La Maison Française will feature a concert called A Look Behind the Curtain, featuring Poulenc's iconic 1956 song cycle, Le travail du peintre (Oct.10); Machines à écrire, a new series on contemporary literature in the French language that will feature a conversation with author Valérie Zenatti (Oct. 22); the French Natures conference which explores cultural aspects to climate change (Oct. 26-27); and more in October.
La Maison Française will feature a concert called A Look Behind the Curtain, featuring Poulenc's iconic 1956 song cycle, Le travail du peintre (Oct.10); Machines à écrire, a new series on contemporary literature in the French language that will feature a conversation with author Valérie Zenatti (Oct. 22); the French Natures conference which explores cultural aspects to climate change (Oct. 26-27); and more in October.
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).
Thursday, October 4, 7:00 p.m.
Sciences of Empire/Post-Colonial States
Futures of French Series
Robyn d’Avignon, Assistant Professor of History, NYU
Justin Izzo, Assistant Professor of French Studies, Brown University
Co-sponsored by the Institute of French Studies and the Department of French Literature, Thought, and Culture
Tuesday, October 9, 6:30 p.m.
Claude Lévi-Strauss, Our Contemporary
Institute of French Studies Book Event
Academic, writer, figure of melancholy, aesthete – Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009) not only transformed his academic discipline, he also profoundly changed the way that we view ourselves and the world around us. In this award-winning biography, the first one to use all available sources, many yet unpublished, historian Emmanuelle Loyer recounts Lévi-Strauss’s childhood in an assimilated Jewish household, his promising student years as well as his first forays into political and intellectual movements.
Emmanuelle Loyer, Professor of History, Sciences Po, Paris; editor, La revue Tocqueville; author of Paris à New York. Intellectuels et artistes français en exil; Histoire du Festival d’Avignon; Claude Lévi-Strauss (Flammarion 2015 and Polity Books 2018; Prix Femina essai)
In French with simultaneous interpretation in English
Wednesday, October 10, 7:00 p.m.
A Look Behind the Curtain - Concert
An exploration of poetic imagery, symbolist, surreal, and sensual, through the ears of five contemporary composers, in the company of Poulenc's iconic 1956 song cycle, Le travail du peintre. Additional works by Barbara Jazwinski, Louis Karchin, Friedrich Kern, Andrew MacDonald and Guy Sacre.
Featuring baritone Jeremy Huw Williams and pianist Paula Fan
Reservations: 212-998-8750 or maison.francaise@nyu.edu
$20 General Admission; $10 Students with ID
Co-sponsored by the League of Composers-ISCM; FAS Department of Music and La Maison Française, NYU
Friday & Saturday, October 19 & 20
Asylums, Refuges, and Sanctuaries in 18th Century France
Conference organized by Lucien Nouis (NYU)
This conference will explore through a multiplicity of points of view–political, literary, historical, architectural, geographical—the ideas of asylum and refuge in the eighteenth century.
Friday, October 19, 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Saturday, October 20, 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Participants include: Fayçal Falaky, Pierre Saint-Amand, Christophe Litwin, Thomas Dodman, Jennifer Tsien, Masano Yamashita, Laurence Mall, Laurence Marie, Andrew Clark, Anthony Vidler, Lucien Nouis, Sophie Wahnich
Full schedule and list of participants will be posted at bit.ly/2BCqxQ9
Presentations in English or in French
Sponsored by the Department of French Literature, Thought, and Culture
Monday, October 22, 7:00 p.m.
Machines à écrire
Le NYU Center for French Language and Cultures lance cette année sa nouvelle série sur l’écriture contemporaine en langue française. Chaque saison annuelle sera confiée à une personnalité saillante de la culture française qui invitera quatre écrivains à se rendre à la Maison Française de NYU afin de discuter autour d’un thème choisi.
Saison 2018-2019: « Entendre le français par ses différences »
La saison inaugurale sera dirigée et animée par François Noudelmann. Membre de l'Institut Universitaire de France, Noudelmann enseigne la littérature et la philosophie à l'université de Paris VIII. Parmi ses dernières publications: Édouard Glissant. L’identité généreuse, Le Génie du mensonge, Les Airs de famille, une philosophie des affinités.
Les invités de cette saison inaugurale sont quatre écrivains dont l'œuvre est déjà reconnue et traduite internationalement. Leur pratique de la langue française traverse les frontières linguistiques et culturelles, en relation avec d'autres langues. Les rencontrer sera l'occasion de découvrir le renouveau de la littérature, de la pensée et de la culture en langue française.
Valérie Zenatti est née à Nice en 1970. Elle s’installe en Israël avec ses parents et sa sœur en 1983. De retour en France en 1990, elle passe une maîtrise de langue et littérature hébraïque aux Langues'O. Journaliste-radio, professeur d'hébreu ensuite, elle se consacre depuis plusieurs années exclusivement à l’écriture. Mensonges, paru en 2011, est un récit qui se fait l’écho de l’œuvre de Aharon Appelfeld, dont elle est par ailleurs la traductrice. Jacob, Jacob, paru aux Editions de l’Olivier en 2014, est son dernier roman. Il a reçu le prix du Livre Inter 2015.
In French
Wednesday, October 24, 6:30 p.m.
Rated Agency: Investee Politics in a Speculative Age (Zone Books, 2018)
Michel Feher, author of Powerless by Design: The Age of the International Community; Rated Agency; editor of Nongovernmental Politics and Europe at a Crossroads; founder of Cette France-là, a monitoring group on French immigration policy; founding editor, Zone Books
Comments by John Krinsky (Political Science, City College of New York and Graduate Center, CUNY) and Julia Ott (History, The New School)
Institute of French Studies Book Event
Co-sponsored by NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge
Friday & Saturday, October 26 & 27
French Natures
A conference-festival organized by Frédérique Aït-Touati (CNRS, EHESS, Sciences Po) and Phillip John Usher (NYU)
As Emmanuel Macron’s call to “Make the Planet Great Again” reminds us, there is a cultural aspect to climate change—each culture maps its understanding of the physical world (nature, physics) in different ways. This conference-festival titled “French Natures” thus asks: what do French and Francophone literature, film, visual art, theater, and philosophy make of our planet? How can they help us understand our world marked by environmental catastrophe?
Friday, October 26, 9:30 a.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Saturday, October 27, 9:30 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Program is subject to last-minute changes; for full and up-to-date details, go to frenchnatures.org
Sponsored by The Cultural Services of the French Embassy; NYU Center for French Language and Cultures; The Florence Gould Foundation; Department of French Literature, Thought, and Culture NYU; Centre de Recherches sur les Arts et le Langage (EHESS); NYU Center for the Humanities; La Maison Française NYU
Tuesday, October 30, 7:00 p.m.
The Cabinet des médailles: Luxury and Power from Ancient Rome to Modern France
Clare Fitzgerald, Associate Director for Exhibitions and Gallery Curator, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, NYU
The lecture, presented at La Maison Française, is held in conjunction with the exhibition Devotion and Decadence: The Berthouville Treasure and Roman Luxury from the Bibliothèque nationale de France, on view at NYU’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, 15 East 84th St., from October 17 to January 6. isaw.nyu.edu/exhibitions/berthouville
Co-sponsored by the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World and La Maison Française
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.