"Humanities, For Sake of Humanity:" Inside Higher Ed

Dan Berrett's report on the Symposium on the Future of the Humanities is worth a read:

Beware that false idol, the broadly applied metric. Embrace the neglected power of ambiguity and individual human experience.

CSCL Colloquium featuring Greta Bliss: 3:30, 3/25 (Nicholson 325)

"Translation Routes"

Friday March 25th at 3:30pm

Nicholson Hall 325

Akshya Saxena, "In Other Words: Reading Dainik Jagran's Sangini"

Dan Dooghan, "Polytopic Texts and Incremental Apprehension: Republican China's Contribution to Translation Theory"

Michelle Baroody, "The Untimeliness of World Literature"

Greta Bliss, "Looking Back, Looking Forward: The Vital Antagonisms of Maghrebi Untranslation"

Please find below detailed descriptions of the four papers, which will be followed by a question and answer period. Light refreshments will be available. We will head over to the Kitty Cat Klub following the event in order to continue our discussion. We hope to see many of you there.

Greta Bliss, "Looking Back, Looking Forward: The Vital Antagonisms of Maghrebi Untranslation"

This paper introduces the history of French translations of the Maghreb
via the literary figure of Maghrebi woman through an analysis of how
Maïssa Bey's 2005 novel Surtout ne te retourne pas "untranslates"
Orientalist representations of the Maghreb. Bliss argues that the
notion of bilingual "antagonisms" (Abdelfattah Kilito) touching Bey's
work are integral to the project of untranslation as a whole. By
refusing to settle on a single sort of portrayal of the female
narrator(s) and by deferring her (their) history(ies), Bey theorizes
untranslation as a tactic of reading that must look forward and back in
antagonistic and contradictory ways that are distinct from the concept
of "hybridity." This paper challenges mainstream discourses in French
and Francophone Studies that have conditioned the emergence of Maghrebi
women's fiction and ratified it as an academic subfield in problematic
ways.

Akshya Saxena, "In Other Words: Reading Dainik Jagran's Sangini"

My paper attempts to read the Hindi-English bilingualism found in Jagran Sangini, the four-page color women's weekly supplement that accompanies the largest-circulating Hindi daily in India today, Dainik Jagran. I take my cue from The Translation Zone (2006) by Emily Apter, where she offers a provocative discussion of the significance of the theory and practice of translation to the discipline of Comparative Literature. As I grapple with the dynamics of the Vernacular Press Revolution of the nineties in India (of which I see Sangini to be a sign), I find both value and discomfort in her use of the category of the Creole, her stand-in for non-standard, non-vehicular, ungrammatical and plurilingually inventive language. My paper, in its study of Sangini, seeks to trouble her understanding that a new comparative literature founded in the Creole necessarily disrupts the "deep structural law that languages are named after nations", and so traffics in only "phantom inter-nations".

Dan Dooghan, "Polytopic Texts and Incremental Apprehension: Republican China's Contributions to Translation Theory"

Given China's lack of translators working in most languages, many European texts during the first half of the twentieth century entered Chinese through indirect translation from Japanese. The translated text thus appears as a product of multiple topoi: origin, intermediaries, and destination. As each topos produces translations that respond to the local literary polysystem, the skopoi of the intermediary translators accrete to the translated texts, thus complicating the usual binary translation relationship usually encountered in Euro-American translation studies. Furthermore, cognizant of the weaknesses of indirect translation, Chinese intellectuals of the Republican period (1911-1949) developed methods of translation criticism both to compensate for the intermediary accretions and guide translators when approaching polytopic texts.

Michelle Baroody, "The Untimeliness of World Literature"

How do we begin to think of world literature outside of the terms West and non-West? Is there a space for the "Third world" to enter into an exchange with other "world literatures" without always carrying the label "other"? The logic of contemporary, popular theories of world literature are founded upon the disavowal of Orientalism as both a discursive and political logic of the west and the critique of that logic initiated by such thinkers as Edward Said. This disavowal tends to homogenize the field of world literatures, covering up potential social contradictions and power relations, as well as the social complexities of literary exchange in the global market. As I will demonstrate, the disavowal of Orientalism also produces a temporal logic whereby literature is considered modern (a term which in many literary critical discourses assumes a distinct value) only insofar as it passes through and is canonized by the West. Rather than simply scrap the project of world literature, I contend that it may be more adequate to the situation of the global literary market to consider the possibility of untimely world literatures: that is, to consider the project of world literature as a critical task involving the exchange between often incommensurable spaces and temporalities, which nonetheless are articulated together in specific literary instances. In order to develop this idea, I investigate one such exchange that between the Syrian poet Adonis and the American poet Walt Whitman as Adonis reworks, reinvents, and goes beyond Whitman's

MSP International Film Festival (4/14 -5/5) The "Year of France" Highlights

The 2011 Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival launches next month! is slated for April 14 through May 5 - presenting over 180 films from some 60 countries at the five-screen St. Anthony Main Theatre. For three weeks, the Twin Cities celebrates the arrival of the best of international and independent filmmaking in the region. We are thrilled to present 13 French films in conjunction with the Year of France in Minnesota!

Included in this year's programming is a great slate of French films marking the Year of France in Minnesota. Also noteworthy: an impressive group of music-themed films, and the ever-popular Minnesota-Made Showcase. In addition, the festival will host many visiting filmmakers from all corners of the globe participating in panel discussions and presentations, and attending a host of festival receptions and gala events.


Dumas (L'Autre Dumas)

Narrative Directed by Safy Nebbou
France/Belgium, 2010, in French with English Subtitles
Alexandre Dumas and his ghostwriter Auguste Maquet are at the height of their successful collaboration. Maquet decides to pass himself off for Dumas in order to seduce Charlotte, an admirer of the illustrious writer. A confrontation between the two men becomes inevitable. Starring Gerard Depardieu, Benoit Poelvoorde, and Dominque Blanc. -en.unifrance.org


The Hedgehog

Narrative Directed by Mona Achache
France, 2009, in French with English Subtitles

The story of an unexpected encounter: that of Paloma Josse, a little 11-year-old, highly intelligent and suicidal girl, Renée Michel, a discreet and solitary Parisian concierge, and the enigmatic Mr. Kakuro Ozu. - en.unifrance.org
The Hedgehog has taken the worldwide festival circuit by storm as a selection at thirteen different festivals, winning special awards at the Cairo International Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival and the City of Lights, City of Angels (Col-Coa) in Los Angeles.



The Princess of Montpensier

Narrative Directed by Bertrand Tavernier
France/Germany, 2010, in French with English subtitles

France, 1562. The wars of religion between Catholics and Protestants rage against a backdrop of intrigue and shifting alliances.
Marie de Mézières, a beautiful young aristocrat, and Henri de Guise, one of the kingdom's most intrepid heroes, are in love, but Marie's father promises her hand in marriage to the Prince of Montpensier. The prince takes Marie back to his chateau, where she is tutored by Chabannes, the Protestant deserter he protects, who soon falls in love with the young woman. Then, on their way back from battle, Henri de Guise and the Duke d'Anjou, the heir to the throne, stop at the chateau. Henri and Marie realize their feelings for each other are as strong as ever. -en.unifrance.org


Other exciting French films booked for the festival:

Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film, directed by Pip Chodorov (documentary)
Gigola, directed by Laure Charpentier

A Cat in Paris, directed by Jean-Loup Felicioli & Alain Gagnol (childish, animated)

Eleanor's Secret, directed by Dominique Monféry (childish, animated)

The Names of Loves, directed by Michel Leclerc

Nostalgia for the Light, directed by Patricio Guzmán (documentary)

The Queen of Hearts (La Reine des Pommes), directed by Valérie Donzelli

The Sleeping Beauty, directed by Catherine Breillat

The Tree, directed by Julie Bertuccelli, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg

Queen to Play, directed by Caroline Bottaro


For more information about the 2011 International Film Festival and other Film Society Programming contact Ryan Oestreich, at 612 331-7563, or visit the 2011 Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival website at www.mspfilmfest.org.

Performance: "Albertine en cinq temps" (4/15, 7pm, St. Kate's)

The Department of International Languages and Literatures at Saint Catherine University and its French colleagues from the ACTC institutions including Hamline, St Thomas, and Macalester would like to invite you to attend a single evening's performance of Albertine en cinq temps, an adaptation of the play by French Canadian playwright Michel Tremblay, by Théâtre de la Chandelle Verte on Friday April 15, Friday, 2011 at Saint Catherine University in the Recital Hall located in the Music Building on the Saint Paul campus.





Since 2004, Saint Catherine's French Department has welcomed Chandelle Verte for a yearly performance with great success, and many of you and your students have taken advantage of this event.
As in years past, the troupe will provide all schools attending a dossier that prepares faculty and students with prepared text excerpts and discussion questions about the play. Students who use these exercises ahead of time are better prepared before they see the show. Then they have an opportunity to ask questions in a talkback session afterwards.
These materials are designed for preparing students of all levels of French who plan on attending the performance.
For more information and to RSVP, contact Sally Sundberg at sjsundberg@stkate.edu or (651) 690-6548.

CFP: 16th/17th-century panels at MLA (3/15/11; Seattle 1/5-8/12)

The Division on Seventeenth-Century French Literature of the MLA announces its Calls for Papers for 3 sessions, including a joint round table with the Division on Sixteenth-Century French Literature:


The 2012 MLA will be in Seattle from January 5-8.
The Limits of the Human: Papers that address any of the following: the status of animals; relations between animals and humans; theriophilist philosophies; the ramifications of Descartes' bête-machine; humans and environment. 250-word abstracts by March 15, 2011 to Lewis Seifert (lewis_seifert@brown.edu)

Invisibility: Invisibility haunts this very visual period in France. A panel on invisibility and the invisible in any and all of its elusive manifestations: philosophical, social, aesthetic, literary, scientific, scholarly. 250-word abstracts by March 15, 2011 to Claire Goldstein (goldstc@muohio.edu)
What is the Early Modern?
(Collaborative roundtable with the Division on Sixteenth-Century French
Literature) Contributors will describe how the early modern is defined/redefined through current teaching and research practices. 100-word abstracts by March 15, 2011 to Virginia Krause (virginia_krause@brown.edu) or Ellen McClure (ellenmc@uic.edu)

CIEE: Encountering Contemporary French Theory

Interested in an intensive academic summer experience? Consider CIEE's program with the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris. Open to graduate students and undergraduates.

Encountering Contemporary French Theory, June 2011.pdf
For more information, contact Brent Keever at

Dépêche de Klaeber Court: Prof. Judith Preckshot

I asked Prof Judith Preckshot about what she's working on right now, and she told me about a fascinating and timely graduate seminar she's preparing for next semester:

Many of us struggle with balancing the competing demands of teaching and research, and in our attempts to do each to perfection on its own terms we sometimes lose sight of how they are so integrally related. For graduate students the stresses and strains are perhaps even greater because you are engaged in a dual apprenticeship, the one intellectual and academic, and the other pedagogical and practical. And your teaching is at the beginning and intermediate levels of language and culture, which doesn't often give you the opportunity to teach your research. With this on my mind, I am crafting a graduate course on francophone Caribbean and Sub-Saharan African literature (to be offered in Fall 2011) that will ask students to work at the intersection of scholarly research and teaching in ways that are hopefully both imaginative--in terms of imagining a future as a post-secondary instructor-- and very practical in that the material outcome would be a scholarly conference paper as well as a collaboratively compiled dossier of course materials and course syllabi. I see this as a kind of workshop in which we will all learn from each other, taking positions à tour de rôle as teachers and mentors, students and mentees, peer reviewers and reviewees.

Having learned so much from students I've mentored in past teaching projects, I'm very excited about the prospect of "teaching" a course in which everyone will also be a teacher, a mentor to someone and a producer of knowledge in the discipline. This format allows me to bring the mentoring process more visibly into the classroom and to conjoin the intellectual and the practical aspects of our discipline. I also want the experience to be immediately useful to students, hence the selection of texts from the MA reading list and the kinds of assignments that will enhance advanced students' professional development by preparing them for a job search or applications for teaching post-docs.

Discussion: Political Theory Colloquium: Jill Locke on Rousseau (3/11)

This Friday (3/11) UMN's political theory colloquium will host Jill Locke (Political Science and Women's Studies, Gustavus Adolphus College). Jill will briefly present her work "Rousseau, The Misfit's Hero," followed by a longer discussion. The colloquium will be in 1314 Social Sciences at 1:30; coffee will be served.

The paper is at http://www.polisci.umn.edu/centers/theory/schedule.html

Abstract: An extraordinarily pluralistic group of eighteenth-century men and women were drawn to Rousseau"s writings and Rousseau himself because of his sympathetic portrait of the person who did not fit into the artificial and inegalitarian culture of le monde. Some of these men, like Jean-Paul Marat, became revolutionaries; Jean-Marie-Bernard Clément, by contrast, found Rousseauean inspiration for his labors in the Counter-Enlightenment. Stranger still, Olympe de Gouges, whose life and work represented all that Rousseau feared, claimed an enormous debt to Rousseau as the person who helped her imagine an
unashamed and authentic life that was free from the shackles of social expectations.
In this paper, I explore "Three Rousseaus" (the Romantic, the Tutor, and the Legislator) with this reception history in mind, highlighting the ways in which Rousseau"s paeans to the authentic life and desire to protect the misfit from social shame radicalize his republican thought in exciting ways. Yet at the same time, perhaps because Rousseau was aware of the pluralism of his readers and his following by women in particular, I show how his texts forestall these romantic implications. By closing off the romantic republic from literary women and the men with whom they dwell, Rousseau strives to protect the misfit who animates his defense of the authentic life--the simple, provincial man. Against current trends in political theory, I affirm Rousseau"s concern with the psychological state of the misfit and his willingness to see it in political terms, but caution against the effort to guarantee the misfit or any other citizen a social or political life that is free from the injuries of shame. It is this move of seeking to guarantee the misfit a life free from anything that will mock or humiliate him that enables Rousseau to close off the public to others who were eager to take up his an invitation to live an authentic life.

Conference: Translating the Encyclopédie in the Global 18th Century

If you're in New York this weekend, catch up with our own Dan Brewer at ARTFL's annual conference on the Encyclopédie, this year at Fordham University.

Here's the program:
Fordham NYU Encyclopedie conference.pdf

Language Study in French for Graduate Students

Are you interested in perfecting your French? Consider Bryn Mawr's Avignon Institute, which is one of the few with a graduate component.

http://www.brynmawr.edu/avignon/
Scholarships are apparently available!
Deadline was Tuesday March 1 but they admit on a rolling basis. If not for this summer, perhaps next?

Dépêche de Paris: Lia Mitchell from the rue Oberkampf

Lia Mitchell, our Exchange Fellow in Paris, writes us about Canals on Mars, the invasion midwestern vowels of Paris, and the so-called original LouLou :

It's been a quiet six months on rue Oberkampf; not at street level, where there's traffic, street musicians, bars, and occasionally an enormous protest. But up in the chambre de bonne we refer to (affectionately) as the bat cave or (when taking refuge) Petit Minneapolis, things are generally quiet. When at home, I spend my time reading science fiction from around 1900; digging through the online maze of Gallica for references to the canals on Mars, hypothetical planetary collisions, and other things that might blow up the Earth at some point; staring at old photographs of the city; and watching French people argue about politics on television.
However, I try not to spend too much time in the apartment. I devote a few hours a week to chatting with my students and corrupting their accents with my long Midwestern vowels. This accomplished, my walking companion and I have set a mission to explore the city on foot: every major park and passage, every cool little neighborhood, all the traces of the city as it was before Haussmann got to work. I've also gotten to a couple of photography exhibits about the city: one that juxtaposed Charles Marville's photos from destruction and construction during the Second Empire with photos of present-day Paris, and another with photos of street violence from conflicts like World War II and May '68 coupled with digitally created images of Paris in a state of war. Other excitement has included a visit to Flaubert's childhood home in Rouen, with the divine vision of the original stuffed parrot Loulou; the vast and wonderful outdoor markets; the glories of raw milk cheese; and of course the massive caves of the BNF.