Barbara Cassin, renowned classicist and philosopher, will be visiting Northwestern University in February at the invitation of Communications Studies, FIG, Classical Traditions Initiatives, and Critical Studies. Cassin is a research director of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Centre Léon Robin) and teaches at the Sorbonne (Paris IV). She is the author of, among other works, L’effet sophistique, Positions de la sophistique, La décision du sens: le livre gamma de la Métaphysique d’Aristote, and editor of, among other works, Le plaisir du parler, and Vocabulaire européen des philosophies.

FIG extends its heartiest congratulations to its newest faculty affiliate, Marianne Hopman of the Classics Department, whose recent dissertation defense at the Sorbonne earned her highest honors (mention très bien avec les félicitations unanimes du jury). Hopman also holds a doctorate from Harvard University, and was awarded the American Philological Society's John J. Winkler Memorial  Prize for the "best essay by a graduate student." The prize recognizes younger scholars who employ innovative methods. Prior to coming to the United States, Hopman studied at the École Normale Supérieure.

FIG faculty affiliate Dévora Grynspan, Political Science, and Director of the Office  for International Program Development, signed an agreement in October to create a student exchange program with the Université de Strasbourg I, Louis Pasteur. Grynspan negotiated the agreement during a visit to Strasbourg with FIG affiliate Samuel Stupp, Director, Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine, and Michael Loriaux, Co-Director, FIG. Sam Stupp subsequently traveled to Paris to deliver the Jean Perrin Lecture before the CRNS Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal. The new exchange targets students in the sciences.

Seventeen students have registered for the trinational, five-campus course on “Nationhood, Past and Present,” offered by Peter Hayes, History, and FIG co-director Michael Loriaux, Political Science, and supported by a generous grant from the Office Franco-Allemand pour la Jeunesse. Students will examine the emergence of nationhood in France and Germany, and debate the possible transcendance of nationhood through European integration and other forms of cross-border cooperation. Students will travel to Saarbrücken and Metz where they will be joined by students of the universities of these two cities and by students from Sciences Po and the University of Berlin, to debate the issue in a tri-national, five-campus student conference. They will then return to write research papers, interacting with their European partners electronically. Class discussions will take place weekly in French or German. Nine of the students are francophone, and eight germanophone.

In February, FIG will be collecting candidacies for its faculty exchange programs with the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and Sciences Po. These agreements make it possible for four NU faculty members to spend two to four weeks at either of these schools. The stipend varies from 3000 to 4000 euros. Both schools help with housing. Visitors are asked to present their research in faculty workshops and intervene in graduate seminars. The choice of visitors is made by our partner institutions, once FIG gathers and communicates the list of candidates (and vice versa). Faculty will be alerted to this opportunity by email.

In February, FIG will also be collecting candidacies for the dual Phd program with Sciences Po. This program provides two years of funding for the NU student and the opportunity to work with Sciences Po faculty and to earn the doctoral degrees of both institutions. FIG forwards the candidacies, among which Sciences Po decides on the admissions (and vice versa). Students will be alerted to this opportunity by email. Graduate students should also keep in mind the other Paris research and study programs: the exchanges with École Normale Supérieure, rue d’Ulm, and the École Normale Supérieure, Lyon, and the Paris Program on Critical Theory, directed by FIG faculty affiliate Samuel Weber. Students will be asked to submit applications to these programs at about the same time.

FIG and CICS will co-sponsor a new faculty research workshop on Europe and its Peripheries. The workshop seeks to assess the significance of European integration, for politics, for history, for “civilization,” by focusing on its peripheries, that is, on the “place” where “Europe” “stops,” where it attempts to, or must define and reveal itself in the way in which it confronts, gestures toward, identifies, negotiates with its Other. Peripheries, thus understood, manifest themselves not only geopolitically, but socially, culturally, and discursively. The Working Group hopes to attract many kinds of expertise, from political economy and diplomacy to philosophical, cultural-anthropological, sociological and literary analysis, francophone literature, critical studies, media analysis and migration studies.

FIG plans two causeries in Winter, both focused on the recent race riots in Paris. The first will take place on January 19, when Kara Murphy, ’06, will discuss recent efforts to address racial inequalities through some form of affirmative action. Kara interned at SOS Racisme in Fall, 2004. On February 16, Francesco Ragazzi, Visiting Scholar, and doctoral candidate at Sciences Po, will present and discuss a short documentary on Turkish immigrants in the Seine-St-Denis. As always, lunch is served. The FIG graduate group will continue to organize Cafés Philos, and will alert grad students by electronic flyers.

CHANGES AT FIG!

FIG and CICS enter into partnership. FIG and CICS have joined forces. Though FIG retains its institutional and financial autonomy, it acquires greater staff support through its arrangement with CICS as well as greater financial stability, making possible longer term planning of visits and events. Such planning has become increasingly important to FIG as we develop collaborative ties with French universities through new initiatives, described below. Our partnership with CICS also allows us to collaborate on a number of projects, such as “Europe and its Peripheries,” and in so doing bring greater resources and visibility to international studies at Northwestern. FIG also looks forward to helping CICS foster new area programs, taking advantage of the fact that, with the exception of PAS, there are no area-specific research centers at Northwestern. The absence of such centers offers an opportunity to conceptualize area studies in new ways, and promote cross-area collaboration on specific topics, which is rare among traditional style area centers.

Structural Reforms. FIG’s growth has made it necessary to reform its institutions in order to anchor FIG more firmly in the administrative structures of the university. FIG’s co-directors henceforth will serve four-year terms, and its steering committee members will serve three-year terms, in principle non-renewable. In this way FIG hopes to mobilize more effectively the energies and ideas of the many colleagues who work with us.

Departures and Arrivals. In application of the new statutes, Michal Ginsburg (French and Italian), co-founder and co-director of FIG since 1996, has handed over the co-direction of FIG to Souleymane Bachir Diagne (Philosophy). FIG owes its existence and success to Michal Ginsburg’s vision and energy. Her willingness to “hand over control” in application of the new reforms is a striking reflection of how much she has accomplished. Bachir has already brought a large bag of new ideas to take FIG in new directions, which is precisely the goal that the reforms seek to achieve. Valued members of the steering committee, David Van Zanten (Art History), Lee Huebner (Communications and Medill), and Ken Abbott (Law and Political Science), will also be stepping down, though they remain active and oft-consulted associates. They will be succeeded by Tom Cook (Sociology and Institute for Policy Research), Janet Pierrehumbert (Linguistics), and Sarah Maza (History).

HIGHLIGHTS FROM ’04-‘05

The past academic year was a busy one for FIG, with two conferences, many visits, and much negotiation with our French partners to develop new programs.

In October, FIG joined forces with the French Cultural Services, the School of Communication, the Alliance Française de Chicago, and other partners to organize a three-day event entitled American and French Theater Today: Trends and Practices, organized in parallel with "Playing French," Chicago's first festival of contemporary French plays. This event kicked off with a conference on Theater, Public and Actors in Contemporary Society, with the participation of Robert Schneider, Northern Illinois University; Jacques Téphany, Director of the Maison Jean Villar in Avignon; Michelle Leon, University of Kansas; and Richard Butch, Rider University. A Roundtable discussion followed, led by Martha Lavey, artistic director of Steppenwolf Theater; Craig Kinzer, Northwestern University; and Hedi Weiss, of the Chicago Sun-Times. A second conference focused on Trends and Currents in Theater Writing and Production, with the participation of Paolo Sanvito, University of Rome; T. Daniel, specialist in the art of mime; Michel Azama, playwright; Sabine Bossan, director of Entr'Actes-SACD; Philippa Wehle, SUNY Purchase; John Ireland, UIC; Judith Miller, NYU; and Marc Israël-Le Pelletier, playwright. A round-table followed, led by Ludovic Lagarde, director; Armand Gatti, playwright; Matei Visniec, playwright; and Michel Azama. The final conference was devoted to Translation, Adaptation, Programming, and featured Curt Columbus, Steppenwolf Theater; Loren Kruger, U. of Chicago; and Tom Sellar, Yale. The roundtable discussion was led by Jane Nicholls Sahlins, founder of the International Theater festival of Chicago; Bernard Sahlins, a founder of Second City; Susan Lipman, artistic director of the Performing Art Chicago; and Dominique Frot, actress.

In April, Ela Kotkowska, FIG graduate coordinator, organized a brilliant conference on French-American Poetry, featuring readings by American and French poets David St. John and Jean-Patrice Courtois; Christina Pugh and Emmanuel Laugier who have translated each others’ work. The reading was followed by a discussion on translation led by Robyn Schiff, Esther Tellermann, Pugh, and Laugier. The conference was co-sponsored by Cultural Services of the French Embassy in Chicago as part of the "French-American Poetry Week."

FIG also hosted visits by Antoine de Baecque, editor, Cahiers du Cinéma, who discussed François Truffaut, Étienne Balibar, Université de Paris VIII, who talked on the subject of “Constructing and Deconstructing the Universal,” Fernando Arrabal, playwright, whose presentation was titled Pánico y Patafísica, Jean-Pierre Nadal,Normale Sup, Olivier Assayas, theater director, Tristan Mirail, composer, Marilyn Nonken, pianist, Anne Pingeot, curator, Musée d’Orsay, Georges Didi-Huberman, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, who offered a series of lectures entitled “Image, Fact, and Fetish.” Speakers in FIG’s “Lunch and Causerie” series included Laurent Martin, Université de Versailles, Bruno Palier, Sciences Po, François Sergent, Libération, and Marco Oberti, Sciences Po.

ACTIVITIES IN FALL, 2005:

FIG will launch a number of new programs this Fall, including new exchange programs with French universities, and new research and educational programs on campus.

Dual PhD Program with Sciences Po. In October, 2004, Richard Descoings, Director of the Institut d’Études Politiques, and Andrew Wachtel, Dean of the Graduate School, signed an agreement creating a dual PhD program. Doctoral students of each school can now spend two years at the partner institution, taking classes and doing dissertation research under the guidance of a joint dissertation committee, and become eligible for the PhD degrees of both universities. It is the first joint PhD degree program ever created between an American and a French university. Present at the signing were Northwestern faculty members Fay Cook, Director, Institute for Policy Research, Tom Cook, Sociology, and Michael Loriaux, Co-Director, FIG. Lee Seymour, doctoral candidate in Political Science, will become Northwestern’s first dual PhD candidate, and Florent Blanc and Igor Stiks will represent Sciences Po. Lee Seymour is examining international legitimation of insurrectionary movements, Florent Blanc is looking at resistance to the “state of exception” created by the Patriot Act in the United States, and Igor Stiks is working on federalism in Europe. Francesco Ragazzi is a third Sciences Po doctoral student who will be on campus in Fall and Winter. Francesco is here on a Fulbright doing research on diasporas and their political power back home.

Faculty Exchanges. FIG has negotiated one-month faculty exchanges with Sciences Po and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. Ann Orloff (Sociology) and Ben Schneider (Political Science) will visit Sciences Po, and Nasrin Qader (French and Italian) will visit Hautes Études. Nilufer Gole of Hautes Études and Riva Kastoryano of Sciences Po, both experts on European Islam, will visit Northwestern. FIG will publicize the exchange in Winter Quarter and solicit applications from NU faculty.

Chicago will be host to an unusually large number of exhibits of French art in 2005-6. The Toulouse-Lautrec exhibit at the Art Institute will close October 10, but the exhibit "Paris: Photographs from a Time that Was," will run until November 6. The Art Institute will then organize an exhibit of the paintings of Girodet in Winter, and the Block Museum will feature an exhibit devoted to nineteenth century French caricature at the Block Museum. The Art History department, with support from FIG, will be organising seminars and other events around these exhibits featuring FIG associate Holly Clayson, Art History, Carol Armstrong, Princeton University, Crowe Visiting Professor in Fall, and Georges Didi-Huberman, Hautes Études, Crowe Visiting Professor in Spring. These events will help launch the creation of a French Research Group in the Art History Department, also co-sponsored by FIG.

Europe and its Peripheries. FIG and CICS will launch a new research program on “Europe and its Peripheries” in Winter Quarter. Participants will try to discern the meaning of Europe, its unification, and its emergence as a major player in global affairs by “locating” and analyzing its various peripheries, not merely geographic, but political, social, and cultural. FIG hopes to harness the expertise of colleagues in a wide range of fields, from philosophy, comparative literature, critical theory, and history, to sociology and political science. Interested colleagues and graduate students are encouraged to contact us.

Doctoral Student Exchanges: FIG welcomes two doctoral exchange students to Northwestern. Clémentine Bordelais is a specialist in English/American literature from the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon. Antoine Lentacker visits NU from the École Normale Supérieure, rue d’Ulm (Paris). Northwestern is represented in France by two advanced graduate students: Sebastian Rand, Philosophy, and Jake Matyataou, Political Science. Sebastian will be studying at the École Normale Supérieure, rue d’Ulm, and Jake at the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris.

Critical Theory: FIG congratulates students admitted to the Paris Program on Critical Theory: Touba Ghadessi, Art History, Peter Jaros, English, Robert Ryder, German and Comparative Literature, and Chris Skeaff, Political Science.

Distinguished Visitor: Ariane Chebel-d’Appollonia will visit Northwestern as the Roberta Buffett Visiting Professor of International Studies. Chebel-d’Appollonia is a senior researcher at CEVIPOF, a research institute of the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris, and is the author of Les racismes ordinaires and L’extrême droite en France de Maurras à Le Pen, and numerous articles that examine issues of political identity, discrimination, and racism. Until recently, Chebel-d’Appollonia directed the Centre Américain at Sciences Po and in this capacity oversaw the creation of many of the programs that our two schools now provide in partnership. Chebel-d’Appollonia will teach courses on European unification and immigration.

Trinational undergraduate course. The Office franco-allemand pour la jeunesse (OFAJ) was created in 1963 to foster reconciliation through youth exchanges. In the past several years it has sought to extend its activities to the United States, and FIG was successful in convincing OFAJ to choose NU as the site of its first efforts. About 25 French and German students visited NU in April 2004 to debate Franco-German-American divergences. In Winter and Spring, 2006, OFAJ will sponsor a new 2-quarter course on “Nationhood: Past and Future,” offered by Peter Hayes (History) and Michael Loriaux. During this course students will examine the emergence of nationhood in France and Germany, and debate the possible transcendance of nationhood through European integration and other forms of cross-border cooperation. Students will travel to Saarbrücken and Metz where they will be joined by students of the universities of these two cities and by students from Sciences Po and the University of Berlin, to debate the issue in a tri-national, five-campus student conference. They will then return to write research papers, interacting with their European partners electronically. Class discussion will be in French and German.

The French Interdisciplinary Graduate Group (FIGG), under the direction of Laura Reagan (Political Science) and Chike Jeffers (Philosophy), will launch a new series of Cafés Philosophiques for graduate students. The Cafés Philos will provide students an opportunity to discuss important texts by French thinkers in a setting that is not only interdisciplinary, but sympa et bien arrosé. The discussions will be led by Northwestern and visiting faculty. In Fall, David van Zanten (Art History), Bonnie Honig (Political Science), and Hannah Feldman (Art History) will police debate.

The Sciences Po doctoral students have inaugurated a grad student seminar on critical theory, supported by CICS. Interested students should contact Igor Stiks or Francesco Ragazzi.

FIG has scheduled three Causeries in Fall. Ariane Chebel d’Appollonia, Sciences Po, will speak in French on “Le racisme en France” in October. Kara Murphy ‘06 will examine Sciences Po’s experiment with affirmative action in November. Michael Loriaux, Political Science, will discuss France and the EU in the aftermath of the May 29 referendum, also in November.

FIG expresses its gratitude to its Graduate Student Assistants whose involvement is indispensable to the success of FIG events. Three grad students assisted FIG in 2004-6: Jake Matyataou (Political Science), Ela Kotkowska (French and Comp Lit), and Anh Ly (French and Comp Lit). Our assistants in 2005-6 are François Blumenfeld-Kouchner (French and Italian), and Clémentine Bordelais (ENS Lyon).

NU faculty interested in receiving information on FIG activities should send their email address to Michael Loriaux, at m-loriaux@northwestern.edu, and to Bachir Diagne, at s-diagne@northwestern.edu. Graduate students should send their address to François Blumenfeld-Kouchner at blumenfeld-kouchner@comcast.net.