Alice Kaplan, Sterling Professor of French, is a specialist of WWII and Post WWII France. She works at the intersection of literature and history, in books that range from memoir and narrative history to biography.
Her interest in Jewish Studies includes her work on Céline’s anti-Semitism (Sources et citations dans Bagatelles pour un massacre, 1997, and “The Master of Blame,” NYRB, 2022); the trial of the fascist writer Robert Brasillach (The Collaborator, 2000); and the history of Algerian Jews (Maison Atlas: Roman, 2022, and “War and Memory in France and Algeria, NYRB, 2021). Most recently, she has published a review of Rachel Cockerell’s Melting Point (“Zionism without Zion,” NYRB, 2025).
Her work in progress tells the story of a Jewish prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials.
At Yale her seminars touching upon the field of Jewish Studies include “WWII French Cinema,” “War and Memory,” “Fiction in the Archives,” and “Mid-Century Modern Memoir.”