Patrick Weil
Visiting Professor

Patrick Weil was invited by the French Interdisciplinary Group to spend six weeks on campus in the Spring of 1999 as Avalon Distinguished Visiting Professor. He taught two courses: French 390, "Recent Developments in French Politics and Society," which studied the intellectual, social and political scenes in France from 1958 until now; and Political Science 390, "Immigration and Race in France and the United States," which examined the debates about how successful France and the United States have been in their efforts to harmonize human rights and control over entry to their territories since World War II. Weil received his doctorate from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris and is currently a member of the Institute's faculty. He is the author of La France et ses étrangers: L'aventure d'une politique de l'immigration de 1938 à nos jours, which was awarded the "Prix de Thèse" by the French National Assembly in 1992, and co-editor of Logiques d'États et Immigrations (State Logic and Immigration), a comparative analysis of immigration policy in Germany, Spain, the United States, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, and the Netherlands. He also did the adaptation for the video recording De Père en Fils: La France et ses étrangers. Weil achieved public notoriety as the author of a 1997 report to the Prime Minister, which became the basis for the introduction of important reforms in immigration policy by the Socialist Government. He was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in 1995-96, and a Visiting Scholar at Harvard in 1996-97.