January 15, 2014
Teaching Assistant Program in France
The application for the 2015-2016 Teaching Assistant Program in France will be available in October 2014.
This program, sponsored by the French Ministry of Education and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, offers young Americans the opportunity to live and work in France for 7 months with a salary, teaching English to French students of all ages.
The program provides American Francophiles with teaching experience and first-hand knowledge of French language and culture, while also strengthening English-language instruction in French schools.
Over 1,100 positions are available each year for U.S. citizens and permanent residents in metropolitan France as well as in the overseas departments of French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique and La Réunion.
The application for the 2015-2016 program will be available in October 2014. Check at http://www.tapif.org
February 24, 2014
Images qui s’entrechoquent : promenades de Sammy Baloji entre les mémoires locales et l’imaginaire global
3:30pm in Pugh Hall, Room 210.
Join us for a talk given by Profession Bogumil Jewsiewicki on the artist, Sammy Baloji. February 24, 2014
March 11-12, 2014
International Symposium: French Music, Literature & Concert
Join us on March 11 & 12 for the 18th International Festival of Women Composers, followed by a day of panel presentations on French music and literature.
Tuesday, March 11, 7:30pm
Music Building, Room 101
18th International Festival of Women Composers: A special concert with a focus on French music & literature
Wednesday, March 12, 9am-5pm
Friends of Music Room
French Music and Literature: Panel presentations with keynote speaker that day
This event is free and open to all
A detailed list of presentations to be announced shortly along with a poster.
September 3, 2014
Philippe Létrilliart, Consul General of France in Miami, to visit UF
Smathers Library Room 100.
Philippe Létrilliart, Consul General of France in Miami will give a talk titled “France and Florida : A Long Standing Relationship” in Smathers Library Room 100.
The event is free and open to the public.
Semptember 20, 2014
Demography and the Challenge of Social Change in the African Sahel
Career Resource Center Library
Reitz Union, first floor
The Sahel Research Group and the France-Florida Research Institute are hosting a one-day Symposium titled “Demography and the Challenge of Social Change in the Sahel”.
Speakers come from different disciplines including demography, public health, geography and anthropology.
8:00-8:30 Coffee
8:30-8:45 Welcome and Introduction
8:45-10:15 Panel 1: Population Growth and Climate Change
Malcolm Potts, UC Berkeley, OASIS Initiative
Alisha Graves, OASIS Initiative
10:45-12:15 Panel 2: The Livelihood Challenge: Farmers and Pastoralists
Matt Turner, University of Wisconsin
Leif Brottem, Grinnell College
12:15-1:15 lunch break
1:15-2:45 Panel 3: Gender and Climate
Sarah McKune, University of Florida
Arame Tall, IFPRI
3:00-4:00 Roundtable: What Agenda for Research and Action?
The symposium will be followed by a series of workshops and lectures in Grinter as follows:
– Monday Sept. 22 (1-3pm Grinter 404): “Pastoral livelihoods and vulnerability to climate change” led by Dr Sarah McKune (UF, Epidemiology and UFIC)
– Tuesday Sept. 23 (11-1pm Grinter 471): “Demography, girls education and women’s empowerment in the Sahel” led by Alisha Graves (Associate Director, OASIS Initiative)
– Wednesday Sept.24 (1-3pm Grinter 404): “Development, food security and environmental change” by Renata Serra (UF, Center for African Studies)
– Friday Sept. 26 (11:45-1pm Grinter 471): “Managing Salafi Activism in areas of limited statehood: Evidence from Mali and Niger” presented by Sebastian Elischer (University of Lunenburg and GIGA, Germany).
The symposium and workshops are part of a wider initiative called Development, Security and Climate Change in the Sahel, which involves cooperation between UF, Sciences Po (France) and UCAD (Dakar, Senegal). Five graduate students (two from Sciences Po and three from UCAD) will be visiting UF between Sept. 20-26.
For more information, please contact Dr Renata Serra (rserra@ufl.edu), Prof. Leonardo Villalon (villalon@ufl.edu), or Dr Sarah McKune (smckune@ufl.edu).
November 7, 2014
A propos d’un été / About a summerNo
FLG 230, 5:10-7:15pm
PROPOS D’UN ÉTÉ / ABOUT A SUMMER
France | 2012 | 127 minutes | vf
un film de / directed by : Hernán Rivera Mejia (Pérou)
For more information please contact
Dr. Sylvie Blum-Reid (Languages Literatures and Cultures)
sylblum@ufl.edu
« Jean Rouch : Autrement dit, nous avons voulu faire un film d’amour et on aboutit à un film d’indifférence, en tout cas dans lequel… non, pas d’indifférence…
Edgar Morin : non, les gens réagissent…
Jean Rouch : de réaction et de re-action qui n’est pas forcement une réaction sympathique…
Edgar Morin : c’est la difficulté de communiquer quelque chose. Nous sommes dans le bain…
Jean Rouch et Edgar Morin sur les Champs-Élysées, sous la pluie, se disent au revoir pendant qu’on entend la question leitmotiv : « Est-ce que vous êtes heureux ? Êtes-vous heureux, monsieur ? ». Sur cette conclusion empreinte de déception, les auteurs – le sociologue Edgar Morin et le cinéaste-ethnologue Jean Rouch – signaient en 1960 la fin de leur aventure Chronique d’un été.
Une aventure cinématographique et humaine qui marquera fortement, par ses innovations techniques et narratives, le cinéma français, et le cinéma tout court. Avec une dynamique de travail assez révolutionnaire pour l’époque, une sorte de « work in progress » mis en abîme, des personnes d’âge et d’origine diverses s’expriment, parfois sur le ton de la confession, sur les questions de la vie, l’amour, le travail, la réalisation personnelle, la soumission ou la révolte, le bonheur en fin de compte.
Sur le plan éthique ou déontologique, le film laissera aussi de fortes empreintes : on n’avait jamais auparavant filmé des personnes s’exprimant sur leur vie de façon si intense et sincère sans tomber dans le voyeurisme. Et cela parce que les auteurs n’étaient pas seulement des meneurs de jeu, ils étaient également impliqués en tant que protagonistes dans la quête, les questionnements et les débats tout au long du film.
Porté par l’idée que ce film, compte tenu de toutes les questions qu’il soulève tant sur le plan cinématographique que sociologique se révèle d’une actualité surprenante, j’ai voulu cinquante ans plus tard revoir avec les mêmes protagonistes cette expérience unique baptisée par ses auteurs « cinéma vérité ».
On retrouve Nadine Ballot, Marceline Loridan, Jacques Gautrat, Edgar Morin et Jean-Pierre Sergent. Dans un premier moment, on essaie de parachever leurs portraits aujourd’hui, à l’écart de Chronique. Puis, progressivement et toujours à travers leurs témoignages, on va rentrer dans l’histoire du film : leur participation, leurs souvenirs, l’influence qu’il a eue dans leur vie, et la nature du regard qu’ils portent aujourd’hui sur le film, et sur eux-mêmes dans le film.
Enfin, pour mieux cerner la facture du film, on va intégrer les témoignages de Nena Baratier, une des monteuses, du directeur de production André Heinrich, et de Michel Brault, opérateur canadien, auteur des plus belles et surprenantes séquences de Chronique.
Dans un aller retour permanent entre présent et passé, ces témoignages vont se confronter mutuellement selon ce qu’ils évoquent, comme dans un jeu de miroirs, mais de miroirs brisés dont chaque morceau refléterait seulement une petite partie, dans une autre perspective ou sous un angle différent.
Ce film offre, sur le plan humain, les portraits de fortes personnalités, singulières chacune à sa manière. Et sur le plan cinématographique, il pose l’éternelle question concernant le réel : comment l’approcher ? Comment lui être fidèle ? Jusqu’où peut-on s’aventurer dans la mise en scène ? En somme, comment l’acte de filmer influe ou agit sur le réel.
Hernán Rivera Mejia
ABOUT A SUMMER
« Jean Rouch: We wanted to make a film of love, but it’s turned out to be an impersonal kind of film, or if not impersonal…
Edgar Morin: No, people react…
Jean Rouch: One which elicits reactions, which aren’t necessarily sympathetic.
Edgar Morin: It’s a job getting anything across. We’re in for trouble… «
Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin are walking on the Champs-Elysées, saying goodbye under the rain, while one hears the famous question: “Are you happy? Are you happy, Sir?”
With this conclusion full of disappointment, the authors – sociologist Edgar Morin, ethnologist and filmmaker Jean Rouch – co-signed, in 1960, the end of their adventure “Chronicle of a Summer”.
This cinematic and human adventure has, for its technical and narrative innovations, profoundly shaped the French cinema, and cinema itself. In this dynamic and revolutionary work – kind of a work in progress mis-en-abyme – people of various ages and backgrounds reveal themselves, sometimes in a confession mode, on the various issues of life: love, work, personal achievement, submission or rebellion, and ultimately happiness.
On the ethical level, the film left a strong impression: never before had people been filmed speaking about their lives so intensely and sincerely, without falling into voyeurism. This is because the authors were not just playmakers; they were inherently engaged as protagonists, in the quest, questions and debates they were filming.
The idea that this film, for the sociological and cinematic issues it raises, is surprisingly contemporary, led me to revisit, forty years later, with its protagonists, this unique experience which was coined by its authors: cinéma-vérité.
Catching up with Nadine Ballot, Marceline Loridan, Jacques Gautrat, Edgar Morin and Jean-Pierre Sergent, the film first tries to complete their portraits today, away from Chronicle. Then, gradually, and always through their testimonies, we get into the story of the film: their participation, their memories, the influence it had on their life, their perception of the film today, and of themselves in the film.
Finally, to better understand the making of the film, we integrate the testimonies of Nena Baratier, one of the editors, of Andre Heinrich, the production manager, and Canadian cinematographer Michel Brault, who shot the most beautiful and surprising sequences of Chronicle.
Constantly shifting between the present and the past, these testimonies confront each other. Like a game of mirrors – of broken mirrors – each piece only reflects a small part, from another perspective or in a different angle.
On a human level, this film shows the portraits of strong personalities, each unique in its own way. On a cinematic level, the film raises the eternal question of the real: how to approach it? How we can be faithful to it? How far can we go in the mise-en-scène? In short, how the act of filming influences or affects the real.
Hernán Rivera Mejia
Director’s bio:
Hernán Rivera Mejia est né en 1956 au Pérou. Il étudie le cinéma dans son pays et il y réalise quelques courts métrages et documentaires avant de venir en France en 1986 pour suivre les cours en cinéma et anthropologie à l’université de Nanterre, où il obtient un DEA.
Filmographie : El último sueño (1975) – En la calle (1976) – Y después qué ?(1981) – Désirée (1989) Mention spéciale du Jury au 8e Bilan du Cinéma Ethnographique, Paris, 1989 – Tant métro poli (1997) – Wayana. Entre deux rives (1997) – Te quiero Pérou. Manuel Poirier (2000).
November 10, 2014
Decolonizing the French Republic
4pm, Dauer Hall 219
Françoise Vergès teaches at the Center for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths College, University of London. She has written on memory, slavery, postcolonial theory, the economy of predation, creolization, museography, migration, Frantz Fanon and Césaire. She was the president of the Committee for the memory of slavery (Comité pour la Mémoire et l’Histoire de l’Esclavage) in Paris from 2009 to 2012 and has contributed to events such as Documenta 11 in 2002, and the Paris triennial in 2012. She organized exhibitions on slavery and women, worked with artists such as Isaac Julien, Yinka Shonibare and Arnaud Ngatcha and has made documentaries on Césaire and Maryse Condé.
Selected bibliography
L’homme prédateur, ce que nous enseigne l’esclavage sur notre temps (Paris: Albin Michel Bibliothèque Idées, 2011).
Fractures postcoloniales, with Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard and Achille Mbembe (Paris: La Découverte, 2010)
Nègre, je suis, Nègre je resterai. Entretiens avec Aimé Césaire, (Paris: Albin Michel 2007)
La colonisation française, with Nicolas Bancel et Pascal Blanchard (Toulouse : Les Essentiels Milan, 2007)
De l’Esclave au citoyen, with Philippe Haudrère (Paris: Gallimard Découvertes, 1998).
La mémoire enchaînée: Questions sur l’esclavage, (Paris: Albin Michel, 2006).
La République coloniale. Essai sur une utopie, with Pascal Blanchard and Nicolas Bancel (Paris: Hachette Littérature, collection Pluriel, 2006)
Amarres. Créolisations india-océanes with Jean-Claude Carpanin Marimoutou (Paris : Éditions Ka, 2003, L’Harmattan : 2005).
Racines et itinéraires de l’unité réunionnaise (La Réunion : Graphica-Région Réunion, 2003).
Abolir l’esclavage.Une utopie coloniale, les ambiguïtés d’une politique humanitaire (Paris: Albin Michel, 2001).
Monsters and revolutionaries. Colonial family romance and “métissage” (Duke University Press, 1999).
November 17, 2014
Poétique et primitivisme
4pm 215 Dauer Hall
Rodney Saint-Éloi is a Haitian poet and novelist living in Montréal. He is the founder of Editions Mémoire in Haiti and Mémoire d’encrier, a publishing house based in Montréal. He is the author of J’avais une ville d’eau, de terre et d’arc-en-ciel heureux, J’ai un arbre dans ma pirogue, Haïti Kenbe la!, Récitatif au pays des ombres, Jacques Roche, je t’écris cette lettre
Sébastien Doubinsky is a bilingual French writer. He has published several novels and collections of poetry. His novels, The Babylonian Trilogy (Goodbye Babylon in the US), The Song of Synth and Absinth have been published in the US. Two of his poetry collections, Mothballs and Spontaneous Combustions, have been published in the UK. He currently teaches in the department of French at the University of Aarhus in Denmark.