Tag Archive for french

Wesleyan in the News

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In this recurring feature in The Wesleyan Connection, we highlight some of the latest news stories about Wesleyan and our alumni.

Recent Wesleyan News

  1. Wall Street International Magazine: “Tula Telfair: Reverie”

Professor of Art Tula Telfair’s new exhibition of landscape paintings, “Reverie,” is presented Feb. 7 through March 30 at the Forum Gallery in New York. According to the article, “In the fourteen paintings that comprise ‘Reverie,’ she explores the inner reaches of her dreams and memories, taking us to places she has been or believes in so fully that she is able to portray and take the viewer to the essential, emotional center of every location as she recalls not only the place, but the sense of discovery, of wonder she felt as she found it.”

2. Hartford Courant: “Don’t Throw Away Your Shot: Wesleyan University Expands Hamilton Prize for Creativity Scholarship”

The Courant reports on news that beginning this year, three incoming students will have an opportunity to be recognized for their outstanding creative work under Wesleyan’s prestigious Hamilton Prize for Creativity. In addition to the grand prize—a four-year, full-tuition scholarship to attend Wesleyan—the University will also award two honorable mentions, along with $5,000 grants to support creative work. The announcement was also covered in Playbill and The Middletown Press.

3. NBC Connecticut: “National Girls and Women in Sports Day Encourages Girls to Get Out and Play”

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Wesleyan in the News

by  • 

In this recurring feature in The Wesleyan Connection, we highlight some of the latest news stories about Wesleyan and our alumni.

Recent Wesleyan News

  1. The New York Times: “Anthony Braxton Composes Together Past, Present and Future”

Anthony Braxton, the John Spencer Camp Professor of Music, Emeritus, is profiled. Among other ongoing projects, Braxton has spent much of the past four years working on his newest opera, “Trillium L,” which, he says, “is a five-day opera”—if it is ever performed.

2. Los Angeles Review of Books: “That Bit of Philosophy in All of Us”

Tushar Irani, associate professor of philosophy, associate professor of letters, is interviewed about his book, Plato on the Value of Philosophy: The Art of Argument in the Gorgias and Phaedrus.

3. The Guardian: “The Blake-Wadsworth Gallery of Reborn Dolls”

This original short story by Amy Bloom, the Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing and professor of the practice, English, follows a woman coping with her elderly mother’s memory loss.

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Curran Receives French Academy of Sciences Book Prize

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Andy Curran

Andy Curran

Andrew Curran, the William Armstrong Professor of the Humanities, has received the 2018 Prix Monsieur et Madame Louis Marin from the Académie des sciences d’outre-mer for his 2017 book L’Anatomie de la noirceur [The Anatomy of Blackness], which was published by Classiques Garnier.

This prize, which is given by the French Académie des Sciences d’outre-mer, recognizes an outstanding work in the social sciences. The Académie des Sciences d’outre-mer was founded in 1922 and has conferred the Prix Marin since 1976.

Curran’s book, a translation of his Anatomy of Blackness: Science and Slavery in an Age of Enlightenment, is the first comprehensive history of the birth of race in French thought. Curran is also professor of French and chair of Romance languages and literatures.

Wesleyan to Offer Muslim Studies Certificate

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muslimstyThe certificate, approved by the faculty on April 25, was proposed by steering committee members Peter Gottschalk, professor of religion, director of the Office of Faculty Career Development; Typhaine Leservot, associate professor of French studies, chair of the Romance Languages and Literatures Department, associate professor of letters; and Ioana Emy Matesan, assistant professor of government, tutor in the College of Social Studies.

“Students in the certificate program will gain an appreciation for the diversity among Muslims geographically, culturally, historically, and religiously,” Leservot said. “They will become accomplished in multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary approaches to the study of Muslim communities and their expressions and productions. In an American setting in which stereotypes reduce the more than 1 billion Muslims around the globe to singular caricatures, this represents no small accomplishment.”

The Muslim Studies Certificate will mirror an existing certificate in Jewish and Israeli Studies. Students must complete six designated courses in a range of areas, including contemporary society and practice; literary, artistic and musical studies; and historical inquiry. Courses involving Muslim studies already offered by more than a dozen faculty members will be included.

“This new certificate will highlight Wesleyan’s remarkable collection of faculty, courses, and resources for students interested in studying the lives of Muslims around the globe,” Gottschalk said. “Our faculty teach and conduct research in fields as diverse as Arabic, art history, College of Letters, English, French, government, history, music, religion, and Spanish. As Muslims become increasingly prominent in the United States, the number of faculty and students alike interested in Muslim studies has expanded.”

“The certificate aims to maximize students’ education in Muslim traditions by providing a structured program to guide their studies,” he added. “This will require students to diversify their exposure across disciplines and divisions, period and place.”

At a time when American Muslims are becoming increasingly marginalized, the certificate “will also help our non-Muslim students better understand a set of groups and traditions increasingly the target of disinformation and prejudice,” Matesan said. “Meanwhile, it would signal to our Muslim students and potential applicants that Wesleyan recognizes the diversity and significance of Muslim traditions.”

RL&L Presents Two Evenings of Theater

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Italian Play (4)Two evenings of theater will be presented by the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures this month. Both events are free and open to the public and will take place at the department’s common room at 300 High Street in Middletown, Conn.

Students from French 281 and Theater 291 will present three plays in French on Dec. 9 at 6 p.m.: “Tu honoreras ton père et ta mère”  or “You Will Honor Your Father and Mother,” by Samira Sedira; “Ah! La belle vie” or “Oh! The Good Life,” by Anne Giafferi; and “First Lady,” by Sedef Ecer. A reception will follow. The evening is sponsored by the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, the Thomas and Catharine McMahon Fund, and the Center for Pedagogical Innovation.

“Non tutti i ladri vengono per nuocere” or “The Virtuous Burglar,” by Dario Fo, will be performed entirely in Italian, with a plot summary in English, on Dec. 11 at 7 p.m. A reception will follow. The play is directed by Hannah Skopicki ’18, stage managed by Ryan Dobrin ’18, and produced by Camilla Zamboni. The evening is sponsored by the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and the Thomas and Catharine McMahon Fund.

Curran on Making Sense of His Father’s Death With Baudelaire

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Andy Curran

Andy Curran

Andrew Curran, professor of French, William Armstrong Professor of the Humanities, wrote a moving piece in The New York Times about the life-changing experience of his father’s sudden death.

Among other things, Curran describes the experience of seeing his father’s body for the last time and saying goodbye. He also recounts the trip to his parents’ house in North Carolina as a “chronology-less blur of grief and purifying laughter.”

He writes:

I still dream quite often about my father. He generally makes an appearance toward 2 or 3 in the morning, sometimes waving to me from his car (he loved taking extraordinarily long car trips) or, on other occasions, sitting just out of listening range at a crowded dinner party.

A psychologist might say these silent visits (we never speak in the dreams) reflect the imperious muteness of the deceased.

But I am mostly frustrated by the cruel joke that my mind continues to play on itself: In each of these dreams, I invariably have a family-related story on the tip of my tongue that I am unable to convey. One time I wanted to tell him about my daughter’s latest crew race, another time about something I had finally managed to publish.

This deep-seated need to crow to one’s parents is something that I had not really understood before the bailiff came slinking into my life. Mothers and fathers are irreplaceable sources of affection, to be sure, but they are also the most important audiences for our victories, be they great or small.

Poisson Discusses Simone de Beauvoir on France Culture Radio

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Catherine Poisson

Catherine Poisson

Associate Professor of French Catherine Poisson recently participated in a radio series on the French writer and intellectual Simone de Beauvoir. The series aired the week of August 17-21 on the France Culture network; it can be heard online here.

Taped in Paris, New York and Chicago, the Grande Traversée (the “great crossover”) show sought to reveal another Simone de Beauvoir, considering every stage of her life–from the dutiful daughter to the independent and engaged woman to, finally, breaking the taboo of old age. It showed her as passionate and multi-voiced—intimate and political, unleashed in her youth diaries and love letters, audacious in her novels, rigorous in her autobiography.

Appearing in multiple episodes in the series, Poisson discussed the personal and literary companionship of Beauvoir with Jean-Paul Sartre and Nelson Algren. She also talked about Beauvoir’s complex relationship with America, and read excerpts from America Day by Day, Beauvoir’s book recounting the four-month journey she took from coast to coast in the U.S., immersing herself in the country’s culture, customs, people and landscape.

8 Seniors Inducted into French Honors Society

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On May 5, eight students from the Class of 2014 were inducted into Pi Delta Phi in the Romance Languages and Literatures Department.

On May 5, eight students from the Class of 2014 were inducted into Pi Delta Phi in the Romance Languages and Literatures Department.

Pi Delta Phi, the National French Language Honors Society, is the oldest academic honor society for a modern foreign language in the United States and has more than 370 chapters.

Pi Delta Phi, the National French Language Honors Society, is the oldest academic honor society for a modern foreign language in the United States and has more than 370 chapters.

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Students Inducted into French Honor Society, Pi Delta Phi

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This year, 11 seniors were inducted into the French National Honor Society, Pi Delta Phi, on April 18. The students were recognized for their outstanding scholarship in the French language and literature. Pictured, from left to right, are inductees Rachel Tretter, Carina Kaufman, Sarah La Rue, Emma Mohney, Kelvin Kofie, Rachel Silton, Meera Suresh, Hahn Le, Alexandra Kinney.

Catherine Poisson, associate professor of romance languages and literatures, led the initiation ceremony. The society seeks to increase Americans' knowledge and appreciation of the cultural contributions of French-speaking countries, and to stimulate and encourage French and francophone cultural activities.

Rachel Tretter , in the foreground, signs the Pi Delta Phi book, making her membership official, while Poisson watches on.

Carina Kaufman, Sarah La Rue, Emma Mohney recite a pledge in French. Members of the society pledge to continue to promote and celebrate the French language and the Francophone culture throughout their life.

In foreground, Alexandra Kinney, and behind, from left, Rachel Silton, Meera Suresh and Hahn Le recite the pledge. (Photos by Charlotte Christopher '12)