Dernières publications
François Chaignaud - publié le 16/02/2012
"((Beauty, Intensity, Asymmetry)) are born in my mouth like three goddesses ripe for veneration - far more than ((Identity, Gender, or Transgression)), and utterly different from them. But this Beauty, of which we know only that some wish to buy but never to sell it, much less allow it to disappear or cause it to flee - nor to be the man or woman who no longer possesses anything but memories of it - is she a prescriptive goddess?"
Siri Hustvedt - publié le 16/02/2012
"Human beings are forever explaining themselves to themselves. This is the nature of our self-consciousness. We are not only awake and aware of the world around us, but are able to reflect on ourselves as actors in that world. We reason and we tell stories. Unlike our mammalian relatives who do not narrate their own lives, we become characters in our own tales, both when we recollect ourselves in the past and imagine ourselves in the future. Our ability to represent our experience in language - (...)
Lionel Naccache - publié le 16/02/2012
In the context of the Walls and Bridges project in New York, a meeting has been organized for October between an American novelist - Siri Hustvedt - and a French neuroscientist on the topic of "fiction," both mental and literary. This will obviously be the time to ask ourselves: can we imagine a promising future for meetings between the neurosciences of cognition and the world of literary creation? Is this merely the random juxtaposition of two terms to which we are attached, or the genuine (...)
Pierre Bayard, Arthur Goldhammer - publié le 14/02/2012
"The idea of attributing old works to new authors is not original. It has long been practiced by those lovers of literature, our students, who do not hesitate to attribute ((The Old Man and the Sea)) to Melville or ((War and Peace)) to Dostoevsky. What is interesting is that this kind of reinvention is not always properly appreciated by teachers."
Wendy Lesser - publié le 14/02/2012
"As an element in Shostakovich's music, the shame is perhaps not as audible as the dread, but it is everpresent nonetheless. One cannot point to a precise place in the music where you can hear it, but it underlies and supports most of the other painful emotions, and if it were removed from the mix, you would certainly notice the difference."
publié le 03/02/2012
This text is reproduced from Ben's Guide to the US Government, a service of the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO).
Pierre Bayard, Wendy Lesser, François Noudelmann, Mónica de la Torre - publié le 20/01/2012
The affinity tables established by chemists served as models for sentimental encounters. But the concordance and discordance resulting from affinities are closer to musical phenomena, where associations infinitely redistribute harmonic correlations. Pierre Bayard, author of ((How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read)), will discuss this topic with Wendy Lesser, author of ((Music for Silenced Voices: Shostakovich and His Fifteen Quartets)), and François Noudelmann, who explores in ((Le toucher (...)
François Chaignaud, Jon-Jon Goulian, Silke Grabinger, Gressett Salette, Gia Kourlas - publié le 20/01/2012
Visual arts, fashion and media have strongly contributed to the transformation of the notion of beauty over the last few generations. Widely perceived of as an extension of femininity until the late 20th century, feminism and the gay, lesbian and queer movements have eroded clear definitions of who and what is beautiful - and who and what is not. French historian, dancer and choreographer François Chaignaud, American author of The Man in the Grey Flannel Skirt Jon-Jon Goulian, Austrian dancer (...)
Manthia Diawara, Danny Glover, Avital Ronnell - publié le 20/01/2012
Messrs Diawara and Glover will be exploring, on a thematic and existential register, the way relations are formed and uprooted in cinema. How are relations depicted, and according to what codes of presumed compliance or revolt, desire or disgust, necessity or chance, in the encounters that are thematized in African and African-American film? What are some of the back-stories and unrecorded affinities that have enabled or disturbed the emergence of the Black cinematic art?
Judith Butler, Hélène Cixous, Avital Ronell - publié le 20/01/2012
What happens when relations and community do not depend on natural formations or grids for their unfolding but create their own, often untrackable movements? Affinities have little to do with family ties or socially codified structures. They do not well up from a common spring or identified community. Rather, they lead to unexpected pairings and conglomerates of people and beings that defy supposedly natural arrangements.
Siri Hustvedt, Lionel Naccache - publié le 20/01/2012
We all spend our time constructing fictions, telling stories to ourselves and to others. Narration is deeply rooted in the human mind, at a conscious and unconscious level. Producing a narrative is a way of giving meaning to factual experience. Are the fictions created by the human brain and those imagined by novelists of the same nature? American writer Siri Hustvedt and French neurobiologist Lionel Naccache express their original, incisive and empathetic views on these questions.
Craig Calhoun, Dupuy Jean-Pierre, Klinenberg Eric, Michel Lussault, Mirzoeff Nicholas, Patrick Savidan - publié le 20/01/2012
During one year leading French and American social scientists met several times in Lyon and New York to explore our cultural interest in knowing and not knowing about recent catastrophes and emerging threats to our climate, cities, and communities. They will share the result of their reflection.
Jay Gottlieb - publié le 20/01/2012
Literally playing with the notion of "affinities" with its vast resonances, Jay Gottlieb has constructed a program not only of works by composers with whom he feels a particular bond, but also incorporating the diverse relationships of the chosen composers with their sonic material. He created for instance a vast sound sculpture that incorporates moments from all of Malher's ten symphonies. He will also play pieces by Donatoni, who shows how affinities can be volatile, Berio, who brilliantly (...)
Catherine Millet, Robert Storr - publié le 19/01/2012
On both sides of the Atlantic, Catherine Millet and Robert Storr have played key roles as witnesses and actors in the transformations of the art world. Catherine Millet, author of best sellers ((The Sexual Life of Catherine M)) and ((Jealousy)) and editor-in-chief of Art Press magazine, will join Robert Storr, former curator of MoMA and the dean of the School of Art at Yale University, to discuss their wide-ranging interests, their intermingled careers, and the current art scene.
François Noudelmann, Avital Ronell - publié le 19/01/2012
What pulls communities and individuals together? What drives them apart? What's going on when people or situations have "chemistry" or click, and what's missing when they don't? How does this bypass more conservative descriptions of ensembles and community?
Alondra Nelson, Claire Richard - publié le 09/01/2012
Claire Richard asks Alondra Nelson about a neglected and yet essential legacy of the Black Panther Party. When the party emerged in 1966, the Jim Crow laws had been dismantled and there was no legal support for discrimination in the United States, but there were still segregated practices within the healthcare sector. As the saying goes, when America has a cold, African Americans have pneumonia. The Black Panthers fought for healthcare equality as a way to achieve social justice. Alondra Nelson (...)
Mary Creagh, Clifford Armion - publié le 05/01/2012
Mary Creagh is the Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. She has been a Member of Parliament for Wakefield since 2005. She answered our questions on the environmental policies implemented by the coalition government and the position of Labour on energy and environment related issues.
Isabelle Bénigno - publié le 05/01/2012
Le destin des tribus aborigènes a été scellé par l'arrivée des Européens en 1788. La première flotte de forçats transporte environ mille hommes et femmes. L'effectif britannique est à peu près identique à la tribu aborigène locale, la tribu des Eora, installée aux abords de Botany Bay.
William Echikson, Gérard Wormser - publié le 13/12/2011
William Echikson est actuellement Directeur de Communication Europe de Google, après avoir été pendant 25 ans le correspondant européen du Christian Science Monitor, du Wall Street Journal et du Businessweek. Il répond aux questions de Gérard Wormser, professeur de philosopie à l'ENS de Lyon et directeur de la revue web Sens public, en passant en revue les innovations récentes et les grands projets de Google tels que Google Phones, Google Translator, Google Books, les voitures sans (...)
Denis MacShane, Clifford Armion - publié le 12/12/2011
Denis MacShane was Tony Blair's Minister for Europe from 2002 until 2005 and has been a Member of Parliament for Rotherham since 1994. He answered our questions on the policies implemented by the coalition government, the rise in British euroscepticism and the role of the state in financing universities.
Anne-Laure Brevet - publié le 06/12/2011
This study of ((The Fifth Child)) (1988) attempts to show that the eponymous character, a traumatic semi-human creature who neither assimilates into his ordinary family nor conforms to the demands of society impersonates a drive for disorder, chaos and violence undermining collective ideals. On the one hand, the fact that the alien child is not only excluded from family life but also from any type of “normal” human interaction, especially in ((Ben, in the World)) (2000), reveals hidden (...)
Anne Geoffroy - publié le 22/11/2011
George Gascoigne (1542-1577) est probablement l’un des premiers auteurs élisabéthains à s’être engagé dans la voie de l’expérimentation radicale avec la publication, en 1573, de son recueil intitulé ((A Hundred Sundrie Flowers)), florilège mêlant poésie, récit en prose et théâtre. Cependant, après la décision de la Haute Commission de rejeter le recueil, Gascoigne se vit contraint de réviser son projet littéraire et plus spécifiquement son récit en prose, ((A Discourse (...)
Laurence Crohem - publié le 10/11/2011
Dans la pièce, l'assassinat de Caesar semble être non seulement l'indice d'un trouble politique, mais aussi d'une temporalité problématique. L'assassinat paraît toujours être un horizon qui se dérobe, un événement qui n'a jamais lieu au présent, et semble offrir un changement de paradigme éphémère, chaque Romain, Brutus comme tous les autres, devenant un temps souverain potentiel et interchangeable. Se dessine alors l'idée d'une crise du self solidaire du trouble politique et (...)
Jean-François Chappuit - publié le 10/11/2011
Quelques jours avant de mourir, Robert Greene compose un pamphlet dans lequel il assimile Shakespeare à « un corbeau arriviste paré de nos plumes ». Les « Désintégrateurs » ont vu dans cette invective une accusation de plagiat en référence à Horace et à la fable du Choucas paré des plumes d’autres oiseaux. Mais plusieurs difficultés demeurent dont le type d’oiseau en question, la trame narrative, le rôle des citations incluses dans la fable, le sens général de la fable. Dans (...)
Christian Jérémie - publié le 08/11/2011
Thomas Becon, (1512-1567) Réformateur anglais de l'Eglise d'Angleterre, persécuté par Henri VIII, emprisonné puis exilé sous Marie, était réputé à son époque comme prédicateur, catéchète, et auteur de prières. Ses textes recèlent une grande maîtrise rhétorique et un certain art du bien dire, sa prose étant quasi poétique. Il déclare qu'on ne s'adresse pas à Dieu n'importe comment, et qu'il faut user d'un langage choisi. C'est pourquoi ses prières peuvent paraître (...)