127 February 2026 - Seminar
Working on TV series as an historian: the reception of the Holocaust miniseries (1978)
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
After a brief presentation of her methodological approach and various publications on TV series as historical documents, she focused on the central part of her latest book (Faire écran – Les réécritures de la Seconde Guerre mondiale dans les séries télévisées au temps de la guerre froide (Etats-Unis, Royaume-Uni, France, RFA), Villeneuve d’Asq, Presses du Septentrion, 2003) to explain how she managed to study the ‘historical reception’ of the miniseries Holocaust in four different countries (the US, UK, France and West Germany) by the end of the 1970s. It informs about the transnational circulation of TV fiction, the history of television and its cultural status, the mixed reception of US TV series, post-1968 culture and the memory of the Holocaust (as it has been commonly called since that broadcast).
Marjolaine Boutet is an American Studies Professor at the Université Sorbonne Paris Nord (Villetaneuse, France). She has a PhD and a Research Habilitation in History and has been an Assistant Professor in a History Department for 13 years. She pioneered the study of TV series as historical documents in France, publishing on US, French and Chilean TV series mostly and working as a TV critic for various French media.