The Center for French and Francophone Studies (CFFS)

UPCOMING SPRING 2012 EVENTS

April 20: Historian Laure Murat, French Department, UCLA, and winner of the Prix Femina in 2011 for her book, L’Homme qui se prenait pour Napoléon: Pour une histoire politique de la folie (Gallimard). “The Man Who Mistook Himself for Napoleon: For a Political History of Madness.” 5 pm, 305 Languages. Small reception to follow.

 

RECENT SPRING 2012 EVENTS

January 23-31: Quebec Film Series, co-sponsored by The Center for Canadian Studies, The Program in Arts of the Moving Image. All screenings at 7 pm in the Griffith Theater in the Bryan Center. January 23: Incendies. Denis Villeneuve. 2010. January 30: Les Amours Imaginaires (Heartbeats). Xavier Dolan. 2010. January 31: Route 132. Louis Bélanger. 2010.

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February 27: Claire Payton, “The Haiti Memory Project: Oral History and the Digital Humanities as Post-Disaster Response.” Talk by New York University graduate student on the Haiti Memory Project, an online oral history archive documenting the lives of earthquake survivors. Noon, Haiti Lab, Bay 4, Smith Warehouse. A light lunch will be served.

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March 23: Roundtable on “Freedom Papers: An Atlantic Odyssey in the Age of Emancipation” by Rebecca Scott and Jean Hébrard. This deeply researched and riveting new book tells the story of generations of a family in the Atlantic World, from West Africa to Haiti and Cuba, to New Orleans, Mexico, France, and 20th-century Belgium. Emily Clark of Tulane University, Cécile Vidal of the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, and Thavolia Glymph of Duke History and AAAS will offer comments on the book, followed by a Q & A with the authors, moderated by Laurent Dubois. 4 pm, Garage, Franklin Humanities Institute, Bay 4, Smith Warehouse. The event will be followed by a reception and book signing. Click here for directions to the Smith Warehouse.

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March 28: “Marta’s Pink Star: Perspectives on the International Women’s Game.” Reflections on women’s soccer with Jennifer Doyle. Noon, Garage, Franklin Humanities Institute, Bay 4, Smith Warehouse. A light lunch will be served. Jennifer Doyle is Associate Professor of English at the University of California Riverside. She is the author Sex Objects: Art and the Dialectics of Desire (University of Minnesota Press, 2006) and Hold It Against Me: Difficulty and Emotion in Contemporary Art (forthcoming from Duke University Press). Her blog, From a Left Wing, is a leading site for the discussion Women’s soccer and gender and sport more broadly. She will be speaking about her perspective on the 2011 Women’s World Cup, which she spent in France and Germany, and about the past and future of women’s soccer in the U.S. and around the globe.

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April 5: Visit of Colette Fellous, a French-Tunisian writer best known for her autobiographical fiction tracing Tunisian-French connections. She was a student of Roland Barthes at the École des Hautes Études and a member of his legendary seminar. Since the 1970s, she has been a vibrant participant in Parisian literary life. Her radio program on France Culture, “Carnet nomade,” has introduced the French public to many contemporary writers and artists. She also directs the collection of memoirs at Mercure de France, “Traits et portraits,” known for its inventive design – part text, part image. Last fall, she published her latest novel, Un amour de frère (Gallimard), which was shortlisted for the prestigious Prix Goncourt. 6 pm, 305 Languages. Talk will be in French. Co-sponsored by the Services culturels of the French Embassy.

FALL 2011 EVENTS

September 9: Opening of the piece “Haiti: History Embedded in Amber,” at the Franklin Humanities Institute. The catalogue for the piece was produced with support from the Center for French and Francophone Studies.

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September 5 – October 3: Tournées, the 2011 French Film Festival at Duke. Screenings Monday evenings at 8 pm in the Griffith Film Theater inside the Bryan University Center on West campus.

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October 5: “The Colonies Pay Back: Culture and Corruption in Franco-African Relations,” a roundtable with Philippe Bernard of Le Monde, Stephen Smith, and Achille Mbembe. 12:30-2:00 pm in the Franklin Humanities Institute Garage, Bay 4, Smith Warehouse.

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October 7: Stanislas Dehaene, “Reading in the Brain.” 12 pm in Perkins 217. Prof. Dehaene’s talk outlines a “neuro-cultural” approach to reading that has been featured on NPR and a host of other media venues.

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October 18: Historian Rebecca Spang, author of the award-winning The Invention of the Restaurant. “The Death of the Signature: Money and Authorship in the Time of the French Revolution.” 5 pm in the Franklin Humanities Institute Garage, Bay 4, Smith Warehouse.

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October 19: Screening of Hors-la-Loi, (“Outside the Law”) a recent drama about the Algerian War of Independence, with a post-screening discussion on representations of decolonization with Achille Mbembe, Visiting Professor of Romance Studies. The free screening is at 8 pm in the Griffith Theater in the Bryan Center.

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October 26: Screening of La Danse (“The Dance”), a documentary about the Paris Opera. There will be a post-screening discussion with Tom Rankin of the Center for Documentary Studies. The free screening takes place at 7 pm in the Griffith Theater in the Bryan Center.

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October 27: Azouz Begag and Alec Hargreaves, “Contemporary France, Changing France.” The CFFS is co-sponsoring the event with the Department of Foreign Languages and the Department of Religious Studies at Elon University in Elon, North Carolina. The talk will take place in Elon’s Whitley Auditorium at 6 pm.

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November 9: Dominique Rabaté, “Puissance et impuissance de l’individu: Le cas de Marie NDiaye.” 5 pm in the Franklin Humanities Institute Garage, Bay 4,  Smith Warehouse.

November 10: Dominique Rabaté, “Writing Memory Today.” 5 pm in the Gothic Reading Room, Perkins Library.

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November 15: “France After the DSK Affair,” a roundtable with Michel Giraud (CNRS), Achille Mbembe, Anne-Gaelle Saliot, and Geraldine Smith. Noon in the Garage, FHI, Bay 4, Smith Warehouse.