Amaury GIRAUD

Career path
- 2024 / 2025: Rapporteur, Institut Montaigne.
- 2022 / 2024: ATER in political science, University of Montpellier.
- 2016 / 2021: PhD in political science under the supervision of Eric Savarese (director) and Alexandre Viala (co-director): "Penser le conservatisme à gauche: genèse, passé, actualité et continuités paradigmatiques d'une philosophie politique singulière". Thesis defended on 12/14/2021, jury: Professeur Patrick Troude-Chastenet (rapporteur), Professeur Eric Desmons (rapporteur), Professeur Bruno Daugeron (jury president) and MCF Alexandre Dézé (examiner).
- Since 2017: Writing articles for "Figaro culture" and "Usbek & Rica".
- 2014: Internship at "Le Monde des livres" (writing articles and taking part in editorial meetings).
- 2013: Internship at the "Rencontres de Pétrarque" in partnership with the University of Montpellier and France Culture (interviews with Joseph Zimet, Bernard Kouchner, Anne Nivat, Olivier Christen; co-editing of thematic dossiers published on the France Culture website: "Histoire(s) du terrorisme" and "Fiche de lecture de l'ouvrage Théorie du drone de Grégoire Chamayou").
Teaching
- 2022 / 2024: First semester - Tutorials in Introduction to Political Science (L1) and Political Communication (L2) / Université de Montpellier
- Second semester - Lectures in History of Sociology with tutorials (L3) / University of Montpellier / Program: Marcel Mauss, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Louis Dumont, Cornelius Castoriadis, Claude Lefort, Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Jean Baudrillard, Zygmunt Bauman, Alain Caillé, Serge Latouche, Marcel Gauchet...etc.
- Second semester - General Culture lecture course "Literature and Politics" (L2) / University of Montpellier / Program: Anatole France's Les dieux ont soif (1912), Jean d'Ormesson's La conversation (2011), Jean Teulé's Mangez-le si vous voulez (2009), Didier Daeninckx's Cannibale (1998), Éric Vuillard's L'ordre du jour (2017), Les grands cimetières sous la lune by Georges Bernanos (1938), Hommage à la Catalogne by George Orwell (1938), 1984 by George Orwell (1949), Limonov by Emmanuel Carrère (2011)...etc
- 2021 / 2022 : Lecturer in History of political ideas in the 20th century (CM : Marie Goupy) / Institut Catholique de Paris / Program : Georg Simmel, Carl Schmitt, Hannah Arendt, Claude Lefort, Friedrich Hayek, Leo Strauss, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Charles Taylor, Edward Saïd, Simone de Beauvoir, Judith Butler, Philippe Descola...etc
- 2018 / 2019: Lecturer in Constitutional Law of the Fifth Republic (CM: Eric Sales) and Sociology of Journalism (CM: Antoine Guiral) / University of Montpellier
Summary of thesis
Over the past few years, a new form of critical thinking seems to have emerged on the intellectual left in France, Europe and even the United States. Mostly based on a Marxist analytical foundation, a number of essayists and public figures are attempting, in work after work, speech after speech, to develop a reading of the world that, in many respects, mobilizes the characteristics of a conservative ideology. In an attempt to understand and explain the mechanisms driving this hypothetical "movement", as well as to trace its historical and philosophical itinerary, we will draw on the writings of Charles Péguy, Simone Weil, George Orwell, Michel Clouscard, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Régis Debray, Jaime Semprun, Christopher Lasch, Jean-Claude Michéa, Paul Ariès, Michel Onfray, Denis Collin, Alain Finkielkraut and many others. Although the question of the existence of a conservative left will be the main thread running through our study, we will also attempt an exegesis of conservative anti-liberalism, which we will oppose here to progressive anti-liberalism.
Diplomas
- 2021: PhD in political science / University of Montpellier
- 2015: Master II "Philosophie du droit et droit politique" / Université Paris-II Panthéon-Assas (Dissertation: "Du propos de quelques intellectuels sur l'identité de l'Europe ou de la multitude des opinions").
- 2014: Master I "Political Science" / Université Paris-I Panthéon-Sorbonne (Dissertation: "Jean-Claude Michéa ou l'intransigeance antilibérale: inspirations, arguments and controversies").
- 2013 : Bachelor's degree in political science / Université Montpellier-I.
- 2012: DEUG in law / University of Montpellier-I.
Published works
- GIRAUD Amaury, Penser le conservatisme à gauche - Entre socialisme antimoderne, populisme démocratique et critique du progrèsBordeaux, Editions Le Bord de L'eau, 2024.
Articles published in academic journals
- GIRAUD Amaury, " De l'espérance d'une République sociale idéalisée à sa matérialisation constitutionnelle ", Questions constitutionnelles (Actes du Colloque " La Constitution sociale " du 22 novembre 2024, Université de Montpellier), March 9, 2025
- GIRAUD Amaury, " The Second Birth of Christopher Lasch in France: Roots and Mechanisms of a Postmortem Success ", Journal of Illiberalism Studies (George Washington University), 4, n°2 (Summer 2024), pp. 21-31
- GIRAUD Amaury, " Le formalisme juridique d'apparence dans L'enracinement de Simone Weil (Londres - 1943) ", Droits, 2022/2 (n°76), pp. 183-197.
The most representative articles
- GIRAUD Amaury, " With the death of Pierre Legendre, a light goes out in the modern night ", Le Figaro, 2023.
- GIRAUD Amaury, " Guerre et écologie : comment les armées française et américaine intègrent la question de l'urgence climatique ", Usbek & Rica, 2022.
- GIRAUD Amaury, " Genèse intellectuelle et jalons historiques d'un courant de pensée politique informel ", AFSP Congress, 2019.
- GIRAUD Amaury, " The idea of a link between the upper classes and minorities is an illusion ", Interview with Christophe Guilluy, Usbek & Rica, October 28, 2018.
- GIRAUD Amaury, " La modernité selon Yves Michaud ", Review of the book Narcisse et ses avatars (Yves Michaud, Grasset, 2014, 208 p.), Le Monde, July 2, 2014.
- GIRAUD Amaury, "Contemporains de Napoléon", Review of the book Napoléon par ceux qui l'ont connu (Arthur Chevallier, Grasset, 2014, 352 p.), Le Monde des livres, June 20, 2014.
- GIRAUD Amaury, "Le droit anarchique", Review of the book L'unité du droit (Rainer Maria Kiesow, Editions de l'EHESS, 2014, 238 p.), Le Monde des livres, June 13, 2014.
- CALLIS Alexandra, GIRAUD Amaury, " Histoire(s) du terrorisme ", France Culture, July 8, 2013.
- CALLIS Alexandra, GIRAUD Amaury, " Fiche de lecture de l'ouvrage Théorie du drone, by Grégoire Chamayou", France Culture, July 8, 2013.
Conference participation
" Is there such a thing as left-wing conservatism? ", ST26 from the July 2019 AFSP Congress at Sciences Po Bordeaux.