New York University: NYU Maison Française to Kick off November programming with Book Talk on America’s ‘Borderwaters’ – Nov. 4
The renown French cultural center of New York University unveils several free public events for the coming month, beginning on Thursday, Nov. 4 online:
Author Mohamed Mbougar Sarr
Author Mohamed Mbougar Sarr (Photo by Momar Niang)
Thursday, November 4, 6:00-7:30 pm
Maison Française Online Zoom Event
Brian Roberts, “Borderwaters: Amid the Archipelagic States of America”
In English.
Brian Russell Roberts reimagines the geography of the United States in his fascinating book Borderwaters: Amid the Archipelagic States of America. Rather than viewing the U.S. as a continental country bordered by Canada and Mexico, Roberts sees the American frontier encompassing broad swaths of water shared with some twenty-one other countries. He elucidates his theory in this fascinating online discussion.
Brian Russell Roberts is Professor of English at Brigham Young University, coeditor of Archipelagic American Studies and Indonesian Notebook: A Sourcebook on Richard Wright and the Bandung Conference, both also published by Duke University Press, and author of Artistic Ambassadors: Literary and International Representation of the New Negro Era.
See webpage for required advance registration:
https://as.nyu.edu/maisonfrancaise/Calendar/events/fall-2021/virtual-talk-with-brian-roberts–borderwaters–amid-the-archipel.html
Thursday, November 11, 6:00-7:30 pm
Maison Française Hybrid Event
**In person for NYU students, faculty, and staff only; available to the public online via Zoom **
André Benhaïm,”L’hospitalité en Méditerranée”
In French.
Professor of French and Francophone literature of the 20th century at Princeton University, André Benhaïm will lecture on what it means to welcome a stranger. Based on the ideas in his book, Après Ulysse: Vers une poétique de l’hospitalité en Méditerranée, Benhaïm will discuss the idea of hospitality from a variety of cultural perspectives, notably what happens when war, colonization, and/or political upheaval upend the idea of providing a “safe haven.”
A native of Paris, France, André Benhaïm joined the Princeton faculty in 2001. Professor Benhaïm’s main areas of research and teaching are 20th-century French prose literature and culture and Francophone literature and culture from North Africa and the Mediterranean. Particularly interested in questions of identity and representation, and the relation between ethics and aesthetics, he also focuses on the relationship between “canonical” literature (Proust, Camus…), contemporary works (Chevillard, Modiano…), and “popular culture.” A Proust scholar, he is the author of Panim: Visages de Proust (2006), and of a collection of essays: The Strange M. Proust (2009). He has also co-edited Ecrivains de la Préhistoire (2004), and a special issue of the journal Revue des Sciences Humaines entitled “Petits coins. Lieux de Mémoire” (2001). Lately, his research has led him to study French and Francophone bandes dessinées (and graphic novels), from Hergé’s Tintin to Joann Sfar’s Le Chat du Rabbin. Professor Benhaïm’s latest publications include a book on Albert Camus and the everyday, Albert Camus au Quotidien (co-edited with Aymeric Glacet, 2013). Benhaïm is also a longstanding member of the international research team “Animots,” devoted to the study of animals and animality in French literature, directed by Dr. Anne Simon and hosted by the CNRS and the EHESS. He recently co-edited with Effie Rentzou 1913: The Year of French Modernism (Manchester UP, 2020).
See webpage for required advance registration:
https://as.nyu.edu/maisonfrancaise/Calendar/events/fall-2021/andre-benhaim-lecture—hospitality-in-the-mediterranean–.html
Tuesday, November 16, 3:00-4:30 pm
Maison Française Online Zoom Event
Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, “La plus secrète mémoire des hommes”
In French.
Author Mohamed Mbougar Sarr will discuss his recent novel La plus secrète mémoire des hommes, which follows the story of a young Senagalese author in contemporary Paris who pursues the backstory of a mythical and mysterious book “The Labyrinth of the Inhuman.” Mr. Sarr’s book is the recipient of the prestigious Prix littéraire Transfuge.
Mohamed Mbougar Sarr was born in Dakar in 1990. He studied literature and philosophy at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Brotherhood, his first novel, won the Grand Prix du Roman Métis, the Prix Ahmadou Kourouma, and the French Voices Grand Prize, in Alexia Trigo’s translation. He was named Chevalier of the National Order of Merit by the president of Senegal.
See webpage for required advance registration:
https://as.nyu.edu/maisonfrancaise/Calendar/events/fall-2021/virtual-talk-with-mohamed-mbougar-sarr–la-plus-secrete-memoire-.html
Tuesday, November 22, 3:00-4:30 pm
Maison Française Online Zoom Event
Jean-Pascal Daloz, “Expressions de supériorité”
In French.
In Expressions de supériorité: Petite encyclopédie des distinctions élitistes, Jean- Pascal Daloz looks at elitism through many different iterations, backgrounds and eras. Comparing the modalities and logics of elitist distinction on a global scale and through the ages, this book constitutes an absolutely unprecedented sum. It is based on decades of observation in many countries, as well as on the consultation of thousands of studies from a dozen disciplines. In the course of thematic chapters, relating to revealing bodily attitudes as well as to distinction through animals, it is underlined how the symbolism of eminence can take on varied and sometimes even diametrically opposed forms. Director of research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Faculty Fellow at Yale University, Mr. Daloz’s exhaustive and internationally recognized work on the subject of cultural divisions in societies is more relevant and important than ever.
Jean-Pascal Daloz is currently CNRS Research Professor at the new SAGE Centre in Strasbourg and chairs the Research Committee on comparative sociology of the International Sociological Association. After having worked in sub-Saharan Africa (as Head of research centres), he held positions at the Bordeaux Institute of Political Studies and then at the Universities of Oslo and Oxford. Professor Daloz is a comparativist specializing in the study of elites. His research now mainly focuses on the comparative analysis of social distinction and on the symbolic dimensions of political representation. He has published 15 books, including Africa Works: Disorder as Public Instrument (Oxford, 1999), a standard book on African politics; Culture Troubles: Politics and the Interpretation of Meaning (Chicago, 2006), co-authored; The Sociology of Elite Distinction: From Theoretical to Comparative Perspectives (New York, 2010); Rethinking Social Distinction (New York, 2013); La Représentation Politique (Paris, 2017). He is also co-editing The Palgrave Handbook of Political Elites (forthcoming). (CCS Visiting Fellow, September 2017-February 2018).