The French Center of Excellence invites you to a book launch event for Professor of French and Francophone Literature, Benjamin Hoffmann's new book La Guerre des os (Denoel, 2026). Professor Hoffmann, joined by Professor Bruno Cabanes, Donald G. and Mary A. Dunn Chair in Modern Military History, will host a discussion of La Guerre des os on Thursday, February 12, 2026 at 4:00pm in Thompson Library, Multipurpose Room 165. All are welcome and encouraged to attend.
“Soon all this energy and violence, all his excess and obsession, focus on a single person: an opponent worthy of him, as relentless as he is vindictive, as proud as he is megalomaniacal, a rival whom he will hate all the more because he first loved him.”
At the end of the 19th century, two American scientists, Charles Marsh and Edward Cope, engage in a merciless competition to unearth dinosaur skeletons and dominate the emerging field of paleontology. To win this “bone war,” Marsh, Cope, and their teams will stop at nothing: theft, corruption, espionage, and violence.
In pursuit of giant fossils, they encounter Buffalo Bill and the Sioux chief Red Cloud, General Custer, and President Ulysses S. Grant, at a time when the United States is being transformed by westward expansion, the Civil War, the gold rush, and the first transcontinental railroad. Illustrated with period documents, this thrilling narrative traces the birth of modern science and America itself, becoming a parable about humanity’s insatiable hunger for knowledge and recognition.
A Franco-American writer, Professor Benjamin Hoffmann is the author of novels and essays, including Les Paradoxes de la postérité (Minuit, 2019), Posthumous America (PSUP, 2019), L’Île de la Sentinelle (Gallimard, 2022), and Les Minuscules (Gallimard, 2024). A PhD graduate of Yale University, he is the College of Arts and Sciences Designated Professor of French and Francophone Literature at The Ohio State University.
This event is sponsored by the Department of French and Italian’s French Center of Excellence, which receives funding from French Cultural Services in the US and the Consulate General of France in Chicago. This series is also supported by the following Departments and Centers at Ohio State: Spanish and Portuguese, Slavic and Eastern European Languages and Literatures, Near Eastern and South Asian Languages, Germanic Languages and Literatures, History, Design, and the Humanities Institute.
In December of 2020, the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States selected the Department of French and Italian at The Ohio State University to join its prestigious network of Centers of Excellence. OSU’s Center of Excellence has the goal of promoting French and Francophone culture in the Midwest and beyond.
