La Maison Française will feature a Francophone literary festival, the Festival des Cinq Continents (April 6-7); a live taping of the Person Place Thing podcast with host Randy Cohen and guest Edmund White (April 9); the PEN World Voices Festival (April 20); and writer, director, and actor Christophe Barbier as part of the French Literature in the Making series (April 23).
La Maison Française will feature a Francophone literary festival, the Festival des Cinq Continents (April 6-7); a live taping of the Person Place Thing podcast with host Randy Cohen and guest Edmund White (April 9); the PEN World Voices Festival (April 20); and writer, director, and actor Christophe Barbier as part of the French Literature in the Making series (April 23).
All events are held at La Maison Française, 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).
Wednesday, April 4, 6:30 p.m.
Gender and Capitalism in Twentieth-Century France and the United States
Institute of French Studies panel event exploring gender relations and the workings of the capitalist economy.
Sabine Effosse, historian, Université Paris Nanterre; author of Le crédit à la consommation en France, 1947-1965 - De la stigmatisation à la réglementation
Julia Ott, Associate Professor, The New School; author of When Wall Street Met Main Street: The Quest for an Investors’ Democracy
Herrick Chapman (moderator), Institute of French Studies, NYU
Thursday, April 5, 6:00 p.m.
Music and Dance at the Court of Versailles
Lecture/Performance
Catherine Turocy, Director, choreographer
and the New York Baroque Dance Company (nybaroquedance.org)
Seating is limited. Reservations required: 212-998-8750 or maison.francaise@nyu.edu
Thursday to Saturday, April 5 to 7
Festival Des Cinq Continents: Littérature, Francophonie, Diversité
A Francophone literary festival, co-sponsored by the Permanent Mission of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie to the United Nations and by the NYU Center for French Civilization and Culture, takes place at various NYC locations. Visiting authors include Yamen Manai, the 2017 recipient of the Prix des 5 continents. For festival details: nyu.is/5continents
Festival des cinq continents events hosted at La Maison Française of NYU are listed below:
Friday, April 6, 5:00 p.m.
La littérature francophone dans le champ éditorial: Comment construire (et déconstruire) un genre littéraire?
La littérature francophone et le champ éditorial contemporain
Table ronde
Kathryn Kleppinger, Kaoutar Harchi, Kim Thúy; Modérateur: Stéphane Gerson, NYU
In French
Friday, April 6, 6:30 p.m.
Les conditions de la création littéraire francophone: évolution et défis actuels
L'écrivain francophone - solitaire ou solidaire?
Table ronde
Yamen Manai, Lise Gauvin, Rodney Saint-Éloi, Évelyne Trouillot; Modérateur : Michael Dash, NYU
In French
Saturday, April 7, 11:00 a.m.
Readings
Lise Gauvin, Kaoutar Harchi, Eugène Nicole; Modérateur: Gabriella Lindsay, NYU
In English
Monday, April 9, 7:00 p.m.
Person Place Thing Taping with Guest Edmund White
Join host Randy Cohen – author and broadcaster – for a special live taping of his podcast Person Place Thing. Guests talk about one person, one place, and one thing important to them. The result? Surprising stories from great talkers.
American novelist, memoirist, and essayist Edmund White is the author of over 25 books, including a trilogy of autobiographical novels ─ A Boy’s Own Story, The Beautiful Room is Empty, and The Farewell Symphony. He has written biographies of Jean Genet (National Book Critics Circle Award), Marcel Proust, and Arthur Rimbaud. His most recent works of fiction are Hotel de Dream, Jack Holmes and His Friend, and Our Young Man. A new memoir, The Unpunished Vice: A Life of Reading, will be published in June. He received the 2018 PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Career Achievement in American Fiction.
The live event includes music by Rich Jenkins. The program will be recorded for later broadcast on public radio throughout the Northeast (WNYE, 91.5 FM in NYC).
Tickets: General Admission $10 (Cash payment at the door); Students with ID admitted free
Seating is limited. Reservations required: bit.ly/2FgIFQU
Thursday & Friday, April 12 & 13
Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) – Cultural, Religious, Ethical Values and Norms from a Comparative Perspective, France/United States
This two-day Franco-American workshop seeks to compare the cultural, ethical, religious, historical and policy implications of how reproductive technologies have developed and now impact our two national contexts. In both countries, advanced reproductive technologies have long been in development and are now in widespread use. France and the United States share a certain number of similar conceptions relative to kinship and gender, and are both undergoing comparable evolutions in the creation of new family configurations. Yet in France, public discourse calling for “social solidarity” with people experiencing infertility is widespread and public payment and access is designed and tightly controlled through biomedical regulation. In the US, by contrast, “privacy” of family life and “consumer choice” dominate the public discussion, while few insurance schemes actually cover reproductive technology expenses and market access shapes both popular imaginaries and practical use.
Organized by Rayna Rapp (NYU), Linda Gordon (NYU), Séverine Mathieu (EPHE-PSL, Paris), and Jennifer Merchant (Université Paris 2, Paris).
Organized with the generous support of the Institute of French Studies (NYU); Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE-PSL); the CNRS (GSRL); and the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF).
Tuesday, April 17, 7:00 p.m.
La Rhétorique des Dieux
Echoes of Antiquity in the Lute Music of Versailles
Salon/Sanctuary Concert
Catherine Lidell, Baroque lute
Tickets and details: showclix.com/event/la-rhetorique-des-dieux
Co-sponsored by Salon/Sanctuary Concerts and La Maison Française of NYU and generously supported by the Florence Gould Foundation
Wednesday, April 18, 6:30 p.m.
Performing Archaeology: The 1906-07 Fêtes de Carthage and a Vision of Empire
Institute of French Studies lecture
Daniel J. Sherman, Professor of Art History and History, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; author of French Primitivism and the Ends of Empire, 1945-1975
Friday, April 20
PEN World Voices Festival
La Maison Française of NYU will again participate in the Pen World Voices Festival. The theme this year is Resist and Reimagine. The complete festival schedule (April 16 – 22) is available at penworldvoices.org.
Meditations on Exile 6:00 p.m.
Being forced to leave one’s country involves profound physical dislocation as well as the emotional upheaval of being separated from family, friends, and the very roots of our existence. Often accompanying this change is the need to adjust to a new place, the strangeness and the stresses of crossing into a different world. Each panelist has experienced this. They talk about why they needed to upend their former lives and how they have adapted to their new ones. With Xiaolu Guo, Dunya Mikhail, and Hossein M Abkenar.
Blurring Borders: Reimagining Strangers 7:30 p.m.
With Raquel Abend, Négar Djevadi, Ibi Zoboi, Rebecca Falkoff (moderator)
Through the lens of their literary work and personal perspectives, international authors consider society reimagined in the context of global immigration, migratory movements, political exiles, and the challenges of assimilation and integration.
Monday, April 23, 7:00 p.m.
French Literature in the Making
Christophe Barbier, editorialist, journalist, author, theater director, and actor; editorial director L’Express (2006-2016); political commentator, BFM-TV; author of Les Derniers Jours de François Mitterrand, La Comédie des Orphelins, La Guerre de l’Elysée n’aura pas lieu, Dictionnaire amoureux du Théâtre
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
Thursday, April 26, 7:00 p.m.
La Guitare Napoléonienne French Music for Early Romantic Guitar
Salon/Sanctuary Concert
Pascal Valois, guitar
Tickets and details: showclix.com/event/la-guitare-napoleonienne
Co-sponsored by Salon/Sanctuary Concerts and La Maison Française of NYU and generously supported by the Florence Gould Foundation
Monday, April 30, 7:00 p.m.
Le Nouveau Roman: une aventure épistolaire
Carrie Landfried, Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies, Franklin & Marshall College
Olivier Wagner, Archivist and curator of contemporary collections, Département des Manuscrits, Bibliothèque Nationale de France
Co-editors of the annotated volume of correspondence Lettres d'Amérique de Nathalie Sarraute (Gallimard, 2017)
In French
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.