Frankfurt in Paris Book Talk: Vice, Crime, and Poverty

To coincide with the Frankfurt Book Fair 2019, the world's largest trade fair for books, Columbia University Press and Columbia Global Centers | Paris presents Frankfurt in Paris, hosted at Columbia Global Centers | Paris.

For the 2019 reiteration of Frankfurt in Paris, Columbia University Press and Columbia Global Centers | Paris presents a book talk to mark the release of Dominique Kalifa's book Vice, Crime, and Poverty, published by Columbia University Press. Kalifa will be in conversation with Eric Schwartz, Editorial Director of Columbia University Press. Read a short description of Vice, Crime, and Poverty below.

In Vice, Crime, and Poverty, Dominique Kalifa traces the untold history of the concept of the underworld and its representations in popular culture. He examines how the myth of the lower depths came into being in nineteenth-century Europe, as biblical figures and Christian traditions were adapted for a world turned upside-down by the era of industrialization, democratization, and mass culture. From the Parisian demimonde to Victorian squalor, from the slums of New York to the sewers of Buenos Aires, Kalifa deciphers the making of an image that has cast an enduring spell on its audience. While the social conditions that created that underworld have changed, Vice, Crime, and Poverty shows that, from social-scientific ideas of the underclass to contemporary cinema and steampunk culture, its shadows continue to haunt us.

About Dominique Kalifa

Dominique Kalifa is a French historian, professor at the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, where he is director of the Centre of 19th Century History and member of the Institut Universitaire de France. A student of Michelle Perrot, he specialises in the history of crime, transgression, social control, and mass culture in 19th and early 20th France and Europe. He also taught at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) from 2008 to 2015, and was several times "Invited professor" at NYU and "Visiting Scholar" at the University of Saint Andrews. From 1990, he is also columnist (historical reviews) for the French newspaper Libération.

About Eric Schwartz

Eric Schwartz is editorial director of Columbia University Press. Before joining the press in September 2014, he was senior editor for sociology and cognitive science at Princeton University Press, a job he had held since 2008. During that time he established a new list in cognitive science and revitalized the sociology list, turning it into one of the top lists in the field. Before moving to Princeton he was psychology editor at Cambridge University Press. He started his career at Springer as a manufacturing assistant and Oxford University Press as manufacturing controller. He became production controller at Cambridge and moved into the editorial department in 2006. Along the way he earned a Ph.D. in political science from the New School for Social Research. His BA, in international relations, is from the University of Delaware. Eric has been active with the Association of American University Presses and the Bookbinder’s Guild of New York. He has started a sociology list at Columbia University Press and is building upon the existing list in neurobiology and behavior.