Biography:
Bruno Perreau is an Associate Professor of French Studies and Class of 1956 Career Development Professor at MIT. He received his MA in European Studies from Loughborough University and PhD in Political Science from Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne University.

Perreau was a member in the School of Social Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton) in 2007-2008 and Newton Fellow in sociology at the University of Cambridge (2010-2012). He is now Research Associate at Jesus College, Cambridge, and Non-Resident Faculty at the Center for European Studies, Harvard. In 2014-2015, Perreau will be External Faculty Fellow at Stanford Humanities Center.

Prior to joining MIT, Perreau taught constitutional law at Paris XII Val de Marne University and political science as well as gender and queer studies at Sciences Po Paris, where he was also an academic advisor for international students. He is currently a member of the scientific board of Sciences Po’s gender studies program (PRESAGE.)

Perreau’s main research focuses are gender, sexuality and the production of citizenship in Twentieth century France as well as family policies, the institutions of the Fifth republic and, more recently, literature and postcolonial textuality. His last book Penser l’adoption (Presses universitaires de France, 2012) puts into question the institutional process for authorizing an adoption. It argues that institutions draw their authority from a heterosexual imaginary of the Nation, which is performed by means of a meticulous discursive control of the family. A revised version of this book – The Politics of Adoption. Gender and the Making of French Citizenship – will be published by MIT Press in Spring 2014 (http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/politics-adoption).

Perreau is now working on three new projects: Crossing the Atlantic. The Reception of Queer Theory in France; The Narratives of Equality in France and the United States: Legal Categories Revisited; Sexuality, Kinship, and Transmission: an Archeology.

Perreau is the founding Chair of the MIT Research Seminar in French and Francophone Studies. http://fll.mit.edu/RSFFS/

Publications

Academia.edu

Website (French)