Sandra Ott, Ph.D.

Professor, Basque Studies
Sandra Ott

Summary

After having completed her doctorate in 1979, Sandra Ott held various teaching positions in Oxford, England before embarking on a nearly 20-year career in university administration, first with study abroad programs in the Basque Country and then in Great Britain. Since her return to research and teaching as an academic faculty member in 2002, she has worked at the intersections of cultural anthropology and history in her work on the German Occupation of the French Basque Country and the postwar trials of suspected collaborators.

Research interests:

  • The German Occupation of France, especially the Basque Country
  • Franco-German relations and the postwar trials of suspected collaborators (1944-1949) in France;
  • Experiences of German POWs in postwar France
  • Life-writing
  • Basques in the Great War and the Spanish Civil War
  • Everyday life in the Basque Country and France

Courses taught:

  • Basque Culture
  • War, Occupation, and Memory in the Basque Borderlands, 1914-1944
  • Basque Culinary and Cultural Practices

Publications

  • Living with the Enemy: German Occupation, Collaboration and Justice in the Western Pyrenees, 1940-1948, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
  • "Cohabitation and Opportunistic Accommodation in Occupied France: A Test Case from the Western Pyrenees," in French History (Vol. 30, No. 3), pp. 401-422, 2016.
  • "Undesirable Pen Pals, Unthinkable Houseguests: Representations of Franco-German Friendships in a Post-Liberation Trial Dossier and Suite Francaise," in French Politics, Culture and Society (Vol. 32, No. 1), pp.26-46, 2014.

Education

  • Ph.D., Social Anthropology, Oxford University, 1979
  • M.A., Social Anthropology, Oxford University, 1976
  • Diploma, Social Anthropology, Oxford University, 1974
  • B.A., English (Creative Writing), Pomona College, 1973