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.