11/14 Luke Sunderland: Medieval Libraries and the Construction of Knowledge

10/31 Barbara Cassin- Evaluation: Is Quality an Emergent Property of Quantity ?

10/24 Jonathan Strauss: Ghost Subjectivities & Thrownness Heidegger, Breton, and Nadja

10/6 SUNY Press: Proposal to Bookshelves by Dr. Beth Bouloukos

How can you write a proposal that will survive the trip from the mail room to the editor’s desk? Did you ever wonder what editors look for when reading proposals? What factors are the most important when editors decide to acquire a book? How do you know what press would be best for you? How do youfind an editor who will appreciate your work? What questions should you ask about the production and marketing of your manuscript? What are the different factors you should think about when writing your first, second, or tenth book?

Dr. Beth Bouloukos, Senior Acquisition Editor at SUNY Press, will address these issues in her talk about academic publishing in the humanities.Beth Bouloukos received her PhD in Hispanic Studies from Cornell University. She is a senior acquisitions editor at the State University of New York Press, where she develops the lists in education, Latin American and Iberian studies, sexuality studies, and women's and gender studies. The books she has acquired have won several prestigious awards. Beth has also taught Latin American literature, film, and cultural studies at Fairfield University in CT and the University at Albany-SUNY. She recently contributed an article to an edited volume on 1960’s gay pulp fiction that was published this past winter with the University of Massachusetts Press.

Lecture: Richard Millet, "Writing After Literature" (9/19, 2:30 p.m.)

Lecture: Andrea Frisch, "Moving History: Affect and National Memory after the French Wars of Religion" (9/12 at 2:30 p.m.) presented with the Theorizing Early Modern Studies (TEMS) collaboration

Emphasizing the enduring attachment to historiography's moral function
in post-Machiavelli France, this talk will focus on the ways in which
humanist national histories sought to "move" their readers before,
during and after the Wars of Religion.


Emphasizing the enduring attachment to historiography's moral function
in post-Machiavelli France, this talk will focus on the ways in which
humanist national histories sought to "move" their readers before,
during and after the Wars of Religion. The talk contrasts
historiographical examples from the sixteenth century that exploit the
rhetoric of tragedy (a technique with ancient precedents in Thucydides
and Tacitus) as a means both to subject people and events to a moral
judgment and to incite political action on the part of the reader, on
the one hand, to the writings of seventeenth-century royal
historiographers charged with translating the post-war monarchical
politics of "oubliance" into a historiographical practice, on the other.
The talk aims to show that even if these latter writers reshape what
had been primarily a historiographical discourse of the "memorable" into
something that appears closer to critical historiography, in which the
"memorable" gives way to the "true," they do so under the pressure of
the politics of reconciliation. As a result, in the period following the
civil wars, national history aimed less to move readers to political
action than it did to cultivate in them a shared horror of their
civil-war past, and thus to "move" them in a primarily affective sense
that ultimately encouraged political passivity.

The Benefits of Failing at French

The New York Times' Op-Ed contributor, William Alexander, shares his beneficial (and humorous) experience learning French in his piece, The Benefits of Failing at French.

A conversation with Emily Lechner: FRIT alumnus, class of 2006

<iframe width="450" height="253" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Woz0jnPj3qg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Event: Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Conference (4/17-18)

Faculty, staff, and students are invited to join us for the Second
Annual Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Conference (UIC), hosted by the
Departments of Asian Languages, and Literatures, German, Scandinavian
and Dutch, French and Italian Studies, Spanish and Portuguese Studies
and the Institute for Global Studies. 



***Of special interest for FRIT students***

Exploding the Margins, Friday, April 18th:

French panel, moderated by FRIT professor Susan Noakes.

3:30-5:00 pm

324 Coffman Memorial Union 





Keynote Speaker, Thursday, April 17th

12:30-1:30 pm

Taylor Krauss

Director, Voices of Rwanda 

Theater of Coffman Memorial Union




For More Information

Event: Figural Jews: Jewish Identity in Modern Literature and Philosophy (4/17-18)

Event: FRIT Graduate Student Symposium (4/18, 1:30-4pm)

Presenters:


Abou-Bakar Mamah, Department of French & Italian

Title: Ourika's Malaise.


Claire de Duras in Ourika spotlighted a Negress tortured in her soul by the contrast of the estranged worldly life of an aristocratic family. What arouses our intellectual curiosity is to understand Ourika's discomfort in another malaise, that of the aristocratic class that is hosting her and must pay the price of the Revolution. Many factors, evoked through the narrative subtlety of the writer, will guide us in giving our perspective on the issue.



Alexandre Dubois, Department of French & Italian

Title: Man in Revolt and Ecstatic Nihilism in Sade's Philosophy.

Through Nietzsche and Camus' philosophies, we will see how Sade's characters, by constantly being in revolt, are torn apart between two interdependent worlds: the ancient one and the new one. Evolving in a fictional land-the book in itself-these Sadists are praising Nihilism in order to contest the values and create their own, resulting in an endless Dionysiac confrontation where the Revolution is always in being. Having this in mind, we will note that the outcome is no longer relevant, for what matters now is the constant revolt. (presentation in French)

Agnès Schaffauser, Department of French & Italian
Title: Mal à L'Aise: Where Are the French Blacks?
This presentation proposes to tackle the place of French Blacks in France. Who are those Blacks of France? What is their place in French History? Or rather, what place has French society left for them? Considering contemporary debates, this talk aims at understanding why France happens to still feel "ill at ease" with its Black citizens.

Charlotte Soulpin, Department of French & Italian
Title: Looking in a Mirage: Visual Objects of Rememberance and Carcissism in Anne Godard's L'Inconsolable.
This presentation considers the process of identification for the mourning subject within a literary context. By focusing on the speech of the mother-character in mourning in Anne Godard's L'Inconsolable (2006), recent scholarship has argued for the pathological narcissism of the latter. This talk wishes to switch the emphasis and analyze the interaction between the mourning subject and visual objects of remembrance such as photography and film. Such an approach sheds light on the problematic aspects of diagnosing the mother-character as narcissistic and allows for a reconsideration of the question of identification through visual objects as a process between remembrance and decay.

We hope to see you there!

Lecture: Chérif Keïta, "Family Identity and the Making of An African Writer" (4/11, 3pm)

Event: Bakken Trio Concert-The French Connection (4/13, 4pm)

PR RELEASE: THE BAKKEN TRIO PRESENTS: THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Sunday, April 13th at 4 PM at MacPhail Center for Music (501 S. 2nd Street, Mpls.)

The Bakken Trio announces its last concert of the 2013-14 series Sowing the Seeds
of Beauty to be held Sunday, April 13th at 4 PM in MacPhail Center for Music’s

Antonello Hall.

Acclaimed pianist Judy Lin has curated a program called The French Connection
focussing on music from France in the pre-World War I era. Guest cellist


Wilhelmina Smith, a frequent soloist at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

and Boston Chamber Music Society, will perform Debussy’s Cello Sonata as well as

joining Bakken’s violinist Stephanie Arado and University of Minnesota viola professor

Korey Konkol to perform the Faure Piano Quartet in c minor. Ms. Arado collaborates

with Judy Lin on Ravel’s jazz-based Violin Sonata.

Maurice Ravel
Claude Debussy

Gabriel Faure

Violin Sonata

Cello Sonata


Piano Quartet in c minor

As part of their mentorship of young chamber musicians, the Bakken will present The
Fabulous Appoggiatura Quartet, winners of the 2014 SPCO Youth Chamber Music

Competition, at 3:15 PM, prior to the Trio concert at 4 PM.

The Bakken Trio chamber music experience is called gorgeous and intense,
innovative and accessible and warm and committed. The Bakken Trio series is one of

the longest standing chamber music series in Minneapolis. First a quartet in residence

at the Bakken Museum of Electricity, then a piano trio at the Southern, it is now a trio

of impresaria who each build concept-driven programs designed to showcase their

repertoire of new and old music.

Tickets are available at www.bakkentrio.org or by calling 612 374 3175 ($15-$25).

Contact Info:

Mina Fisher, Producing Artistic Director

fritznmina@gmail.com


2450 Girard Ave. South, Mpls., Mn. 55405

612 374 3175

Lecture: Caroline Ferraris-Besso, "This Factitious and Miraculous Element" (3/28, 2:30pm)

Event: 6th Annual Italian Film Festival, March 6-9 2014

The Italian Cultural Center is pleased to extend an invitation to attend its 6th annual Italian Film Festival. In collaboration with the Consulate General of Italy in Chicago, the ICC will bring prominent contemporary Italian feature films to the Twin Cities.

The film festival will be held March 6th through 9th, 2014. A variety of recently released Italian films will take moviegoers on a spectacular journey through the landscapes and stories of Italy and its people.

• Thursday, March 6th – Cuore Sacro (Sacred Heart) at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.
• Friday–Sunday, March 7th– 9th – All films are hosted by the Film Society of Minneapolis St. Paul
• Friday, March 7th – Opening Night Party that includes delicious appetizers, Italian wines (one glass included), live music and a live auction conducted by our guest, WCCO TV co-anchor Frank Vascellaro. The party begins at 6:30 PM at the Aster Café's beautiful River Room, right next door to the St. Anthony Main Theatre where the film Viva La Libertà (Long Live Liberty) will screen at 8:45 PM.
• Saturday, March 8th
  
• Verdi short documentary @ 2:30pm
  
• Teorema Venezia (The Venice Syndrome) documentary (limited private screening) @ 3:30pm
  
• Il Rosso e il Blu (The Red and the Blue) @ 5:45pm
  
• Cosimo e Nicole (Cosimo and Nicole) @ 8:30pm
  
• Sunday, March 9th
  
• Verdi short documentary @ 2:00pm
  
• Tutti i santi giorni (Every Blessed Day) @ 3:00pm
  
• Gli Equilibristi (Balancing Act) @ 5:30pm
  
• Che strano chiamarsi Federico (How Strange to be Named Federico) @ 8:00pm
  

All movies will be followed by a short discussion. All movies are shown in Italian with English subtitles. View descriptions and trailers of each movie here: mspfilmsociety.org/content/6th-annual-italian-film-festival

Tutoring Schedules: Spring 2015

See this post for the French and Italian tutoring calendars.

French and Italian tutoring is held in Folwell 1.