Weil had sincere mystical experiences, Braude noted that her professed spiritual epiphanies of the mid-1930s were only recorded by Weil in the 1940s, after the fall of France.
Braude also addressed the controversy surrounding Weil鈥檚 anti-Semitism. Focusing on an overlooked essay that explores the Genesis story of Noah鈥檚 naked sons, Braude explained that the essay was outrageously anti-Semitic, effectively implying that the Jews and Nazis deserved each other.
At the same time, Braude harshly criticized the distortions of Weil鈥檚 editors: Gustave Thibon, who composed the book听Gravity and Grace听by pasting together discreet statements from Weil鈥檚 journals, and the missionary Joseph-Marie Perrin, who released her book听Waiting for God. Braude explained how both men misrepresented her philosophy, exaggerating both her interest in Christ and her anti-Semitism. Such distortions had a clear ideological purpose: for a loyal Petainist like Thibon, Braude said, 鈥淲eil鈥檚 anti-Semitism justified his own.鈥�
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Sources
Simone Weil,听艗uvres compl猫tes,听ed. Andr茅 A. Devaux and Florence de Lussy, et al. Paris, Gallimard, 1988, 16 volumes.
__________,听, ed. and tr. Dorothy Tuck McFarland and Wilhelmina Van Ness, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1987.
__________,听, 2 vols. tr. Arthur Willis, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984.
__________,听, tr. Richard Rees, London: Oxford University Press, 1970.
Secondary Works
Athanasios Moulakis,听, tr. Ruth Hein, Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1998.
David McLellan,听, NY: Poseidon Press, 1990.
Francine Du Plessix Gray,听, NY: Viking Press, 2001.
George Abbott White, ed.,听. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1981.
Simone P茅trement,听La vie de Simone Weil, first edition, 2 vols. Paris, 1973.
_____,听, tr. (of first edition) Raymond Rosenthal, NY: Pantheon Books, 1976.
_____,听La vie de Simone Weil, second edition, Paris: Fayard, 1997. 听
Sylvie Weil,听,听tr.听 Benjamin Ivry, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2010.
Thomas R. Nevin,听, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.
In the News
Responses to the听听in early January raise concerns about听. Problems associated with individual and group rights and identity are at the heart of听Simone Weil's writings; at a Boisi Center lunch on February 11, 2015, Boston College history professor听Benjamin Braude will speak about the French intellectual's work, which is especially poignant in today's context.