L’Histoire à venir

The witch hunts marked a crucial stage in the long history of patriarchal violence—a continuum that first led to the emergence of the notion of femicide, defined as “the murder of a woman or girl because of her sex,” and then to the term feminicide, which subsequently spread across the world. Do words help combat feminicidal violence? Do they help measure the scale of systemic misogyny and one of its manifestations: sexist crime? This roundtable proposes to revisit how the concepts of femicide/feminicide became central to global feminist struggles.

Roundtable moderated in French by:

• Isabelle Lacoue-Labarthe, contemporary historian (Sciences Po Toulouse), specialist in gender history and self-writing.
• Christelle Taraud, historian (NYU Paris and Centre d’histoire du XIXe siècle), specialist in the history of women, gender, and sexualities in colonial contexts.
• Glòria Casas Vila, sociologist (UT2J), specialist in sexist violence against women.

2026 – 9th Edition – Feux (Fires)

“Playing with fire,” “fueling the flames,” “putting one’s hand in the fire,” “sparking controversy,” fearing the “fire of criticism”… From sacred fire to a flash in the pan, from the fires of hell to those of love, the stage, or distress signals, fire permeates our language because it is a central force in human societies—a source of combustion in all its real and symbolic forms, a true engine of evolution and human history: heating, cooking food, lighting, producing energy, crafting tools and weapons, protecting but also destroying.

L’Histoire à venir continues its reflections at the crossroads of history, science, literature, and theatre, tracing the marks fire has left behind: in prehistoric caves adorned with charcoal drawings, in cities reborn from their ashes, on the slopes of volcanoes shaped by lava, on the fronts of past and present wars. These environments all bear witness to the complex relationship humanity maintains with fire—one that has helped define who we are.

About L’Histoire à venir

Created in 2017 in Toulouse, L’Histoire à venir is an innovative festival whose ambition is to show that history can—and must—help us understand the issues at stake in contemporary debates. Far from being a fixed or nostalgic narrative, history is a living discipline that allows us to put past debates into perspective and imagine the possibilities of the future.

The festival pays particular attention to gender parity in its programming, as well as to promoting young authors and researchers.