2007 Summer Volume 21
We seem to know a few things about the future of the discipline. At Chairs meetings at the MLA, in articles in The Chronicle of Higher Education, or on the streetthat is, our French streetwe hear that the decline in the study of French (and German and the death dive of Russian) due to the rise and interest in Spanish over the last twenty years is about over. We are not apt to lose any more lines or our place, such as it is, in higher education. The French language is too prestigious and too charming and too connotative of classiness, which Americans still aspire to despite reality T.V. The literature is too rich to be dismissed and much is still unexplored: there is a lot of research to do. Nonetheless, there are worries: while there are jobs, many of those available are as language instructors in a contractual, nontenured systemhence the danger of creating two-tiered departments. On the linguistic front, there is the constant challenge posed by functionalists, who look for language trainers over teachers and who promote a language acquisition system devoid of cultural content and of any notion that how we think depends on how and what we speak. On the what is hot front, the challenge, especially for smaller institutions, will come from Chinese and Arabic. In some of our best independent schools, middle school students have no choice but to study Mandarin, putting off French until high school.
The following is a slightly abridged version of remarks offered at the April Alumni Reunion, at a session on the future of the discipline.
Letter From The Chair
New York University French Programs Newsletter
combination, equally dosed or blended into something called French Studies, which remains methodologically challenging? On the whole, our undergraduate students seem to be as interested in this approach as in literary studies. Several major universities are moving towards the French Studies direction, including Columbia, and this creates anxieties about what will be left out in the literary field, just as, in many universities, the concentration on literature of earlier centuries has been threatened by what we call Francophone studies. A fourth worry, related to all of the above is the state of graduate studies in French. I recall my Wisconsin colleague, Elaine Marks, then President of the MLA and always a hedonistic pessimist, proclaiming that by 2025 there would only be 25 Ph.D. granting departments of French in the U.S. and Canada. (There are currently some 130.) I dont believe things will ever get that bad. But I do suspect that graduate studies in French will one day be offered in fewer universities, while others will build up professional M.A. degrees in French, or translation programs, or expand study abroad efforts in French-speaking areas of the world.
A third worry, but this is less a worry than a debate to have, is how to define the field. While I think we can all agree on the centrality of superb training in the language, we professionals are quite divided in terms of what else to teach: literature only? civilization and culture only? a
This leads me to my last point: international education. We, in French, have obviously been internationalists from the get-go. All of us are culturally sophisticated because we have learned to function in at least two different cultures and languages. All of us have flexible boundaries, psychological and political at least up to a point. Universities and colleges everywhere seem to be discovering the importance of this, or at least paying lip service, while also discovering how much money can be made by sending students elsewhere to study, or even by establishing branch campuses abroad. Higher education is thus globalizing with the worst features of bad globalization, reminiscent of late 19th Century
2 DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH
Letter From The Chair (cont.)
imperialism, as well as with some of the best ones real exchanges, authentic experiences, and challenging systems of thought. I can only conclude that we must be vigilant. Listening to Michel Beaujour and Tom Bishop reminisce last night about the glory days of NYUs French Department in the 1960s and 1970s, which was indeed a glorious time for foreign languages and literature in the U.S., and especially for French, I began to feel nostalgic, until I realized that I have, in fact, been fighting to keep French strong all of my career. honors thesis in French. Almost all have spent a year or a semester in France at our Center there, established by Tom Bishop in 1969. (And, of course, many of our Ph.D. students spend a first year there, not to mention the hundreds of M.A. students the Center has trained.) This back and forth with Paris is crucial to the strength of and enthusiasm for things French at NYU. We are consequently anxious but also excited about NYUs latest global initiative of some kind of partnership with The American University of Paris. The Department does not want this partnership with an Anglophone body to diminish the centrality of French language and culture as key components of studying in France. In strategizing about how to maintain both presence and quality, we are working, via NYU-in-France, towards becoming The French Department or the Center of French Studies of The American University of Paris.
This leads me to our Department and its future. As far as the graduate program is concerned, we are holding onto our sense of the importance of a thorough and complete training in all fields of French literature, which includes Francophone works. We continue to have at least two colleagues in each century or area and one very special colleague who bridges the Department and the Institute of French Studies. We also have a stellar colleague who trains and directs our TAs. (Since last spring, we have also had a whole cadre of Language Lecturers, the contract faculty I worry about. And we are working to make sure they know they are essential parts of the Department.) We are also being more open to interdisciplinary Ph.D.s and to joint degrees with the Institute of French Studies. And, indeed, many of our students are taking a four-course certificate in French Studies at the Institute to be able to teach culture and civilization courses and to better contextualize historically and sociologically the literature on which they work. We are, with our brand new hire in Cinema Studies, expanding our offerings in visual cultures that will, among many other things, afford an opportunity to train graduate students to be able to teach cinema courses in a responsible and non-superficial way in the many French departments that want or need such courses. We are also rethinking our teacher training of the graduate students in response to their request. Were creating working, not-for-credit seminars on how to teach not only language, but also literature and civilization.
To conclude, you can see that were busy and active, and you can also see that its a Chair speaking, because Im thinking policy and procedure and not even addressing the continuous and very important research and publications coming out of the Department, nor the new courses and seminars. You can also see that despite my words about vigilance, we are working out of a position of strength, a strength within this University that has been ongoing since at least the mid 1950s and that has been secured by the efforts of the administrative team under Tom Bishops leadership and, of course, by the success of NYUs French graduates.
Department of French 3 - Faculty News 7
Contents
Judith Miller, August 2007
As far as the undergraduate program is concerned, we teach some 3,000 students a year, have some 220 declared majors, 60 of whom graduated this year. Almost all are double majors, but of these at least 10 a year write a senior
We still have no specific ideological pitch. We are not post-modern, not post-derridean, nor post-colonialist. Even among the Francophonists, there is no party line and one of the colleagues would like to do away with the term Francophone all together to speak more inclusively of literature of French expression. We do not, then, have as many courses in theory, or French thought, or intellectual history as other major departments of French. Luckily, because we also have strong ties with Comparative Literature, we can rely on colleagues we share for more focused courses in critical or theoretical approaches.
- Interview with Serge Doubrovsky 12 - A Portrait of Ludovic Cortade 14 La Maison Franaise 18 - Student & Alumni News 15-17
Institute of French Studies 22 NYU-in-France 26
Center for French Civilization & Culture 25 Upcoming Events 27
Department of French Homecoming
This year, thanks to the impetus of Professors Ourida Mostefai (Ph.D. 1992) and Carole Martin (Ph.D. 1991), the Department of French hosted a very successful Homecoming, the first alumni reunion for its former graduate students. The weekendlong event at which some one-hundred people attended included a welcome reception and a one-day colloquium on the current state of the The Future of the Discipline Session at La Maison Franaise profession. Participants attended sessions on celebration of the 50 th anniversary of La Maison Working in Non-Academic Fields and Teaching in NonFranaise. It is hoped that this will be the first of many University positions, Working in Universities and alumni reunions. Four-Year Colleges, and The Future of the Discipline, as well as on The NYU Department of French, Past and Read news from some of the participants on page 10 Present. The colloquium ended with a keynote lecture and please do send us your news for the next issue of on La Profession en France et un regard sur les tatsLArc to LArc, NYU Department of French, Unis, by Visiting Professor Philippe Roger. 13-19 University Place, 6th floor, New York, NY 10003 or [e-mail] or fax: [phone]. The Homecoming Organizing Committee, in
3 DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH
addition to Ourida Mostefai of Boston College and Carole Martin of Texas State University, consisted of NYU Department of French faculty Tom Bishop and Michel Beaujour. The event also coincided with the
Whos Who
(Changes in the Department of French)
Faculty
Denis Hollier Acting Chair
Staff
Richard Sieburth Acting Director of Graduate Studies
Eugne Nicole NY Acting Director of NYU-in-France
Nancy Regalado Director of the Undergraduate Honors Program
Emily Apter Career Counselor and Placement Advisor (Graduate)
Alex Teachey Undergraduate Assistant
Brett Underhill Graduate Assistant
Amy Meyer Assistant to the NY Director of NYU-inFrance
Ellie Vance Assistant to the Chair of the Department and to the Director of the Center for French Civilization and Culture
4 DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH
Department of French Highlights
Maurice Olender Florence Gould Events and Lectures
La Passion des origines. Entre langue et nation
French Literature in the Making, contemporary French authors in conversation with Olivier Barrot, presented with the support of Voyageurs du monde et Directours Jean-Paul Dubois Philippe Besson Alain Fleischer
Olivier Barrot and Philippe Besson
Jean-Paul Dubois
Alain Fleischer
Jack Yeager
Lectures
Vietnamese Francophone Narratives: Adaptation and Transformation Jean-Paul Fargier Lpoque du post cinma, introduced by Professor Anne Deneys-Tunney Christian Biet (Visiting Professor) Portrait de Corneille en jeune auteur
Yves Hersant Jack Yeager
Yves Hersant (Visiting Professor) Michel Foucault et lEurope
Quest-ce que la francophonie ? What Is Francophonie? with Herv Cassan, Jos Pliya, Judith Miller, J. Michael Dash, and Rgine Joseph The Infinite Taste of Dreams Drums on the Dam The Flying Manuscript Hlne Cixous: a week-long visit
Special Events
Judith Miller, Herv Cassan, Rgine Joseph, J. Michael Dash, and Jos Pliya
La Jeunesse est dans la rue: les jeunes et la politique en France with Bruno Julliard, Chairman, Union nationale des tudiants de France, and NYU Students Dominique Viart Mini-Seminar on the Contemporary Novel in France
Bruno Juillard and NYU students
Celebrating Hlne Cixous and Maria Chevska: Ex-Cities
Hlne Cixous
French Graduate Student Association Conference 5
DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH
This years French Graduate Student Association (FGSA) conference, Un/Common Experience: The Dross and the Glory of Everyday Life, took place on February 16 & 17 and was organized by Nicky Agate, Elizabeth Applegate, Alexandre Bonafos, Kari Evanson, and Katie Rose Hillegass.
Keynote speaker Kristin Ross (NYU, Comparative Literature) opened the conference with her talk, which reflected on the 50th anniversary of the publication of Barthes Mythologies, and traced the course of everyday life studies from its inception to the present. The day ended with a screening of Agns Vardas Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse (2000).
The interdisciplinary events seven panels explored what can be gained from considering the everyday in such areas of study as French and Francophone literatures and civilizations, anthropology, geography, art history, and media studies.
The conference closed with a round table moderated by Professor Denis Hollier. Professors Abdellah Hammoudi (Princeton, Anthropology), Jennifer Jones (Rutgers, History), Kristin Ross and Derek Schilling (Rutgers, French) discussed the ways in which everyday life studies have shaped and informed their own research.
Graduate participants came from many different institutions, including University of Colorado-Boulder, Columbia University, Duke University, Harvard University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Universit Laval (Quebec City), Universit de Montral, Universit du Qubec (Montral), Universit de Toronto, cole Normale Suprieure (Paris), cole Normale Suprieure (Lyon), Universit de Lille-III, Universit de Paris-III, Universit de Paris-VII, and Universit de Tours. NYU French department graduate students Alina Cherry, Christophe Litwin, and Curran Osenton also presented their papers.
Prof. Deneys-Tunney directed The Dispute
Professor Anne Deneys-Tunney directed The Dispute, written by Marivaux, at the Judson Memorial Church in Washington Square. The play is an exploratory and experimental production, which combined an 18thCentury English translation of Marivauxs play with contemporary music, modern dance and movement. It deals with the problem of narcissism, desire and sexual identity. This is the second production by Eyeball Planet, created in 2004 by director Anne Deneys-Tunney, who is a permanent member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. The Dispute manifests Eyeball Planets aim to explore new links between various contemporary artistic medias: music, dance, drawing, video, sound installation and literature. Professor Deneys-Tunney employed a new performance technique, which articulates body and language in order to achieve what she calls automatic acting or dance with words.
Music was provided by Dogbowl and Michael J. Schumacher, with set design and artwork by Stephen Tunney. This production was generously co-sponsored by New York University, the NYU Department of French, Material for the Arts of the City of New York, Eyeball Planet, and various patrons. For more pictures of the show, visit http://www.eyeballplanet.com/.
Department of French Ph.D. students Karen Santos da Silva (Carise), Scott Sanders (the Prince), and Dane Stalcup (Mesrin).
The actors consisted of students from her Acting French class, Mary Kuhns (Egl), Daniel Darwin (Azor), Elise Brumbach (Adine), Rebecca Grodner (Mesrou), Alexandra Schinasi (Hermiane), Jenni Chiaramonte (Dina), and Andrew Bousfeld and Zingi Mkefa (both playing Meslis), as well as
Azor, Adine, Carise, and Mesrou Mary Kuhns and Daniel Darwin
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Degrees Conferred and Awards (Sept. 06-Aug. 0 7 )
Barbara Abad Imitation and the Case of Rtif de la Bretonne ou le singe de Jean-Jacques Ph.D. in French Literature Simona Barello At the Margin of the Margin: Female Identities within Beur Literature and Film Isabelle Mullet - Deans Dissertation 2007-08 Fellowships and Awards Karen Santos da Silva - Humanities Initiative 2007-08
Shelley Cavaness Paul Claudels Modernism: Acting, Dance, Music, Film & Dramaturgy
Cristian Bratu The Emergence of the Author in French Medieval Historiography Nils Froment Mots pour Maux : maladies nerveuses et crits contagieux sous le Second Empire et la Troisime Rpublique Carrie Landfried Tropisms and Vocality: The Role of Orality in the Prose and Theater of Nathalie Sarraute Cline Clerfeuille M. Phil
Rachel Corkle - Cornell University School of Criticism & Theory Summer Program 2007 Elizabeth Wright, Esra Arici, and Masano Yamashita Dulau Fellowship Yue Zhuo - Penfield Award Stphanie Ponsavady - LaGaffe Fellowship Rgine Joseph - Bradley Rubidge Prize Kathryn Kleppinger and Karen Santos da Silva Outstanding Teaching Awards 2007 Rgine Joseph - G.S.A.S. Summer Pre-doctoral Fellowship
Georgiana Perlea - Remarque Institute Graduate Research Assistantship 2007-08 Elizabeth Wright - Medieval Academy Dissertation Grant Ana Conboy - LOral Fellowship in France 2007-08 Matt Amos - Grand Marnier Fellowship First-Year Named Fellowships 2007-08
Dana Aloisio Erin Czarra Denise Fry
M.A. in French Language and Civilization Julie Montano Erin ORielly Marjorie Nelson Emil Newhouse Danielle Porter Kira Sheber
Michael Ashley
Rachel MacFarland
Sarah Berenthal Dorothy Du Bois Joanna Duffy Adrianne Guerra Jennifer Holmes Sarah Johns
Aurlie Chatton - American Society of the French Legion of Honor Fellowship Fredrik Ronnback - CDC IXIS Fellowship
Elizabeth Russell Adrian Torres
Visiting Professors 07-08
Philippe Roger is Directeur de recherche at the C.N.R.S. and Directeur dtudes at the E.H.E.S.S., and is the editor of the review Critique. Among his books are Roland Barthes: roman; Sade: la philosophie dans le pressoir; and LEnnemi amricain: gnalogie de lantiamricanisme franais. He has been named Global Distinguished Visiting Professor, a position formerly held by Jacques Derrida, and will be teaching every other Fall, beginning Fall 07 (a course on Roland Barthes), in the Department of French.
Michelle Hanemann
Melanie Satterwhite
Steven Crumb Raluca Manea
M.A. in French Literature
Alexandra Lukes Marion Phillips
Jessica Russell Priah Sinha Natalia Wodnicka Yomiko Yoshido
Franoise Gaillard, Professor of Literature at Paris VII-Denis Diderot, and regular Visiting Professor of the Department of French, will be teaching in Spring 08 a course on Madness and Literature, focusing on the critical thinking of Michel Foucault and on such authors as Nerval, Maupassant, Artaud, and Freud.
Faculty News
Emily Apter published the following five articles: Untranslatable? The `Reading versus the `Looking in the special issue of Journal of Visual Culture, on Intermedial Translation edited by Mieke Bal and Joanne Morra; A Referendum on Psychoanalytical Feminism in Women Artists at the Millennium, edited by Carol Armstrong and published by MIT Press; Translation After 9/11 in Transit (Electronic Journal of the German Department at UCBerkeley); Maternal Fetishism in Perversion, edited by Danny Nobus and Lisa Downing and published by Blackwell; and Theorizing Francophonie in volume 42 of Comparative Literary Studies. Her article entitled Literary World-Systems will be published in the fall of 2007 in the MLA volume on Approaches to Teaching World Literature, edited by David Damrosch. She gave several talks among which Celebrity Gifting: Mallarm and the Poetics of Fame at the NYU Institute of French Studies Conference, Charisma and Celebrity in Nineteenth-Century France; Translating the Wolfman at Freud Found in Translation organized by the Harvard University Barker Humanities Center; Translation Studies in Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina; Literary Technics and the Future of Theory, a Mathiesson Endowed Lecture, at Washington University in St. Louis; Marxs Bovary: Biography of a Translation at the Columbia University Department of French and Romance Philology Modern Salon; Translation After 9/11 at the Center for European and Eurasian Studies Villa Aurora in Los Angeles; Translating Genre at the Philadelphia Modern Language Association Conventions panel of the Division on Comparative Literature entitled Remapping Genre; Papers on Technique: Theory and Literary Technics in Comparative Literature at the Columbia University Trilling Literature Seminar and at the University of Uppsala, Sweden; and Timing the Century: Revolutionary Temporality in Derrida and Badiou at the Soderton University in Stockholm, Sweden. She gave a keynote address entitled Designing the Neutral: Modernist SelfPortraits from Mallarm to Claude Cahun at the Yale Conference, La Volont de paratre/The Cult of Appearances. She organized several roundtables: Alain Badious The Century with Alain Badiou, Bruno Bosteels, and Xudong Zhang at NYU; Rethinking Translation Studies in Comparative Literature at Rutgers University; Flaubert et la traduction at Cerisy-la-Salle; and Thorie du monde-systme littraire at the Centre de sociologie europennes conference on La Migration des ides in Paris. Claudie Bernard edited, annotated, and wrote an introduction to Flauberts Sentimental Education for Barnes & Noble Classics. She also published the following two articles: Michelet: famille in LEsprit crateurs Michelet: inventaire critique des notions-cls and Raison et draison vendettales chez Balzac et Dumas in Stendhal, Balzac, Dumas, un rcit romantique? Professor Bernard gave two talks: Justice institutionnelle et justice idale dans Les Mystres de Paris dEugne Sue in Cambridge, England, and Penser la famille au XIXe sicle at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
7 DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH
Tom Bishop worked in Paris in the fall of 2006 as coartistic director of Festival Paris-Beckett 2006-2007, the centennial celebration of the birth of Samuel Beckett, which was co-sponsored by the Center for French Civilization and Culture of NYU, the French Ministry of Culture and other partners, and consisted of some 350 events including the presentation of all of Becketts plays in French for the first time. Professor Bishop published Beckett de langlais au franais in Prsence de Samuel Beckett / Presence of Samuel Beckett: Colloque de Cerisy, edited by Sjef Houppermans; Arman the Omnivore in Arman Photographs Friends; and Vous avez dit libral? ou le Mythe amricain on the France-Amrique Web site. He gave the following lectures: Fidlit et trahison dans les mises en scne du thtre de Beckett at the Institut franais de Madrid; The World Reflected in Literature, a keynote lecture, at the University of Maryland Graduate Student Conference, History as Text, Text as History; Beckett bilingue at the Thtre des Bouffes du Nord; Beckett 100 ans: pas si vieux, pas si pessimiste at NYU in France; Beckett aujourdhui encore at the Thtre ouvert; Beckett et le thatre at the Bibliothque nationale de France, where he also chaired the round table Beckett, lhomme; and Fifty Years of AvantGarde Theater at La Maison franaise of NYU. He presented Film de Beckett at the Seminar Cinma et littrature at NYU in France, and spoke on Assia Djebar aux tats-Unis at her remise dpe dacadmicienne ceremony at the Institut du monde arabe in Paris. Tom Bishop is the President of the French-American Foundation Translation Prize jury, a member of the Library Faculty Collections Advisory Committee (Fales Collection), of the Conseil suprieur des EDH-EFAP, and of the Lyce Franais de New York Advisory Board. He was a coordinator for the Department Homecoming. He participated in the Work-in-Progress Seminar on Festival Paris Beckett. He was awarded the Beaumarchais Medal by the Socit des auteurs et compositeurs dramatiques (SACD). Benot Bolduc published Les tudes franaises au Canada anglophone in the Cahiers de lAssociation Internationale des tudes Franaises. He presented his article in press on Catherine de Medicis Chenonceau at the Columbia University Seminar on Early Modern France. He presented a paper entitled tude comparative entre les rcits dentre: pices et livres dentresat the annual conference of the Groupe de Recherche sur les Entres Solennelles, Les Entres solennelles du moyen-ge au dixhuitime sicle: historiographie et tudes littraires (Concordia University, Montral). He also presented an original study of the documents published to commemorate the opening
8 DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH
Faculty News (cont.)
of Cardinal de Richelieus Grand Theatre in 1641 at the French Departments Work-in-Progress Seminar, as well as at a University of Rouen conference: Le Thtre ct texte: le public des publications. Philippe Barr, Masano Yamashita, Barbara Abad, and Karen Santos da Silva. Some 1,200 scholars participated in the Congress, during which a total of 1,400 papers were presented.
J. Michael Dash published the following articles: Farming Bones and Writing rocks, Rethinking a Caribbean Poetics of Dislocation in the online journal Shibboleths; Haiti Chimere, Revolutionary Universalism and its Caribbean Context in Reinterpreting the Haitian Revolution and its Cultural Aftershocks, edited by Martin Munro and Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw; The Other Americans and Interview with Edouard Glissant in Renaissance Noire; and Le Je de lautre: Surrealist Ethnographers and the Francophone Caribbean in LEsprit Crateur. Professor Dash reviewed the following works: Encyclopedia of Caribbean Literature in The Times Literary Supplement; crire en pays assig in Research in African Literatures; and Massacre River by Ren Philoctte in The Caribbean Writer. He gave two keynote addresses: Watery Crossroads at the 25th Anniversary Conference on West Indian Literature at U.W.I. St. Augustine, Trinidad and Martinique is (not) a Polynesian Island at the Conference on Departmentalization at the Crossroads, University of Illinois. In addition, he presented Routes of Relationality: Translating Surrealism in the francophone Caribbean at the conference entitled A Dialogue on the Americas at the University of Notre Dame and Archipelagos of Poetry: A Conversation with douard Glissant at Pen World Voices. Professor Dash was interviewed by Jorge Pontual for Brazilian TV Globo on Current Haitian Politics. He was also the President of the Jury of the Prix Carbet in Guadeloupe.
Anne Deneys-Tunney directed, with the generous support of the NYU Department of French and of sponsors, The Dispute by Marivaux - an avant-garde extravaganza between rock performance and modern dance. The performances were given at the prestigious Judson Memorial Church - a landmark of neo classical architecture and avant-garde music and dance. The cast included undergraduate students from her Acting French Class and graduate students from the Department of French: Scott Sanders, Karen Santos da Silva, and Dane Stalcup. She wrote a chapter in a book, La Fabrique du personage, edited by Franoise Lavocat, on the notion of the character. As an elected member of the Comit dadministration de la Socit franaise dtudes du XVIIIe sicle, she continued to work on the organization of the 12th Congress of the International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (SIEDS) on Sciences, Techniques et Cultures au XVIIIe sicle that was held in Montpellier in July 2007. She organized two roundtables under the subject title: LExtension de la notion dexprience du domaine scientifique au domaine moral. Among participants at the roundtables were four of her graduate students or alumni:
Assia Djebar was invited to the Theater on the Ruhr in Mlheim, Germany for a conference on her works. She gave the inaugural address entitled Entre les deux rives de la Mditerrane for the series Grandes rencontres in Sanremo, Italy. She was invited by the French Senate, where she gave the keynote address for a conference on Littratures de limmigration for the Journe rendezvous citoyen at the Palais du Luxembourg in Paris. The French Institute/Alliance Franaise in New York hosted a conference in celebration of the publication of The Tongues Blood Does Not Run Dry, the English translation of the collection of short stories Oran, langue morte published by Seven Stories Press, which included readings and a question and answer session with the author. Professor Djebar spent the spring semester based at NYU-in-France where she taught a graduate class. She travelled to Oslo for the release of the Norwegian translation of her book Ombre sultane and various radio, newspaper, and television interviews. She was invited to the inauguration ceremony of the Mdiathque Assia Djebar in Blanquefort, France. She lectured for the Journe internationale de la langue maternelle organized by UNESCO. She opened the colloquium LAvenir du livre at the Institut dtudes politiques in Paris from which the text of her address was published in Le Monde. Professor Djebar gave the keynote address at a conference at the Universit de Nice Inter-ges in conjunction with the Librairie Massna. She travelled to Florence where she gave the Ursula Hirschmann Annual Lecture on Gender and Europe on crire pour quel horizon? at the European University Institute. Professor Djebar travelled to Turkey for a week of activities in Ankara, Conya and Istanbul, which included a dialogue with a group of feminist filmmakers, giving the inaugural speech for a celebration of the 800th anniversary of the Turkish poet Rumy, and a conference on her works at Galatasaray University in Istanbul, with a screening of her film La Nouba des femmes du mont Chenoua. A theatrical adaptation of Djebars story La Femme en morceaux from Oran, langue morte was presented at NYU-in-France, along with a post-performance discussion with the author. Professor Djebar travelled to Berlin where she was invited to participate in Perspektive Europa, a conference organized by L'Acadmie des arts, in cooperation with the federal minister of Foreign Affairs. Professor Djebar received the Prix Aloa for her book Ombre sultane in Copenhagen. Emmanuelle Ertel participated in the 2007 edition of Pen World Voices Festival with a public interview of Algerian author Yasmina Khadra at the French Institute/Alliance franaise. She translated Rick Moodys
9 DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH
paper, Through the Looking Glass, presented by the author at the first edition of the Assises internationales du roman at the Villa Gillet in Lyons, soon to be published as part of a collection by French publisher Christian Bourgois. She gave a paper on Jacques Derridas impact on translation theory and reception in the United States entitled Derrida aux pays des translation studies at the Association franaise dtudes amricaines annual conference at la Bibliothque nationale de France in Paris. She co-organized, with Frdric Viguier, Voices from the Banlieues, a round table with Faza Gune, author of Kiffe Kiffe Demain. Stphane Gerson devoted much time this year to researching (notably in Lyons) his book-in-progress on the posterity of Nostradamus. While he still cant predict the future, he finds that the topic makes for great cocktail conversation or decent academic talks. Hence he presented When the Past is the Future: Nostradamus Between Astrology and Local Heritage at Cornell Universitys European History colloquium. He also co-edited Why France? American Historians Reflect on their Enduring Fascination, a collection of autobiographical essays published by Cornell University Press, which will be released in France by Le Seuil in the fall. He gave or coordinated several talks on the book (Harvard, Cornell, the French Cultural Services) and helped organize, at the NYU Maison Franaise, a three-panel event around the issues that it raises (Why France? The Place of France in American Academia.) Gerson was invited to participate in two conferences: one on the 30th anniversary of Eugen Webers classic book Peasants into Frenchmen (UCLA); the other, on Medals, Honor, and Merit in Modern France (ENSLyon). This was the first year of Gersons three-year term as Director of undergraduate studies. Entertainment, at the Performance and Performers in the Eastern Mediterranean: 11th-18th Centuries conference, in Istanbul and presented La Protestante Mme Du Noyer at the conference on Portraits de femmes (1400-1700) in Angoulme. She also served as Director of the Undergraduate Honors Program. Professor Goldwyn will be the Fall 07 Visiting Professor at NYU-in-France.
Henriette Goldwyn wrote the preface to Artists Images and the Self-descriptions of Elisabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orleans (1652-1722), the Second Madame: Representations of a Royal Princess in the Time of Louis XIV and the Regency by William Brooks, published by Edwin Mellen Press. The first volume of the anthology she co-edited on Thtre de femmes, XVIe-XVIIIe sicles (Louise Lab, Dames Des Roches, and Marguerite de Navarre) was published by Saint-tienne University Press. She is presently working on the second volume (Franoise Pascal, Mlle De La Chapelle, Mme de Villedieu, Anne de la Roche Guilhen, and Mme Deshoulires). She authored an article, Mme de Villedieu La Transformation thtrale : de lhrosme lpicurisme galant, published in Cahiers du dix-septime sicle. In addition, she contributed an essay, Mme Du Noyers Mmoires: The Politics of Religion in the Ancien Regime, to a volume on Options for Teaching Seventeenthand Eighteenth-Century French Women Writers, which is to be released by the Modern Language Association of America. She presided a session, Festive Performance as
Judith Miller published with Routledge a study of French theatre director, Ariane Mnouchkine, and with Christiane Owusu-Sarpong, brought out the French version of Women Writing Africa: West Africa and the Sahel (Des Femmes crivent lAfrique : lAfrique de lOuest et le Sahel, Karthala Editions). She also finished an article on African stage textuality to be published this year in Yale French Studies and an interview with theatre director Kristian Frdric for an edited book on Contemporary European Directors to be published by Routledge in 2008. In the fall, she sponsored the visit of Hlne Cixous, whose play Tambours sur la digue was later produced by Tisch students in Millers translation (Drums on the Dam). For the 50th anniversary of La Maison Franaise, she organized and participated in a number of activities, including a panel on contemporary French theatre and a discussion of Questce que la francophonie ? What Is Francophonie? She spoke on the work of Franco-African playwrights Jos Pliya and Koffi Kwahul at the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Conference at Texas A&M and examined honors students in theatre at Swarthmore College. She chaired a session on Ritual Roots of Festive Performance at a conference on Performance and Performers in the Eastern Mediterranean: 11th-18th Centuries, organized by Timmie Vitz at Bogazii University in Istanbul, Turkey. She will be on sabbatical for 2007-2008.
Denis Hollier was Director of Graduate Studies during the academic year 2006-07. He is currently completing the critical apparatus of the second volume of Michel Leiriss writings to be published next year in the Bibliothque de la Pliade. The volume will include Lge dhomme, LAfrique fantme and Miroir de la tauromachie. He is also organizing, with Avital Ronell from the German and Comparative Literature Departments, a conference to honor the work of the French philosopher Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, who died earlier this year. It will be held jointly at the Maison Franaise and Deutsches Haus, on both sides of the Mews, which is most fitting since during practically his entire career, Lacoue-Labarthe taught in Strasbourg and the crossing back and forth of the Rhine was one of the main inspirations for his work.
John Moran presented Queen of Manuscript and Screen: Isolde in Hollywood, which will be published in 2008 in a collection of essays on the feminine quest in French literature, at the South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA) conference. While at SAMLA, he also chaired a session entitled Manuscripts, Texts, and
10 DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH
Faculty News (cont.)
Contexts. He served as a pre-signing textbook reviewer for two new Pearson Prentice Hall elementary French textbooks and was invited by Houghton Mifflin to be a member of their annual Board of World Language Consultants. In addition to his work in the Department of French, he has now completed his first year as a Faculty Fellow in Residence, a position that led to his selection as keynote speaker for NYUs student leaders TORCH Day. He also participated in a group presentation at ACUHO-I Living-Learning and Residential Colleges Conference entitled Beyond the Student: Living and Learning Programs and Faculty Development. Professor Moran also continues to work with the College Board. He was recently named both a trainer for readers of the AP French Language Exam and an AP course auditor. Festschrift, Cultural Performances in Medieval France: Essays in Honor of Nancy Freeman Regalado, published by D.S. Brewer, all organized by Eglal Doss-Quinby (NYU Ph.D. 1982; Smith College: French), E. Jane Burns (UNC: Womens Studies), and Roberta Krueger (Hamilton College: French). Richard Sieburths translation, Stroke by Stroke, of Michauxs Par des traits and Saisir was a finalist for the French-American Foundations 2007 Translation Prize. In addition to curating a Web site for Pennsound devoted to the complete recordings of Ezra Pound, he spoke at the Whitney Humanities Institute at Yale, the MLA at Philadelphia, the Society for Textual Studies at NYU, and the NYU Maison Franaise. He was also elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Nancy Freeman Regalado was a plenary speaker at the conference Poetry, Knowledge, and Community in Late Medieval France, at Princeton University, organized by the project Poetic Knowledge in Late Medieval France and funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council, based in the Universities of Cambridge and Manchester. She gave a paper Love Lyrics, Moral Wisdom, and the Material Book: The Songs of Jehannot de Lescurel in Paris, BnF MS Fr. 146. She published an article, Picturing the Story of Chivalry in Jacques Bretels Tournoi de Chauvency (Oxford, Bodleian MS Douce 308), in Tributes to Jonathan J. G. Alexander: Making and Meaning in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, published by Harvey Miller-Brepols. With Anne Azema, the noted soprano, Mireille Chazan (U. of Metz: History), and Isabelle Ragnard (U. of Paris: Music) and with support from the NYU Humanities Council and the Department of French, Professor Regalado coorganized an interdisciplinary conference in Metz on Lettres et musique en Lorraine du XIIIe au XVe sicles: autour du Tournoi de Chauvency at which she gave a paper, Les Ailes des chevaliers et lordre du MS Douce 308. At the 2007 International Medieval Conference in Kalamazoo, three sessions, a performance of La Farce du Savetier Calbain by La Compagnie Gaillarde [starring Yvonne Leblanc (NYU Ph.D. 1990), Simonetta Cochis (NYU Ph.D. 1998), and Mark Cruse (NYU Ph.D. 2005)], and a festive banquet were held on the occasion of the presentation of a
Eugne Nicole was invited to two international colloquia, the Princeton University International Symposium entitled Ltrange M. Proust/The Strange Mr. Proust and the University of Milano International Colloquium on Proust et la philosophie aujourdhui, where he presented the following papers: Quel Marcel ! (et autres apories de lidentit narrative dans La Recherche du temps perdu) and La Vocation invisible. He wrote an article Rouages du temps in the literary journal Faire part 18/19 devoted to the work of Hubert Lucot. RFO aired 13 broadcasts (readings, interviews of readers and critics) devoted to Luvre des mers.
Timmie (Evelyn Birge) Vitz published the following articles: Response to a lengthy review of her book Orality and Performance in Early French Romance in Revue critique; Performing Aucassin et Nicolette in Cultural Performances in Medieval France: Essays in Honor of Nancy Freeman Regalado; and Biblical vs. Liturgical Citation in Medieval Literature and Culture in Illuminations: Medieval and Renaissance Studies for Jonathan J. G. Alexander, edited by Gerry Guest and Susan LEngle and published by Harvey Miller/Brepols. She gave an invited talk at a colloquium at the University of Toronto on Performing the Lives of the Saints: A Rasic Approach and talked at the Medieval Conference at Kalamazoo on Was Chrtien de Troyess Yvain meant to be read aloud? At NYU she chaired the Faculty Senators Council Committee on Personnel and Affirmative Action, in 2005-06 and 2006-07 and served as a member of the Faculty Senators Council Committee on Housing. She is a member of the Vice-Provosts Child Care Task Force and also of the Committee to establish a Web site on diversity. She is a reader for the NYU Research Challenge Fund grants. As part of her ongoing interest in performance, she performed in Guys and Dolls (as Sister Agatha and in the Chorus) at the Onteora Summer Theatre. Along with a colleague at Bogazii University in Istanbul, Professor Vitz organized a three-day conference on Performance and Performers in the Eastern Mediterranean: 11th-18th Centuries which drew scholars and performers from around the world (see http://www.nyu.edu/humanities.council/workshops/sto rytelling/flyer.pdf). The conference received funding from the NYU Humanities Council; Edward Sullivan, Dean for Humanities; and the Department of French. Professor Vitzs website, Performing Medieval Narrative Today: A Video Showcase, (http://euterpe.bobst.nyu.edu/mednar) is in the process of expanding, with much new material. She also received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities to work on her newest book project, Performability of Medieval French Narrative. She will be on sabbatical in Fall 2007.
Department of French Homecoming (cont.)
Masha Belenky (M.A. 1992) is currently an Assistant Professor of French at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Her book, The Anxiety of Dispossession: Jealously in 19th Century French Culture, is due to be published by Bucknell in 2008. News from some of the NYU Department of French Homecoming participants: Natalie David-Weill (M.A. 1985, Ph.D. 1987) is currently living in Belgium and working as a scriptwriter. Agns Meilhac (Sciezynsky) (M.A. NYU-in-France 1992) works as a translator and received her D.E.S.S. in Translation from the cole suprieure dinterprtes et de traducteurs in Paris in 1997. Tom Radigan (ABD) is the Chair of the Modern and Classical Languages Department at the Friends Seminary in New York. Diane Smallen-Grob (Ph.D. 1976) is a full-time writer and her book, Making It in Corporate America: How Women Can Survive, Prosper and Make a Difference, was published by Praeger in 2003.
11 DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH
Joseph Brami (Ph.D. 1984) is a Professor of French and the Department Chair at the University of Maryland. He has co-edited two books on Yourcenars correspondance, which have both been published by Gallimard: Lettres ses amis et quelques autres in 1995 and Correspondances 1957-1960 in 2007. His two-volume work on Prousts essays entitled Lectures de Proust au XXe sicle will be published in 20082009.
Nolle Carruggi (Ph.D. 1993) is a part-time faculty member in French at the New School in New York City and was the past director of French Studies for the North-East Modern Languages Association. She published Marguerite Duras, une exprience intrieure in 1993.
Please do send us your news: LArc, NYU Department of French, 13-19 University Place, 6th floor, New York, NY 10003 or [e-mail] or fax: [phone]
Diane Smallen-Grob, Jeffrey Kittay, Margaret Parker, and Natalie David-Weill
Claudie Bernard, Lise Schreier, Elizabeth Emery, and Ccile Balavoine
The Homecoming Organizing Committee: Michel Beaujour, Ourida Mostefai, Carole Martin, and Tom Bishop
William Wolf was once again re-elected President of the Drama Desk, the organization of theater critics and writers who report on the theater. He served on the Drama Desks Nominating Committee for the 2006-07 theater season which gave awards to outstanding theater productions and individuals.
Faculty News (cont.)
Hilary Reyl, Margaret Parker, and Timmie Vitz
Downing Thomas, Steven Bold, and John Ireland
Downing Thomas, Lois Oppenheim, Lawrence Kritzman, Ourida Mostefai, Judith Miller, Nancy Regalado, and Denis Hollier
12 DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH
Interview with Serge Doubrovsky
En dcembre dernier, aprs 40 annes denseignement, Serge Doubrovsky mettait un terme sa longue et riche carrire de professeur du dpartement de franais de lUniversit de New York. Dsormais domicili Paris o il travaille ce quil dsigne comme son dernier roman, il a accept de revenir sur ce parcours exceptionnel et de nous livrer quelques rflexions. Vous avez dbut NYU en 1966. Est-ce lanne de votre installation en Amrique ? Ayant ma mre et ma sur en France, javais toujours le dsir dy retourner. Je suis parvenu y aller de manire rgulire. Cest ainsi que jai assist au tout dbut de NYU in France, alors que nous tions hbergs rue Chardin dans une petite pice qui nous tait attribue, sous la houlette de Tom Bishop. Je lai vu natre et jen ai profit aussi. De la sorte, jai pu vivre la moiti du temps NY et lautre Paris. Ma vie personnelle a certainement souffert de ce partage gographique, mais en gardant mon contact plnier avec la France tout en mimprgnant de lAmrique, jai nourri mon uvre littraire. Pendant ces premires annes passes en Amrique, jai eu la chance de rencontrer lintelligentsia amricaine, dont de grands professeurs, tels que Irving Howe, Milton Hindus mais aussi Claude Vige, un des tout premiers avoir eu lide de faire venir des crivains franais en Amrique. Je dois aussi mentionner Elie Wiesel, Jerzy Kosinski, etc. Jai eu ainsi loccasion de frquenter des intellectuels de premier ordre et aussi de jeunes mais prometteurs crivains franais, tels Yves Bonnefoy, Pierre Emmanuel ou amricains, comme Ronald Sukenik. travers le dveloppement de NYU, vous avez connu plusieurs gnrations dtudiants. Quels ont t les moments forts de cette histoire ? Quelles rencontres avez-vous pu faire ? Vous avez nanmoins savamment entretenu votre lien avec la France...
Non, jtais dj install aux tatsUnis depuis onze ans. Javais enseign Harvard, Brandeis mais galement Smith College, avant ce printemps de 1966 o jai reu un coup de tlphone de Bill Starr. NYU ntait alors quune universit de second ordre, trs loin de ce quelle est devenue aujourdhui, lune des meilleures universits amricaines. Jai vritablement suivi le dveloppement pas pas de cette universit, et ce fut passionnant. Cest une question laquelle je tente de rpondre dans plusieurs de mes livres et dont je ne dtiens pas la rponse ultime. un niveau assez superficiel, je dirais quil tait tout naturel pour quelquun se destinant tre professeur de littrature anglaise de passer au moins deux annes aux tats-Unis. quoi il faut sans doute ajouter une histoire amoureuse qui ma conduit suivre celle qui devint plus tard ma femme Quest-ce qui tait alors susceptible de sduire le jeune professeur normalien que vous tiez ? Ce qui ma sduit tout dabord, cest de me retrouver brusquement Washington Square, qui est devenu pour moi un des lieux de ma vie, de mes romans. Je peux considrer avoir construit toute ma carrire active NYU, bien que je conserve un excellent souvenir des autres universits, chacune offrant quelque chose de diffrent. Jai le sentiment davoir t tmoin dune poque en pleine mutation, celle de lmergence de la French Thought . LAmrique tait extrmement ouverte sur le monde extrieur et le monde des ides. Jai t plong dans un univers typiquement amricain. Il ny avait rien de tel en France surtout dans la distance qui spare le professeur de ltudiant mais aussi dans le rapport entre collgues. Jai appris beaucoup, jai travaill dur dans la mesure o je me destinais tre professeur danglais dans une universit franaise et je me suis retrouv professeur de franais dans une universit amricaine. Je peux dire que je dois normment lAmrique. Quest-ce qui vous a pouss quitter la France ?
Oui, juste aprs mon arrive NYU, il y eut tout dabord larrivage massif dun type dtudiants, Juifs et autres personnes dplaces venues dEurope de lEst. Ces gens-l avaient tous plus ou moins t dans des lyces franais, apportant une autre culture dEurope que celle de lOuest. Peu peu, le dpartement de franais sest agrandi de manire tonnante. Dans Fils, jvoque 50 paires dyeux qui me regardent dans un de mes cours, une phrase, une ralit inconcevables aujourdhui. Cest pourquoi lon peut parler de la fin des annes 60 comme dune priode fconde tant du point de vue de la quantit que de la qualit. Oui, pour se tourner vers des mtiers plus lucratifs. Cest dailleurs un phnomne propre toutes les littratures. Jai cependant t le tmoin dune amlioration grandissante de la qualit du dpartement de franais et je voudrais rendre hommage Tom Bishop qui a su recruter les meilleurs professeurs dans les divers domaines et fonder ce qui est devenu un des meilleurs dpartements de franais en Amrique. Aujourdhui, Les tudiants devinrent alors moins nombreux...
13
Je tiens encore dire ceci, qui me permettra de complter votre question initiale sur les vritables raisons qui mont pouss quitter la France dans les annes 50. Au-del des histoires de dsir, damour, de professeur danglais, en 1955, jai fui lEurope et tous les souvenirs dEurope. En Amrique, jai trouv une libration par rapport mes origines, un accueil chaleureux. Jai bien conscience que mon Amrique moi, mon poque et dans lenceinte dune grande universit, a t heureuse. Jtais titulaire de mon poste et jouissais donc dune scurit difficile trouver aujourdhui. Jai bien conscience de la chance que jai eue dtre l une poque dore. Cela ma chang de lEurope o je suis pass ct de la mort, un matin de 1943, lorsquun policier en civil a sonn chez mes parents, nous annonant quil viendrait nous arrter dans une heure. Une heure pour partir et vivre, une toute petite heure. Bien sr, maintenant tout cela sest loign, mais jai vraiment t marqu par lhistoire. Je suis un crivain du XXe sicle, pas du XXIe. Je suis heureux davoir eu une vie qui ma permis de vraiment traverser le XXe sicle et de lcrire. Et pour ceux qui accusent lautofiction de narcissisme, de nombrilisme, ceux-l mont mal lu. Quand je parle dune histoire qui mest arrive, si on lit le texte intelligemment, ce nest pas seulement de mes petits problmes personnels que je parle. travers moi, on voit ltonnement devant certains aspects de la vie amricaine. Il ny a pas de subjectivit referme sur ellemme, a nexiste pas. Jai essay, par exemple, de faire revivre ce quont pu tre les annes 40, mais aussi de faire comprendre, travers mon exprience personnelle, la naissance du fminisme en Amrique, pour en avoir t le tmoin et le participant involontaire, mais finalement heureux dassister la fin du rgne masculin.
Je nai jamais eu le sentiment dune opposition entre ces trois activits. Pendant llaboration de mon ouvrage sur Corneille, je nai jamais abandonn le dsir dcrire, notamment mon premier recueil de nouvelles. Il sagit vritablement de la mme chose mais sous une autre forme. Dans mes livres, je parle dauteurs que je suis en train dtudier. Mon exprience de professeur, je lai intgre dans mon exprience Proust dcrivain, dans Un Amour de soi, Sartre dans Le Livre Bris, Racine dans Fils. Pas dopposition, car quand on est jeune, on a toute lnergie ncessaire. Je suis reconnaissant lAmrique et NYU non seulement de mavoir permis dexercer honorablement et agrablement mon mtier mais aussi de mavoir permis de continuer exercer mes activits de professeur, de critique et dcrivain. Jai pu enseigner des auteurs vivants, tels Ionesco, Beckett et Camus, une poque o en France cela tait impossible, impensable, car ils taient encore vivants. Et cette littrature contemporaine tait au fond celle qui mintressait. Cest pour ces raisons que jai aim enseigner en Amrique et NYU. Je pouvais enseigner des uvres de mon temps, des uvres qui me touchaient aussi bien que le thtre classique, qui ma toujours passionn. Je pouvais vivre et crire la littrature en train de se faire. Et maintenant que vous tes la retraite, quels sont vos projets ? Je rentre chez moi en France. Jai certes un grand amour, une immense gratitude envers lAmrique, mais je suis franais. Je rentre l do je sors. Je vais essayer de vivre le plus longtemps possible, continuer jouir de la vie et finir mon dernier roman. Mais vous savez, 79 ans, je vis une exprience intressante. mon ge, la vie vous quitte peu peu, cest cela lexprience. On est vivant et il y a des aspects de la vie qui sloignent de vous. Moi qui adorais conduire, traverser des espaces immenses en voiture, et bien je ne le peux plus, ma vue a baiss. Cest difficile, mais lcriture est encore l. Jai un dernier roman finir. Quest-ce quau fond lAmrique vous a apport ?
Comment tes-vous parvenu concilier vos fonctions de professeur, de critique et de romancier ?
Mes 50 annes en Amrique et mes 40 annes NYU auront t une traverse spciale, une exprience inoubliable. Je ne pourrai jamais assez remercier lAmrique et NYU. La seule manire dont je peux les remercier, cest dans mes romans. Je suis le premier crivain franais avoir mis NYU au cur de son uvre. NYU joue un rle essentiel dans mes romans, comme dans ma vie. Le lien ne sera jamais coup.
Pour conclure, je dirai que jai par mon criture, tent de couvrir un parcours dans une vie, dans une carrire et dans son sicle. (by Professors Valrie Berty and Elizabeth Molkou at NYU-in-France)
DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH
force est de reconnatre que nous avons beaucoup moins dtudiants, mais que la qualit reste remarquable. Je suis souvent impressionn par ltendue du bagage thorique des tudiants. mes yeux, une des forces de NYU, cest son ouverture des origines ethniques, culturelles trs varies, qui a certainement contribu au plaisir que jai eu y enseigner.
Souhaitez-vous ajouter quelque chose ?
14 DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH
A Portrait of Ludovic Cortade
Professeur Assistant dans le dpartement de Franais de New York University. de limmobilit du spectateur (Baudry) ou du ftichisme de celui-ci (Barthes, Metz).
Mon parcours et mes travaux portent la marque de ce parcours hybride. Aprs des tudes dhistoire et de gographie la Sorbonne et lcole normale suprieure, je me suis intress la question de la figuration du sacr chez Antonin Artaud, et plus particulirement son rapport au mysticisme chrtien. La pluri-disciplinarit de lcole normale (et le voisinage des salles de cinma du cinquime arrondissement de Paris) ont contribu un enrichissement de mes centres dintrt, au point de me mener une thse de doctorat en tudes cinmatographiques soutenue Paris I. Sur la base de ce travail de recherche, jai crit un livre intitul Le Cinma de limmobilit : esthtique, idologie, anthropologie culturelle ( paratre aux Publications de la Sorbonne). Dans cet ouvrage, je mintresse une question a priori paradoxale : labsence de mouvement au cinma. Janalyse les enjeux esthtiques de limmobilit (larrt sur image, limmobilit des acteurs et du cadre, les photographies filmes), notamment chez Truffaut et Godard. Je mintresse galement au rle important quoccupe limmobilit dans la thorie franaise du cinma des annes 70, quil sagisse de la subversion de lesthtique institutionnelle (Lyotard),
Avant de consacrer mes recherches au cinma franais, jai t marqu par les croisements fconds entre la littrature, lesthtique, lhistoire et la gographie. Ma conception du cinma repose sur un dialogue entre les disciplines et sur une ide directrice : lhistoire du cinma a commenc avant 1895, date de la premire projection publique du cinmatographe par les frres Lumire. Cest en sollicitant lapport de diffrentes disciplines et en tablissant des comparaisons entre les arts et les priodes que la rflexion sur le cinma est pour moi la plus porteuse de sens.
tant originaire de France, mon premier contact avec les tats-Unis est relativement rcent, mais intense : de courts sjours dtudes mont rapidement donn lenvie de revenir dans ce pays de faon durable. Aprs avoir enseign le cinma plusieurs annes la Sorbonne, jai pass deux ans et demi dans le dpartement des langues et littratures romanes de lUniversit Harvard, o jai effectu des recherches pour ma thse de doctorat. Jy ai galement enseign le cinma franais en tant que Visiting Fellow, avant dtre nomm Professeur Assistant lUniversit de Toronto, au Canada. Aux tats-Unis, jai t impressionn par lenthousiasme de mes collgues et des tudiants : cest lun des aspects que japprcie le plus dans le pays qui maccueille aujourdhui.
Dans mes recherches en cours, jeffectue la synthse entre mon intrt pour la gographie et le cinma. La diversit des paysages franais tant pour moi une source dinspiration et de motivation intellectuelle, je travaille actuellement sur les reprsentations du paysage dans le cinma franais contemporain, ainsi que sur les questions identitaires souleves aujourdhui par la mondialisation. Je mintresse la faon dont les reprsentations cinmatographiques du paysage forgent un lien social par limage, ou au contraire, questionnent les fondements de celui-ci.
Au-del de son intrt esthtique et intellectuel, je suis frapp par la capacit du cinma runir les spectateurs, quels que soient leur parcours et leur histoire personnelle. Cest un aspect qui minspire dans la pratique quotidienne de mon mtier. Je suis donc particulirement heureux denseigner le cinma franais et francophone au sein de ce dpartement et de contribuer ainsi au dialogue entre les disciplines.
Students Steven Crumb and Kari Evanson
Students Dane Stalcup and Chelsea Stieber
Student Kathryn Kleppinger and cole normale suprieure exchange student Thibault Menoux
Student News
Elizabeth Applegate co-organized the annual French Graduate Student Association Conference, Un/Common Experience: The Dross and the Glory of Everyday Life, which took place on February 16-17. She presented a paper entitled How to say everything without a word? Body and Text in the Thtre du Soleils Dernier caravansrail, at an interdisciplinary graduate students conference entitled Bodily Proof, at the Humanities Center at Harvard University. Association Conference at Columbia University entitled Car je est un autre. Mark Cruse is an Assistant Professor at Arizona State University. He published essays in Gesta and in Cultural Performances in Medieval France: Essays in Honor of Nancy Freeman Regalado. He performed at the triennial conference of the Socit internationale du thtre mdival in Lille, and presented at the International Courtly Literature Societys conference in Geneva. His cotranslation of The Memoirs of Catherine the Great, published by Random House, was translated into Finnish this spring. He received a faculty fellowship from the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and will take a year of research leave in 2007-08. He continues to lecture at The Cloisters.
15 DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH
Robert April published an article entitled La Paralysie de Madame Raquin. Zola tait-il aussi neurologue? in Zola et le texte naturaliste en Europe et aux Amriques, edited by A. Gural-Migdal and C. Snipes-Hoyt and published by Edwin Mellen Press. He will present a paper, La Blessure qui ne gurit jamais, la perte qui sest passe en Provence, at the meeting of the British/French Emile Zola Societies in Aix-en-Provence in October at an international conference entitled Visages de la Provence: Zola, Czanne... His article, Zola's utopian novels: the use of scientific knowledge in literary New World models, will be published in Literatur, Wissenschaft und Wissen seit der Epochenchvelle um 1800 - Theorie, Epistemologie, komparatistische Fallstudien in 2008. Simona Barello organized the XII conference of the International Simone de Beauvoir Society in Rome and defended her dissertation entitled: At the Margin of the Margin: Female Identities within Beur Literature and Film. It was the first time that a Ph.D. candidate defended her dissertation in a telephone conference, as Professor Barello was unable to leave Italy at the time.
th
Willemyn Don presented a paper, la recherche dun Dieu perdu: Recreating Religion in La Tentation de Saint Antoine, at the Graduate Romanic Association of the University of Pennsylvania Conference, entitled Heroes, Gods and Myths: The Myths That We Create And How They Create Us.
Alexandre Bonafos co-organized the French Graduate Student Associations Conference Un/Common Experience: The Dross and the Glory of Everyday Life and presented Paternit ou parit littraire? Perspectives sur la filiation esthtique chez Proust at the annual French and Italian Graduate Students Organizations Colloquium (R)evolutions: Inheriting and Breaking with the Past at Indiana University, Bloomington.
Fayal Falaky presented the movie Les Indignes at the Furman Film Series. He presented his dissertation, Social Contract, Masochist Contract, at the NYUs Deans Luncheon. He published Iconologie et idlatrie en Islam : caricatures et figures in La Voix du regard and Le Rire tragique : une tude de Lcole des femmes in Chimres. His article Le Capharnam des intellectuels will be published in a forthcoming book entitled LIntellectuel et le pouvoir au XXIe sicle. Rgine Joseph presented Franketienne, Kreyol and Exceptional Haitian Theatre at the ALA conference in Accra, Ghana. She received the Bradley Rubidge Prize and defended her thesis proposal entitled Ruins of Dreams: Truth, Post-Apocalyptic Writing and the Novels of Marie Vieux-Chauvet. She was awarded the GSAS Pre-doctoral Summer fellowship and will spend the summer in the archives of Port-au-Prince, Haiti and Gainesville, Florida researching political censorship and literary creativity under Duvalierism. Christina Kullberg published an article, Lle qui capte et diffracte: rencontre entre la potique ddouard Glissant et la philosophie de Gilles Deleuze et Flix Guattari, in Gilles Deleuze, Flix Guattari et le politique, edited by Manola Antonioli, Pierre-Antoine Chardel and Herv Regnauld. She was also invited to a seminar at the Collge international de philosophie in Paris held by Manola Antonioli, where she gave a lecture on La Traverse des mers ou la pense archiplique ddouard Glissant.
Cristian Bratu defended his thesis, Lmergence de lauteur dans lhistoriographie mdivale en prose en langue franaise, and was awarded his Ph.D. with honors. He accepted a position at Baylor University (Waco, TX) as Assistant Professor for Fall 2007. Alina Cherry defended her thesis proposal entitled Aspects du temps chez Claude Simon. She presented two papers: De LOrdinaire au paradoxe: lcriture du quotidien dans LHerbe de Claude Simon at the annual French Graduate Student Association Conference entitled Un/Common Experience: The Dross and the Glory of Everyday Life and Du je au il: la dimension spectrale de La Route des Flandres at the French Graduate Student
16 DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH
Student News (cont.)
Carrie Landfried defended her dissertation entitled Tropisms and Vocality: The Role of Orality in the Prose and Theater of Nathalie Sarraute. Ph.D. in hand, she will be teaching in the fall at Goucher College outside of Baltimore, MD, as a Visiting Assistant Professor. issue of La Dpche de Tahiti. She participated in a radio show about French Polynesian culture and literature hosted by Jacques Pradel on Europe 1 and was invited on two T.V. shows, Api midi on RFO and Un Livre Un auteur on Tahiti Nui Television.
Christophe Litwin defended his dissertation prospectus on Lamour de soi chez Rousseau. He taught four classes of philosophy at the University of Paris IVSorbonne, and presented five papers: one on Rousseau: amour de soi et amour-propre at the NYU Department of French Work-in-Progress Seminars; two on Baudelaire at the NYU French and Comparative Literature Graduate Students Conferences; another one called Le Scepticisme au miroir de la spculation at Gilles Marmasses and Bernard Mabilles research seminar on Hegel (NOSOPHIE); the last one (at a conference of philosophy on La Substance at Paris IV-Sorbonne) called: Suis-je une substance? Auto-affection et ipsit chez Hume et Rousseau. Phoebe Maltzs article, The Singles Culture of American Judaism, was published in Jewish Quarterly.
Karen Santos da Silva received the Humanities Research Initiative Fellowship and the Chateaubriand Fellowship for the 2007-2008 academic year. She also received an Outstanding Teaching Award for the 2006-07 academic year. She gave a paper entitled Morale priori/morale pratique: morale de lexprience chez Madame Riccoboni at the Congrs International des Lumires in Montpellier in July. She is working on her thesis From Maxims to Novels: a modern ethics of subjectivity in the work of Madame Riccoboni. Bassem Shahin is currently interning in the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Istanbul, Turkey, working mostly with Iraqi and West-African refugees. He successfully completed an intensive Arabic language program in Amman, Jordan. His article Freelance Voyeurism, a two-part essay, was published in June in the online Jordanian magazine www.7iber.com. Elizabeth Wright was a recipient of the Dulau fellowship for the academic year 2006-07. She presented three papers: Christian Merveilleux in Berte as grans pies at the Modern Language Association Convention in Philadelphia; Illumination and Meaning in Manuscripts of Berte as grans pies at the International Medieval Conference at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, MI; and The Books of Berte: the Manuscripts of Berte as grans pies at the South Atlantic Modern Language Association in Charlotte, NC. She will be receiving the Medieval Academy of America dissertation grant for the academic year 2007-08. Yue Zhuo contributed an article, Le Roman, lieu sans terre, to Critiques 2007 special issue on Pascal Quignard.
Isabelle Mullet is currently working on her dissertation Fontenelle ou la machine perspectiviste. She presented a paper, Fontenelle mythologue et mythographe ou : quest-ce qutre moderne? at the 25th annual conference of the Society for Interdisciplinary French Seventeenth-Century Studies in Iowa City. She had an article, Vertige et tourbillons: Fontenelle et la rvolution du point de vue, published in the January issue of Revue Fontenelle. She was awarded a Deans Dissertation fellowship for 2007-08. John Nimis spent the 2006-07 academic year in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, on a Fulbright scholarship learning the Lingala language and doing a research project on Congolese popular music and urban African culture. He documented his travels on a blog, which can be found at http://blog.nimis.net
Stphanie-Ariirau Richard's second novel, Matamimi ou la vie nous attend, was released in March 2006 and the publication of her third novel, Blanc cass, is anticipated this year. She authored five articles: Implosion in Littrama'ohi 9; Atollismes: la littrature clate de Polynsie franaise and LEspace dans lcriture polynsienne in Littrama'ohi 11; Le Traitement du corps dans l'criture polynsienne in Littrama'ohi 13; and Sentiment d'abandon, dsir de libert, dans la littrature polynsienne in Dixit 2006/2007. Several of her rebutal editorials were published in La Dpche de Tahiti, amongst which Caduc, Les Voleurs d'espoir,and Le Terrorisme, alternative l'ducation (dixit la reprsentante Unutea Hirshon). She also wrote La Demie qui sla joue, published in a Spcial Roger Parry
Work-in-Progress Seminars
Tom Bishop, Alina Cherry, and Eugne Nicole presenting their current research to the Department of French faculty and students at the February session of the Work-in-Progress Seminars created and organized by Isabelle Mullet.
Alumni News
Isabel Roche (Ph.D. 2001) has just published her dissertation, Character and Meaning in the Novels of Victor Hugo, with Purdue University Press. She is currently teaching at Bennington College in Vermont. Adrienne Oppenheim (M.A. NYU-in-France 1992) remained in France for a few years after obtaining her M.A. and returned to New York City to obtain a Certificate in Translation from NYUs School of Continuing and Professional Studies. After working as a freelance translator in mostly business and legal translation, she graduated from law school in 2005 and has been working as an immigration attorney. Gina Trigian-Molvaut (Ph.D. 2001) is currently completing a Masters 1 at La Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris IIIs Institut du monde anglophone, with a specialty in English Romantic Drama. She is writing her thesis under the direction of Marc Pore entitled Romantics and the Inner Self: Psychic Drama in Lord Byrons Manfred (1816) and Perce Bysshe Shellys The Cenci (1819). James Dahlinger S.J. (Ph.D. 1999) is about to have his dissertation appear with Peter Lang Publishers under the title tienne Pasquier and the Ethics of History. He teaches on tenure track in French and in English at Le Moyne College, Syracuse, New York. He just designed and taught a successful new course for French and theater majors called Staging French Theater.
17 DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH
Valrie Thiers-Thiam (Ph.D. 2000) is an Assistant Professor of French at the City University of New York (BMCC/CUNY) and the Director of their Study Abroad Program in France. She published two books: chacun son griot - Le Mythe du griot-narrateur dans la littrature et le cinma dAfrique de louest and Espaces - Rendez-vous avec le monde francophone. She organized two major conferences at BMCC: Griots of the New World, which was part of an Interdisciplinary Conference CUNY-Wide Event called The African Presence and Influence on the Cultures of the Americas, and the IXth Colloquium of the Modern Languages Department entitled France Inside out, which she also chaired. Deborah Steinberger (Ph.D. 1994) is Associate Professor of French at the University of Delaware. She is currently writing a book on the seventeenth-century periodical Le Mercure Galant. She also works on writings by early modern French women and recently completed critical editions of two plays by Franoise Pascal for the anthology Thtre de femmes de lAncien Rgime, edited by Henriette Goldwyn, Aurore Evain and Perry Gethner.
Juliette Hoffenberg (Ph.D. 1986) presented a paper, LItinraire luvre : le burlesque et linvention de lautobiographie, (www.etudes-romantiques.org) at the Journe Chateaubriand en Sorbonne. She received her qualification as Matre de confrences from the Centre national des universits en langue et littrature franaises and langue et littrature anglophones in the spring of 2007. Her paper LImpossible ducation de Henry Adams will be published in Critique in October 2007. Tracy Christopher (Ph.D. 1998) has been working since 1989 at the Dalton School, teaching grades 6-12 and the honors levels in high school. She serves as club advisor for the gay/straight student alliance and heads an advisory group of 20 students in grades 9-12. She is a member of the international team that evaluates essays and/or cassettes for the AP French Language and/or Literature exams, and she has written several books for children, notably a short biography of Joan of Arc and a dictionary for beginner readers.
Scot Self (M.A. NYU-in-France 2002) is currently working for Motion Industries, North Americas largest industrial distribution company, in the corporate help desk as a bilingual support specialist, specifically supporting branches in Quebec. He is also on the board of directors for the Alabama Environmental Council, the states oldest environmental non-profit organization.
Patrick Saveau (Ph.D. 1999) was on sabbatical in Fall 2006 to work on his monograph on Serge Doubrovsky, tentatively entitled Serge Doubrovsky ou le reflet dune poque. He presented a paper, Trauma, mmoire, ressassement dans luvre de Serge Doubrovsky, during the Serge Doubrovsky: Life, Writing, Legacy conference at Leicester University, England.
Peter S. Green (M.A. NYU-in-France 1984-85/1995) is back in New York after almost 14 years in Eastern Europe and is working as an editor for Bloomberg News.
Aerial view of the 175th NYU Commencement Exercices in Washington Square Park
NYU Photo Bureau-London
18 LA MAISON FRANAISE
The Little House in the Lane by Hazel Rowley
Hazel Rowleys most recent book is Tte--Tte: Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre (New York: HarperCollins, 2005). Sailors Snug Harbor, which had leased the land to NYU) would be an ideal space for a French House. She persuaded her friends, the Schlumbergers, a French family in the oil-drilling business, to contribute the $80,000 remodeling costs. Lucien David, a French architect, was commissioned to create a suitably Gallic atmosphere. The Maison Franaise was officially opened on April 26, 1957. This year is the fiftieth anniversary.
The first time I came upon the Maison Franaise, near Washington Square, I was quite unprepared. It was the summer of 1988 and I was new to New York. To stumble across Washington Mews, that cobblestone lane with the two-story residences that once housed coaches and horses belonging to the handsome mansions on Washington Square North, and to discover, at the end of the row, the Maison Franaise, this was a moment of pure magic. I felt as if Id been transported to Montmartre. I loved the streets around Washington Square, where the brownstones had a human scale, the bars and cafs overflowed onto the sidewalks, and you could always find good jazz in the evenings. Simone de Beauvoir, back in 1947, had felt the same way about the Village. The right angles break down; the streets are no longer numbered but have names; the lines curve and tangle together, she wrote in America Day by Day. Im wandering through a European city.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the empty stables and carriage houses in Washington Mews had been transformed into artists studio residences, inspired by Pariss Latin Quarter. The Village, with its ateliers and Italian cafs, carried a strong whiff of Europe. But in the 1950s, the area was threatened by a paradigmatically New York phenomenon. New York University, which previously had its main campus in the Bronx, decided to relocate entirely to Washington Square, and for the next two decades, the university bought up property, demolished old buildings, and erected highrises that were soulless even by the standards of the times. Entire blocks were razed. By some miracle, Washington Mews was preserved. In the midst of this building frenzy, a small woman with the vision of an artist entered the fray. Germaine Bre, chair of NYUs Department of Romance Languages, convinced the university administrators that the red brick house at the corner of Washington Mews and University Place (part of the charitable institution for retired seamen, known as
In her rosiest dreams, Germaine Bre could hardly have imagined what a success the Maison Franaise would be. From the end of World War II until the late 1980s, everything coming out of France seemed spankingly new. Cinema was experiencing a New Wave (Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer); there was the Nouveau Thtre (Beckett, Ionesco), the Nouveau Roman (Alain Robbe-Grillet, Nathalie Sarraute, Claude Simon, Michel Butor); the Nouvelle Critique, with its structuralist and post-structuralist offshoots (Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Pierre Bourdieu), and the Nouveaux Philosophes (Bernard Henri-Lvy, Andr Glucksmann). There was Lacanian psychoanalysis (Deleuze and Guattari), French feminism (Beauvoir, Kristeva, Cixous, Irigaray) and Mitterands socialism. At one time or another, most of these people, the cream of French creativity, turned up to talk at 16 Washington Mews. Everyone agrees: the secret of the Maisons success is its intimacy and charm. Its a space in which conversation can take flight and passions flare. The auditorium, at street level, has a seating capacity of 100. After the talks, those who wish can climb the stairs and continue the discussion over drinks, and sometimes a buffet dinner. Franois Mitterrand, who visited the little house three times in 15 years, hailed it with warm enthusiasm as a salon, in the eighteenth century sense of the word.
Who was Germaine Bre, the woman to whom we owe what has been called the jewel box of NYU? Anyone who studied French literature in the 60s and 70s knew her name. As a French student in Australia, I read her books on Proust, Gide, Sartre, and Camus. The daughter of a French mother and English father, Bre was bilingual, and at home in both cultures. She was 29 when she came to the U.S. to teach French. A contemporary of the Existentialists, she shared their belief in commitment. During World War II she took leave from Bryn Mawr College to work for the Free French Army in Algeria, first in an ambulance unit, then as an intelligence officer, and was awarded a Bronze Star for her courage. She was at NYU for only seven years, from 1953 to 1960, and in that time she chaired the French department (the first female chair at NYU), wrote a biography of Camus, and founded the Maison Franaise, where one year later the French Ambassador would pin the Legion of Honor to her lapel for her contribution to French culture.
Germaine Bre
19 LA MAISON FRANAISE
French visitors tell you how comfortable they feel in this little house in the lane, where they can speak their language. Dominique Desanti, a writer from Paris, thinks of it as a Petit Trianon. Its the rustic atmosphere of the lane, she says, and the aristocratic coziness of the house. On my first visit to New York, a friend took me to a lecture there, and I felt immediately at home, she recalls. The Maison Franaise was a bridge to Europe. It made me proud to sit in that little auditorium, filled with people interested in France, listening to the French language. Next door to the Maison Franaise, joined by internal doors, is the Institute of French Studies, inaugurated in 1978. Its focus is social science French civilization as opposed to the more literary and cultural orientation of the French Department, situated just across University Place. Then there is the New York University in Paris, where students are encouraged to spend at least one semester. The four spheres are presided over by an overarching body, the Center for French Civilization and Culture, directed by Tom Bishop, who built up French studies at NYU into a veritable empire.
The Maison Franaise is a non-profit institution, open to the general public, and nearly all events are free. The Director has to look for funding from outside from French companies, the French Embassy, cultural foundations, private donations. Tom Bishop, whom Bre appointed Director in 1959, when he was not yet 30, came up with the idea of a Carnaval de Paris in Washington Mews. It took months Francine Goldenhar of hard work, and required the usual hunt for sponsors. In May 1962, the lane was festooned with tricolor lights and banners; booths under bright umbrellas sold everything from Dior hosiery to perfume; a raffle offered two return airfares to Paris; French restaurants served liver pat, shrimp aspic and caviar at tables under the trees. Then the Montmartre cabaret singer Bricktop stepped onto the stage and the dance floor filled up. Tickets were $25 each. We made around $20,000, says Tom Bishop, proudly. The following year, the event once again made a splash in the New York social pages.
Americans tell you how fortunate they feel to have such privileged access to French visitors. Ive had some of my best times in New York in that place, says Richard Sieburth, who joined the NYU French department, from Harvard, in 1983. Magnificent, hilarious, fabulous evenings. His eyes twinkle and he fingers his bushy moustache. I met French people Id never have met in Paris. Writers, artists, musicians, intellectuals. For them the Maison Franaise was an extra-territorial space. They felt less constrained than in Paris. This was downtown New York; this was Greenwich Village.
The current Director of the Maison Franaise, Francine Goldenhar, has the bilingual background, broad cultural interests and dynamism that make her ideally suited to a demanding role she obviously loves. Shes busier than ever this anniversary year, hosting art exhibitions, panels, receptions, and theatrical performances. These days, the Maison Franaise program gives due emphasis to Francophonie, the vast world of French speakers outside the Hexagon, and panelists from sub-Saharan Africa, the Maghreb, and the Caribbean discuss subjects like neo-colonialism, racism, and the problems of migration. In late April and early May, the French face national elections that are likely to change their country dramatically. The blossom will be out in the cobbled lane, the anniversary celebrations will be in full swing, and the Maison Franaise will be jumping. (Article first published in The New York Sun, April 18, 2007) Visit the Maison Franaise on the Web at http://www.nyu.edu/maisonfrancaise
When I examine the old Maison Franaise programs in their boxes in the University Archives, I am staggered by the richness of it all. Fifty years of talks, panels, debates, art exhibitions, receptions, film evenings, as many as three events a week, with subjects as wide-ranging as they possibly could be. A doctor in Mdecins Sans Frontires talks about Medicine and Social Responsibility; a French lawyer speaks on Internet and the Law. The Maison Franaise has never shied away from controversy. In the past four years there have been round table discussions on the tension between France and the U.S. over the war in Iraq, the banning of the veil in French public schools, and the riots that broke out in the immigrant ghettoes of Paris.
In the summer of 1970, Director David Noakes tried to re-enact the Carnaval de Paris. It poured with rain. A complete fiasco. he smiles. Noakes, who had studied piano with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, introduced the Third Sunday Concerts, which focused on French composers and performers. Pierre Boulez played and discussed his first sonata for piano; Virgil Thomson reminisced about Gertrude Stein, who wrote the lyrics for his two best-know...