Of Rock Stars and Politics: Subjects of History in Ivan Jablonka’s Goldman

Abstract

This article focuses on the historiographic questions posed—and answered—by Ivan Jablonka’s August 2023 historical biography of singer-songwriter-composer Jean-Jacques Goldman, and in particular on issues of subjectivity. On the one hand, Jablonka makes his own active presence as a historian visible and explicit in his narrative, thus continuing the historiography implemented in his books since publishing his Histoire des grands-parents que je n’ai jamais eus in 2012. On the other, his Goldman lays bare and analyzes the collective underpinnings that structure and inform what at first glance appears as individual, private experience. In the end, family stories prove to be prime subjects of history, while human subjectivity proves to be inextricably tied to configurations of historical evolution. Jablonka moreover demonstrates that, while long neglected and discounted by French historiography, popular culture clearly holds insights valuable for the intelligence of society and politics past and present.