Since 2015, the research conducted under the chair has aimed to establish a comparative history of powers in Western Europe from the 13th to the 16th century, with the goal of contributing to a critical archaeology of modern governance. Rather than a theory of sovereignty, the research traces the social and cultural conditions of political inventiveness, which may also be those of its contemporary reinterpretations. In other words, the focus is less on chronicling institutional structures and more on mapping the situations in which the political emerges—where it is not necessarily expected, where it does not assert itself loudly. Seeking patterns rather than rules, advocating a style of inquiry rather than a method, this research thus aims to articulate the arts of governing and the arts of storytelling, thereby intersecting with Patrick Boucheron’s personal work on the writing of history.
It is in this spirit that the chair broadly welcomes, in response to requests from various international programs, the work of young researchers interested in these historical and historiographical issues, but also, more generally, in a certain way of articulating scholarly history and public history. Doctoral students working with Patrick Boucheron are affiliated with LaMOP (Laboratory of Western Medieval Studies) at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.
Affiliated with the chair and directed by its assistant professor, currently Aurélien Peter, the digital journal Entre-Temps is led by an editorial board that reflects this diversity of approaches. It welcomes, in an open manner and with the aim of contributing to the development of a public service of history, various experiments in new ways of writing history, thereby bridging the gap between the chair’s scholarly activities—developed notably in the courses and seminars at the Collège de France—and Patrick Boucheron’s other engagements, which involve various cultural institutions in the public sphere.
