Seminar participant Andrew Ross (History, Michigan) has written this very helpful guide to how to use the Archives nationales de France.
Wednesday, 18 March 2009
Archives nationales de France
Seminar participant Andrew Ross (History, Michigan) has written this very helpful guide to how to use the Archives nationales de France.
Monday, 9 March 2009
Seminar 2: Friday, March 6, 2009
Participants:
Matthieu Dupas (Paris III/Michigan)
Rebecca Halat (Minnesota)
Cindy Jones (Buffalo)
Katie Jones (Nottingham)
Sarah McMahon (Arizona)
Michael Rinaldo (Michigan)
Jennifer Solheim (Michigan)
David Vauclair (lecturer at ILERI, Paris)
Jane Weston (Bristol)
For this seminar, Michael Rinaldo presented some of his preliminary work on the problems of reading unlettered poems and the typography of poetry. Some of the problems he raised included the privileging in poetry criticism of writing over. voice, and the verbal over the pictorial. While noting that Francis Picabia's "Untitled" poem is readily pronounced in multiple languages since it is numeric, Mikey critiqued Dean Young's assessment of Man Ray's “Lautgedicht” as being written in a universal language, since this presupposes that the series of blanked out lines would be recognized by all "readers" as a form of poetry. Mikey continued by describing several possibilities for how to read both the text and musical notation for Robert Desnos's "L'asile ami."
Our next reading group will take place on Friday, March, 20. We will be reading an excerpt from Alain Corbin's Le miasme et la jonquille (The Foul and The Fragrant). If you would like to participate in the seminar, please email us at parisgradseminar@gmail.com.
Matthieu Dupas (Paris III/Michigan)
Rebecca Halat (Minnesota)
Cindy Jones (Buffalo)
Katie Jones (Nottingham)
Sarah McMahon (Arizona)
Michael Rinaldo (Michigan)
Jennifer Solheim (Michigan)
David Vauclair (lecturer at ILERI, Paris)
Jane Weston (Bristol)
For this seminar, Michael Rinaldo presented some of his preliminary work on the problems of reading unlettered poems and the typography of poetry. Some of the problems he raised included the privileging in poetry criticism of writing over. voice, and the verbal over the pictorial. While noting that Francis Picabia's "Untitled" poem is readily pronounced in multiple languages since it is numeric, Mikey critiqued Dean Young's assessment of Man Ray's “Lautgedicht” as being written in a universal language, since this presupposes that the series of blanked out lines would be recognized by all "readers" as a form of poetry. Mikey continued by describing several possibilities for how to read both the text and musical notation for Robert Desnos's "L'asile ami."
Our next reading group will take place on Friday, March, 20. We will be reading an excerpt from Alain Corbin's Le miasme et la jonquille (The Foul and The Fragrant). If you would like to participate in the seminar, please email us at parisgradseminar@gmail.com.
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
This is how it is when you go to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
It takes about four minutes of brisk walking from when you get off the metro, walk up an exceedingly long escalator if people aren’t blocking the path to the left, walk across the station to a bank of precariously curved stairs, leave the metro/RER station, cross rue Neuve Tolbiac, walk past the MK2 Bibliothèque cinéma and wish you were going to the movies rather than to work, brace yourself for the wind tunnel that is inevitable given the architecture of the library—four buildings facing one another like open books, standing tall and catching the sunlight. All the books live upstairs while us researchers, having braved the open-book wind tunnel, are confined to the basement. You walk down the vertigo-inspiring rolling sidewalk, walk past the smokers unless you are one of them, and enter the BN through a revolving door.
Once inside, you open your bags and wait in line—sometimes there is no wait, sometimes there is a long wait—to go through the metal detectors and have your bag passed across a long table where a guard wearing gloves gives your bag a cursory check. You cross the broad hallway to the vesitiaire, where you get in another line—sometimes there is no wait, sometimes there is a long wait—and if you haven’t closed it by automatic impulse, you’ve left your bag open, because you are waiting at the vestiaire to remove your jacket, empty your bag of your wallet, phone, computer, and any other resources and valuables you might want to put into the plastic shoulder bag that one of the vestiaire employees has slid across the counter to you once you reach the front of the line. They give you the short end of a claim ticket with a number on it. Your jacket, bag and its remaining contents have hopefully been put in the same cubby hole, accompanied by the long end of the claim ticket. Plastic shoulder bag in tow, you get your BN researcher card from your wallet or pocket.
By now you’ve noticed a soft and curious recurring sound that evokes the call of a long-beaked, prehistoric bird. As you cross to the library entrance, the sound grows louder, and after you use your card to pass through the first set of turnstyles you yourself make the sound by pushing open a first bank of giant silver doors. The suction of this puffy black stuff in between the big silver doors makes the bird noise. You cross a foyer and pull open an identitcal set of giant silver doors and make the noise again. And then you are inside.
The first time inside, you weren’t quite sure where to go at this point, but it becomes clear after a panicked moment of glances around that you should follow the more experienced researchers first down one short escalator, then down the longest escalator yet. These escalators are only wide enough for one person, so there is no passing, and more people in their descent stand on one stair – they seem in no rush. Resigned and calm, you too make the long slow descent. Once at the bottom of the stairs, you glance around again and see that there is another set of turnstyles that one can only pass using the researcher card, and another double bank of push then pull giant silver doors. You enter.
And you notice immediately how silent it is. The white noise, apparently, is insulated by the black puffy stuff between the giant silver doors. So you feel somewhat calmer and maybe more sure, and you walk to the map of rooms—you have, if you know what to do, reserved a place in one of the rooms in advance. The hallways to the left and in front of you stretch out and up. The carpet is red in all directions and it looks like there has been water seepage, but the dark red parts are something else because once you’ve come here a few times you might notice that the marks are always in the same place, and are never any more faded than they were the last time you were here. So you walk for maybe 15 seconds, or maybe 3 minutes, depending on which room you are in, to the room where your research materials and desk are reserved.
And you show your card to a librarian, who lays your researcher card down on a sensor that has a concave space shaped just like the card itself. This makes you think of how you initially thought you were meant to swipe the Navigo pass to get on the metro, but the swipe didn’t work and you observed others in action, you realized that you are supposed to hold the Navigo pass over the designated purple blob to get through the metro turnstyle and to the quay. A similar logic is at work here with the BN researcher card and the little concave spot. Your card sits there until your transaction is finished on the computer.
The librarian goes into a back room and returns with your materials. They all must be scanned individually, each has its own slip that has your name and assigned seat printed on it. And then you go to your seat. And there you stay. God help you if you need to pee, or have a bite to eat, or you’re a smoker. There is no easy way to get out of the BNF—if you want to leave the building, the only way out is the way in, and the electronic pass check at the turnstyles won’t let you leave until you’ve checked in your research materials. God help you. God help us all, down here in the basement. And yet, once I’m here, I can focus. And somehow feel very calm, and very pleased to be here.
Note: It has been brought to my attention that you need to have a reservation in order to pass through the second set of doors. This makes this space just past the elevators some sort of BNF purgatory, I guess. But you can always make a reservation on the computer terminals in purgatory if need be.
Once inside, you open your bags and wait in line—sometimes there is no wait, sometimes there is a long wait—to go through the metal detectors and have your bag passed across a long table where a guard wearing gloves gives your bag a cursory check. You cross the broad hallway to the vesitiaire, where you get in another line—sometimes there is no wait, sometimes there is a long wait—and if you haven’t closed it by automatic impulse, you’ve left your bag open, because you are waiting at the vestiaire to remove your jacket, empty your bag of your wallet, phone, computer, and any other resources and valuables you might want to put into the plastic shoulder bag that one of the vestiaire employees has slid across the counter to you once you reach the front of the line. They give you the short end of a claim ticket with a number on it. Your jacket, bag and its remaining contents have hopefully been put in the same cubby hole, accompanied by the long end of the claim ticket. Plastic shoulder bag in tow, you get your BN researcher card from your wallet or pocket.
By now you’ve noticed a soft and curious recurring sound that evokes the call of a long-beaked, prehistoric bird. As you cross to the library entrance, the sound grows louder, and after you use your card to pass through the first set of turnstyles you yourself make the sound by pushing open a first bank of giant silver doors. The suction of this puffy black stuff in between the big silver doors makes the bird noise. You cross a foyer and pull open an identitcal set of giant silver doors and make the noise again. And then you are inside.
The first time inside, you weren’t quite sure where to go at this point, but it becomes clear after a panicked moment of glances around that you should follow the more experienced researchers first down one short escalator, then down the longest escalator yet. These escalators are only wide enough for one person, so there is no passing, and more people in their descent stand on one stair – they seem in no rush. Resigned and calm, you too make the long slow descent. Once at the bottom of the stairs, you glance around again and see that there is another set of turnstyles that one can only pass using the researcher card, and another double bank of push then pull giant silver doors. You enter.
And you notice immediately how silent it is. The white noise, apparently, is insulated by the black puffy stuff between the giant silver doors. So you feel somewhat calmer and maybe more sure, and you walk to the map of rooms—you have, if you know what to do, reserved a place in one of the rooms in advance. The hallways to the left and in front of you stretch out and up. The carpet is red in all directions and it looks like there has been water seepage, but the dark red parts are something else because once you’ve come here a few times you might notice that the marks are always in the same place, and are never any more faded than they were the last time you were here. So you walk for maybe 15 seconds, or maybe 3 minutes, depending on which room you are in, to the room where your research materials and desk are reserved.
And you show your card to a librarian, who lays your researcher card down on a sensor that has a concave space shaped just like the card itself. This makes you think of how you initially thought you were meant to swipe the Navigo pass to get on the metro, but the swipe didn’t work and you observed others in action, you realized that you are supposed to hold the Navigo pass over the designated purple blob to get through the metro turnstyle and to the quay. A similar logic is at work here with the BN researcher card and the little concave spot. Your card sits there until your transaction is finished on the computer.
The librarian goes into a back room and returns with your materials. They all must be scanned individually, each has its own slip that has your name and assigned seat printed on it. And then you go to your seat. And there you stay. God help you if you need to pee, or have a bite to eat, or you’re a smoker. There is no easy way to get out of the BNF—if you want to leave the building, the only way out is the way in, and the electronic pass check at the turnstyles won’t let you leave until you’ve checked in your research materials. God help you. God help us all, down here in the basement. And yet, once I’m here, I can focus. And somehow feel very calm, and very pleased to be here.
Note: It has been brought to my attention that you need to have a reservation in order to pass through the second set of doors. This makes this space just past the elevators some sort of BNF purgatory, I guess. But you can always make a reservation on the computer terminals in purgatory if need be.
Reading Group 1: Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Mardi Gras, or what our British friends refer to as ‘Pancake Day’
Participants:
Aaron Boalick (Michigan)
Cindy Jones (Buffalo)
Katie Jones (Nottingham)
Clara Laurent (Independent Researcher)
Michael Rinaldo (Michigan)
Andrew Ross (Michigan)
Jennifer Solheim (Michigan)
David Vauclair (lecturer at ILERI, Paris)
Jane Weston (Bristol)
We began with introducing ourselves and our work, and in so doing underscored that the common thread in our respective projects within French Studies was interdisciplinarity. At this reading group, literary studies, film studies, history, and political science were represented as disciplinary fields under the broad rubric of “French Studies.” In addition to those listed in the summary of our first seminar on February 13, participant interests included queer theory, cultural studies, comparative work on France and Anglo-Saxon countries, and unlettered poetry.
We mentioned a few expositions currently in Paris: the Bande Dessinée expo at the Louvre, and the Serge Gainsbourg expo, which has been extended at the Musée de la Musique through March 15.
We continued with a discussion of the manifesto “Pour une littérature-monde en français”, led by Jenn. The discussion centered around French literary history evoked in the manifesto; allegories of astronomy; the spatial, temporal, and literary-historical situating of both the major French literary awards given to Francophone writers in the fall of 2007, and the manifesto itself, published in March 2007. The discussion continued with a political science perspective on the French/Francophone divide (primarily by addressing the way that mixité helps define this divide, and the curious omission of Swiss and Belgian writers—just for example—from the Francophone category). Comments were made on the jabs at nouveau roman in the manifesto, and this led to an intervention about the way that American media has been predicting the death of French culture (here’s a selective foray into how the French perceive this prediction). We concludes with a discussion of how the manifesto describes littérature-monde as a literary movement without describing the specific qualities of a work that could be classified as “littérature-monde.”
We continued with a discussion of the article “Between 'French' and 'Francophone': French Studies and the Postcolonial Turn,” by Charles Forsdick(2005), led by Jane. The discussion included observations on how this divide works in French and Francophone studies as disciplines in the U.K. and the U.S., and the differences between literary studies and other disciplines in the humanities. Participants discussed their personal perspective on the French/Francophone divide, and the evolving disciplinary position of Francophone studies within literature as opposed to history, in which the negotiation of this divide is moot.
Our next meeting will be held on Friday, March, 6, from 17h30 – 19h30. Michael Rinaldo will give a presentation on three unlettered poems: “Untitled Poem” (Francis Picabia), “Lautgedicht” (May Ray), and “L’asile ami” (Robert Desnos). If you would like to participate in the seminar, please email us at parisgradseminar@gmail.com.
N.B. to all seminar participants: as discussed, please feel free to post to the blog, and tag as you see fit! N.B. to both participants and blog readers/followers: we hope that this blog can serve as a source of helpful information for researchers in Paris. We will soon begin posting our experiences of and tips on using libraries and archives in Paris—your input would be invaluable if you would like to share it. We hope to include information as well on expositions, concerts, restaurants (particularly tips on places near archives and libraries), and any information that might be helpful for researchers living in or visiting Paris.
Participants:
Aaron Boalick (Michigan)
Cindy Jones (Buffalo)
Katie Jones (Nottingham)
Clara Laurent (Independent Researcher)
Michael Rinaldo (Michigan)
Andrew Ross (Michigan)
Jennifer Solheim (Michigan)
David Vauclair (lecturer at ILERI, Paris)
Jane Weston (Bristol)
We began with introducing ourselves and our work, and in so doing underscored that the common thread in our respective projects within French Studies was interdisciplinarity. At this reading group, literary studies, film studies, history, and political science were represented as disciplinary fields under the broad rubric of “French Studies.” In addition to those listed in the summary of our first seminar on February 13, participant interests included queer theory, cultural studies, comparative work on France and Anglo-Saxon countries, and unlettered poetry.
We mentioned a few expositions currently in Paris: the Bande Dessinée expo at the Louvre, and the Serge Gainsbourg expo, which has been extended at the Musée de la Musique through March 15.
We continued with a discussion of the manifesto “Pour une littérature-monde en français”, led by Jenn. The discussion centered around French literary history evoked in the manifesto; allegories of astronomy; the spatial, temporal, and literary-historical situating of both the major French literary awards given to Francophone writers in the fall of 2007, and the manifesto itself, published in March 2007. The discussion continued with a political science perspective on the French/Francophone divide (primarily by addressing the way that mixité helps define this divide, and the curious omission of Swiss and Belgian writers—just for example—from the Francophone category). Comments were made on the jabs at nouveau roman in the manifesto, and this led to an intervention about the way that American media has been predicting the death of French culture (here’s a selective foray into how the French perceive this prediction). We concludes with a discussion of how the manifesto describes littérature-monde as a literary movement without describing the specific qualities of a work that could be classified as “littérature-monde.”
We continued with a discussion of the article “Between 'French' and 'Francophone': French Studies and the Postcolonial Turn,” by Charles Forsdick(2005), led by Jane. The discussion included observations on how this divide works in French and Francophone studies as disciplines in the U.K. and the U.S., and the differences between literary studies and other disciplines in the humanities. Participants discussed their personal perspective on the French/Francophone divide, and the evolving disciplinary position of Francophone studies within literature as opposed to history, in which the negotiation of this divide is moot.
Our next meeting will be held on Friday, March, 6, from 17h30 – 19h30. Michael Rinaldo will give a presentation on three unlettered poems: “Untitled Poem” (Francis Picabia), “Lautgedicht” (May Ray), and “L’asile ami” (Robert Desnos). If you would like to participate in the seminar, please email us at parisgradseminar@gmail.com.
N.B. to all seminar participants: as discussed, please feel free to post to the blog, and tag as you see fit! N.B. to both participants and blog readers/followers: we hope that this blog can serve as a source of helpful information for researchers in Paris. We will soon begin posting our experiences of and tips on using libraries and archives in Paris—your input would be invaluable if you would like to share it. We hope to include information as well on expositions, concerts, restaurants (particularly tips on places near archives and libraries), and any information that might be helpful for researchers living in or visiting Paris.
Seminar 1: Friday 13 February 2009
Participants:
Rebecca Halat (Minnesota)
Cynthia Jones (Buffalo)
Katie Jones (Nottingham)
Sarah McMahon (Arizona)
Jennifer Solheim (Michigan)
Jane Weston (Bristol)
We began our first seminar with an introductory discussion of what we understand the discipline of ‘French Studies’ to include, as well as possible future directions for the seminar series and reading group. It quickly became clear that, while course content and preferred methodologies differed between participants’ various home departments, what we had in common was an interdisciplinary approach to French Studies. Participants’ research interests were wide-ranging and included theories of humour, disgust, intersectionality and gender, as well as the study of bande dessinée, non-metropolitan Francophone literatures, music, film, comparative European literature, folklore and avant-garde theatre.
Cynthia Jones (SUNY at Buffalo) then opened the seminar series with an early version of her paper ‘Is the Big Bad Wolf Really Bad or Just Misunderstood?’, to be presented at the 10th Global Conference on Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness, which will take place from 16 to 19 March in Salzburg, Austria. Using a model of lycanthropy taken from anthropologist Robert Eisler’s 1948 study Man into Wolf, Cindi analysed three tales from different cultures – the story of King Lycaon in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the twelfth-century lai Bisclavret by Marie de France, and the African-American tale Manawee – arguing that the marginal figure of the werewolf represents an intrinsic part of human nature which we try to deny: our animality. The stories may be read as fables which demonstrate that repressing our animal nature altogether is as damaging as allowing it to take over; they suggest instead a need to acknowledge and balance our animality with other aspects of our nature.
Rebecca Halat (Minnesota)
Cynthia Jones (Buffalo)
Katie Jones (Nottingham)
Sarah McMahon (Arizona)
Jennifer Solheim (Michigan)
Jane Weston (Bristol)
We began our first seminar with an introductory discussion of what we understand the discipline of ‘French Studies’ to include, as well as possible future directions for the seminar series and reading group. It quickly became clear that, while course content and preferred methodologies differed between participants’ various home departments, what we had in common was an interdisciplinary approach to French Studies. Participants’ research interests were wide-ranging and included theories of humour, disgust, intersectionality and gender, as well as the study of bande dessinée, non-metropolitan Francophone literatures, music, film, comparative European literature, folklore and avant-garde theatre.
Cynthia Jones (SUNY at Buffalo) then opened the seminar series with an early version of her paper ‘Is the Big Bad Wolf Really Bad or Just Misunderstood?’, to be presented at the 10th Global Conference on Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness, which will take place from 16 to 19 March in Salzburg, Austria. Using a model of lycanthropy taken from anthropologist Robert Eisler’s 1948 study Man into Wolf, Cindi analysed three tales from different cultures – the story of King Lycaon in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the twelfth-century lai Bisclavret by Marie de France, and the African-American tale Manawee – arguing that the marginal figure of the werewolf represents an intrinsic part of human nature which we try to deny: our animality. The stories may be read as fables which demonstrate that repressing our animal nature altogether is as damaging as allowing it to take over; they suggest instead a need to acknowledge and balance our animality with other aspects of our nature.
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