La Maison Française of NYU will feature novelist Dany Laferrière of the Académie Française in “French Literature in the Making” (Nov. 6), the annual Fontainebleau Contemporain Concert (Nov. 4), and more in November.
La Maison Française of NYU will feature novelist Dany Laferrière of the Académie Française in “French Literature in the Making” (Nov. 6), the annual Fontainebleau Contemporain Concert (Nov. 4), and more in November.
All events are held at La Maison Française of NYU, 16 Washington Mews (between University Place and Fifth Avenue), and are free and open to the public and in English, unless otherwise noted. Seating for free events is on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information, call 212.998.8750 or visit nyu.edu/maisonfrancaise. Subways: R, W (8th Street); 6 (Astor Place); A, B, C, D, E, F, M (West 4th Street).
Thursday, November 2, 7:00 p.m.
Futures of French: Ex-Centric Reading
“La télévision est nécessaire”: Duras, Literature and Mass Media
Anne Brancky, Vassar College
Unbecoming Language: An Anti-Identitarian Poetics
Annabel Kim, Harvard University
Response: Hilary Handin, Ph.D. candidate, NYU
Co-sponsored by Department of French Literature, Thought, and Culture and the Institute of French Studies
Saturday, November 4, 3:30 p.m.
Fontainebleau Contemporain Concert
“What’s in a Name?”
A Century of Cello Music from the Conservatoire Américain de Fontainebleau
Debussy - Cello Sonata
Ravel - Berceuse sur le nom de Gabriel Fauré
Casadesus - Cello Sonata
Dutilleux - Trois strophes sur le nom de Sacher
Featuring the American premiere of “Variations sur le nom de Charles Osgood,” a collaborative work by Fontainebleau alumni Philip Lasser, Riho Esko Maimets, Richard Carrick, Dalit Hadass Warshaw, Mahir Cetiz, and Robert Xavier Rodriguez
Performed by:
Fontainebleau Professors Diana Ligeti, cello & Philippe Muller, cello
Fontainebleau Alumni Nathan Brandwein, piano & Baron Fenwick, piano
$20 General Admission; $10 Students with ID and Fontainebleau Alumni
Tickets may be purchased at fontainebleauschools.org
Co-sponsored by La Maison Française of NYU and the Fontainebleau Associations
Monday, November 6, 7:00 p.m.
French Literature in the Making
Dany Laferrière de l’Académie française
Novelist, essayist, poet, journalist; author of «Comment faire l’amour avec un Nègre sans se fatiguer»; «L’odeur du café»; «Le Goût des jeunes filles»; «Vers le sud»; «Je suis un écrivain japonais»; «L’Énigme du retour» (Prix Médicis); «Tout bouge autour de moi»; «Journal d’un écrivain en pyjama»; «Tout ce qu’on ne te dira pas»
in conversation with
Olivier Barrot, writer, journalist, television producer and host, “Un Livre un jour” (France 3 and TV5); author of “L’Ami posthume”; “Le Fils perdu”; “La Revue Blanche”; “Un Livre un jour, un livre toujours”; “Mitteleuropa”; “United States”
In French
Wednesday, November 8, 6:30 p.m.
“The Right to Difference: French Universalism and the Jews”
Maurice Samuels
Professor of French and director, Program for the Study of Antisemitism, Yale University; author of “Inventing the Israelite: Jewish Fiction in Nineteenth-Century France”; ”The Right to Difference: French Universalism and the Jews”
in conversation with
Stéphane Gerson, Director, Institute of French Studies, NYU
Co-sponsored by La Maison Française and the Institute of French Studies
Thursday, November 9, 6:30 p.m.
The Ethnographer’s I: Michel Leiris in Translation
Lydia Davis, author and translator
Vincent Debaene, Université de Genève
Brent Hayes Edwards, Columbia University
Richard Sieburth, NYU
Moderated by Denis Hollier, NYU
Sponsored by the New York Institute for the Humanities, La Maison Française, and the Department of French Literature, Thought, and Culture, NYU
Thursday, November 16, 7:00 p.m.
Art and Theory in/for the Anthropocene
Frédérique Aït-Touati, Researcher, CNRS; director, Programme d’Expérimentation en Arts Politiques (SPEAP), Sciences Po.
Judith Miller, NYU
Phillip John Usher, NYU
The Programme d’Expérimentation en Arts Politiques (SPEAP) or Experimental Program in Political Arts, at Sciences Po, founded by Bruno Latour, explores the creative relationship between, and compositional practices of, art (photography, theater, etc.) and theory in the Age of the Anthropocene. Aït-Touati, who now directs SPEAP, will explore how the program brings together architects, designers, academics, members of the civil service, researchers, administrators, activists, and curators within an experimental framework, to develop new ways of thinking—and of feeling and experiencing—this new age in which man has become a geological force.
Friday & Saturday, November 17 & 18
French Department Graduate Student Conference
(Un)documented
Documents may be written words or images made with pen and paper, painted on parchment, typewritten, or recorded in various media, analogue or digital. What are the boundaries of documentation and what lies in the undocumented space beyond?
Central to this question is the definition of “document.” Documents are material–tangible and/or visible, and yet they are signs or representations of a point of origin, a source of power or authority, from which they are detached. Given this irreducible gap, the relationship among the documented, the documenter, and ultimately the document is slippery and unfixed. Therefore, the document itself is unstable, and yet we endow it with authority and authenticity, and even at times agency. Since our notions of authenticity are so often mediated by documents, to what extent can we trust them and what do we do in their absence?
Friday, November 17
8:45 a.m. Registration
9:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Opening Remarks, Panels 1 & 2
12:30 – 1:30 p.m. Keynote: Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, NYU
Saturday, November 18
10:15 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. Opening remarks, Panels 3, 4 & 5
4:00 – 5:00 p.m. Keynote: Peter Szendy, Brown University
Sponsored by Department of French Literature, Thought, and Culture
Monday, November 27, 6:30 p.m.
“Transparency in Postwar France: A Critical History of the Present”
Stefanos Geroulanos
Associate Professor of History, NYU; author of “Transparency in Postwar France: A Critical History of the Present” (Stanford University Press, 2017); “The Scaffolding of Sovereignty” (with Zvi Ben-Dor Benite and Nicole Jerr)
Co-sponsored by La Maison Française and the Institute of French Studies
Editor’s Note
For over six decades, La Maison Française of New York University has served as a major forum for French-American cultural and intellectual exchange, offering contemporary perspectives on myriad French and Francophone issues. Its rich program of lectures, symposia, concerts, screenings, exhibitions, and special events provides an invaluable resource to the university community, as well as the general public. For more, please visit nyu.edu/maisonfrancaise.