Interdisciplinary Workshop on Modern France and the Francophone World

October 4, 12:30pm

Léon Pradeau, UChicago RLL, Ph.D. Candidate

“Prosthetic Verse: Technology, Writing and Material Supplements (France and Québec, 1970-2020)”

Location: HMW (Harper Memorial West) #M311

October 25, 12:30pm

Maëline Le Lay, CNRS researcher

“De Henri Hiro à Jean-Marc Tera’ituatini Pambrun, un sillon de résistance culturelle et de défense de ‘l’environnement’ au Fenua (Polynésie française)”

Location: Tea Room, SSRB

November 18, 4:30pm 

Dan Edelstein, Stanford University

“The Dual Power in the French Revolution”

Location: Tea Room, SSRB

December 6, 12:30pm/ CANCELLED SESSION/ reprogrammed in Winter 2025

Ryan Brown, UChicago RLL, Ph.D. Candidate

“Proof in Madame d’Epinay’s Histoire de Madame de Montbrillant: a public and private necessity”

Location: Tea Room, SSRB

April 4

Yuting Cai (UChicago, PhD Student in Romance Languages and Literatures)

“Living Among Things: The Intersubjective Poetics of Francis Ponge in Le parti pris des choses”

Tea Room, SSRB at 12:30

April 12

Michèle Lowrie (UChicago, Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor in Classics and in the College)

“Carmen: Law and Sacrifice in Merimée and Bizet”

Tea Room, SSRB at 12:30

April 19

Conference: “Islands of Scale: Forms of Globality in the French Antilles”

Schedule forthcoming

John Hope Franklin Room, 9am-6pm

May 3

Lou Gargouri (UChicago, PhD Candidate in Romance Languages and Literatures)

“Unlocking and Overcoming Family History through Embodied Testimonies in Gardiennes by Fanny Cabin”

Location TBD

May 17

Yann Robert (University of Illinois, Chicago, Associate Professor of French)

“The September Massacres: From Vigilantism to Social Banditry”

Tea Room, SSRB at 12:30

January 26

Léon Pradeau, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Chicago, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures

Location: Cobb Hall 319

February 2

Leila K. Blackbird, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Chicago, Department of History

“Baptized Only With Fear and Trembling”: French Settler Colonialism in the Lower Mississippi Valley, 1682-1729

Location: Cobb Hall 319

February 16 

Rafe Blaufarb, Professor, Florida State University, Department of History

Special Guest Lecture: Cahiers de doléances

Location: Tea Room, SSRB

March 1

Jennifer Tamas, Associate Professor, Rutgers University Department of French

“Peut-on encore être galant?”

Location: Tea Room, SSRB

October 6

Robin Mitchell, University at Buffalo, Department of History and Africana and American Studies

Suzanne Simon Baptiste Louverture, A Microbiography: The ‘Wife of’ and Other Such Nonsense*

Location: John Hope Franklin Room, SSRB

October 13

Nicholas O’Neill, University of Chicago, Department of History

Scientists, Spies, Artisans, and the State: (Re)Inventing Porcelain in France

Location: Rosenwald 301

November 3

Arthur Clement, University of Chicago, Department of History

Instituting the Sciences of Religion as Reinforcement to the Laïque Social Bond

Location: Rosenwald 301

November 10

Alison James, University of Chicago, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures

Biofiction Against History

Location: Rosenwald 015

December 8

Peadar Kavanagh, University of Chicago, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures

Relation curieuse de l’Île de Bornéo: Fontenelle’s Curious Response to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685)

Location: Stuart Hall 20

Friday, January 13th, 12.00pm CT – Zoom (in French)

“Une généalogie de la facilité dans les théories et pratiques poétiques françaises”, par Léo Dekowski, doctorant à l’Université de Paris-Cergy (CY Héritages).

Friday, January 27th, 12.00pm CT – In person/Hybrid (Room TBD)

“A Gendered Frontier: Métissage and Indigenous Enslavement in Eighteenth-Century Basse-Louisiane”, by Leila Blackbird, PhD Candidate in History, The University of Chicago.

Friday, February 17th, 12.00pm CT – In person/Hybrid (Room TBD)

“Enslaved Marketers, Policing, and Commercial Connections in the Eighteenth-Century French Atlantic”, by Rachel Tils, PhD Student in History, The University of Chicago.

Friday, March 10th, 12.00pm CT – In person/Hybrid (Tea Room) 

“From Flâneuses to the Frontlines: Jewish Women’s Everyday Lives from the Vichy-Era to the Decolonial Age”, by Kyra Schulman, PhD Student in History, The University of Chicago.

Friday, April 15, 3.30pm
“The Archipelagos of Doubt: A Global History of French Skeptical Cultures (1620-1820)”, a talk by Stéphane Van Damme, Professor of History, École Normale Supérieure. Colin Jones, Professor of History at the Queen Mary University of London, will serve as respondent.

Friday, April 29, 3.30pm
“Installation theory in Anglo-Norman funerary monument: the case of Lewes Priory”, by Kirsten Lopez, PhD Candidate in French and Francophone Studies, The University of Chicago.

Friday, May 13, 12.00pm
“Donner la parole: à quel prix? Restitution et dette littéraire dans les recueils de voix contemporains”, by Mathilde Zbaeren, PhD Candidate in French and Francophone Literature, University of Lausanne.

Friday January 14, 12:00 pm
« La poésie française de 1960 à aujourd’hui au prisme de la réception de Pierre Reverdy », by Julia Pont, PhD Candidate in French Literature at Paris-Nanterre Université, France.

Friday January 21, 12:00 pm
“Dissertation Proposal: Satirical Interventions under Louis XIV”, by Peadar Kavanagh, PhD Candidate in French and Francophone Literatures, The University of Chicago.

Friday February 4, 10:00 am
“Vichy France and the Jews: The Impact of Memory on Historiography” a talk and discussion with Renée Poznanski, Professor Emerita in History at Ben-Gurion University, Israel.

Friday February 18, 12:00 pm
“Dans la chair des textes : l’aveu et le non-dit”, by Loriane Lafont, PhD Candidate in French and Francophone Literatures, The University of Chicago.

Friday October 22, 3:30 pm
“Charron, Gassendi, and the Transmission of Montaigne’s Epistemology into 17th-Century French Thought”, by Benjamin Ransom, PhD Candidate in French and Francophone Literatures, The University of Chicago.

Friday November 5, 3:30 pm
“Contesting the Classroom: Reimagining Education in Moroccan and Algerian Literatures”, by Erin Twohig, Associate Professor in French and Francophone Literatures, Georgetown University.

Friday November 19, 3:30 pm
“Caricature, Skeleton, and the Baudelairean Self: the Emergence of Comicality in ‘Danse Macabre'”, by Xin Yan, MAPH Student, The University of Chicago.

Friday 4 December, 12:00 pm (Zoom)
“Montesquieu and The Federalist. A Contested Legacy”, by Hugo Toudic, PhD Candidate in History, The University of Chicago/CNRS.

Spring Quarter 2020