Columbia Maison Française

Join us for a talk about the autonomy of anger by Laurent Jeanpierre.

France is experiencing a multiplication of protest movements, of which the so-called Yellow Vest movement in 2018-2019 is only the most original. I participated in this movement and observed directly or indirectly other movements of the last decade as well as the grievances collected by the French government from its population during the yellow vest movement (in "Cahiers" that recalled, albeit quite differently, those of the French Revolution).

Laurent Jeanpierre is political scientist, Professor of Political Science at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, and co-author of Une Histoire Globale des Révolutions.

📅 Date: January 25, 2025
🕡 Time: 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
📍 Location: East Gallery, Maison Française, Buell Hall.

RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-autonomy-of-anger-ten-years-of-french-protests-tickets-1137967684979?aff=oddtdtcreator

The Columbia campus is currently open only to Columbia-affiliated guests (with a CUID). Outside guests who register to attend a public event will be allowed to enter campus for the event if we provide their names and emails to Public Safety the day before. Please be sure to register for any events at least 48 hours ahead of time and you will get an email from [email protected] with a unique QR code giving you access to the campus. Don't forget to bring your ID with you.

Photograph by Joris van Gennip

Printemps Cinema: Celebrating Women Directors -

Columbia Maison Francaise Newsletter Upcoming events and French Culture Chez Vous

Join us for a discussion about Louise Dupin’s Work on Women and the Forgotten Feminist Enlightenment.

In the 1740s, Louise Dupin embarked on a project that would never see the light of day. Her “work on women,” as an heir later labeled it, would be the French Enlightenment's most important, and most neglected, feminist analysis of inequality. On the one hand, Dupin analyzes the mechanisms of men’s dominance. "Masculine vanity," she claims, aggrandizes men, diminishes women, and distorts all realms of knowledge, such that modern scientists incorporate old notions of women's weakness into new understandings of the body; historians denigrate female rulers or erase them altogether; legal scholars disenfranchise women through self-serving interpretations of Roman law; boys learn entitlement in school and men assert superiority in conversation. On the other hand, Dupin endeavored to bring to light evidence of women’s natural equality to men, of power exercised by queens and regents the world over, of self-determination once enjoyed by whole communities of French nuns, and of property rights once held by married women.

Angela Hunter is Professor of English at the University of Arkansas - Little Rock. �Rebecca Wilkin is Professor of French at Pacific Lutheran University.

This event is co-sponsored by the Maison Francaise and Department of Philosophy.

📅 Date: January 20, 2025
🕡 Time: 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
📍 Location: East Gallery, Maison Française, Buell Hall.

RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/louise-dupins-work-on-women-and-the-forgotten-feminist-enlightenment-tickets-1137962449319?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

The Columbia campus is currently open only to Columbia-affiliated guests (with a CUID). Outside guests who register to attend a public event will be allowed to enter campus for the event if we provide their names and emails to Public Safety the day before. Please be sure to register for any events at least 48 hours ahead of time and you will get an email from [email protected] with a unique QR code giving you access to the campus. Don't forget to bring your ID with you.

Join us for a FREE SCREENING of BYE BYE TIBERIAS in the presence of director Lina Soualem.

Her director’s statement:

“We don’t belong to a place; we belong to the story of the place.”

By taking me each summer to her native Palestinian village, it seems that my mother wanted me to bathe in a pool of family stories and collective memory. In the film, I embody the fourth generation of women present on screen, and the first to be born outside of Palestine. I carry in me the memories of the women in my family and the history of forced displacement and dispossession they faced. By telling their story, I intend to reclaim the personal, historical and visual legacies that I have inherited. I question these legacies, confront them and intertwine them together in order to answer a question that haunts me: how does a woman find her place when caught between worlds?

The stories unfolding are not simply a matter of transmission from woman to woman or from mother to daughter. The stories passed on by these women weave the history of a people deprived of its identity and constantly bound to reinvent itself. This is a story about vanished places, life-changing experiences, and scattered memories.

By making this film, I follow the same path as the women in my family. I continue what they have started. In fact, passing on our story has always been central. It is through storytelling that we break free. With our words, we fight against erasure. That is why I feel a constant urge to share these stories. To seize them before they vanish into oblivion, to preserve the images of a world rapidly disappearing. Images that stand as proof of a denied existence.

In French and Palestinian Arabic with English Subtitles�

Screening followed by a Q&A with Director Lina Soualem and Thomas Dodman

📅 Date: February 14, 2025
🕡 Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
📍 Location: East Gallery, Maison Française, Buell Hall.

RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/screening-of-bye-bye-tiberias-bye-bye-tiberiade-tickets-1138448252369?aff=oddtdtcreator

The Columbia campus is currently open only to Columbia-affiliated guests (with a CUID). Outside guests who register to attend a public event will be allowed to enter campus for the event if we provide their names and emails to Public Safety the day before.

The devastating fire at Notre-Dame de Paris on April 15, 2019 reminded the world of the significance of humanity’s built heritage and inspired a resolute commitment to rebuild. The extraordinary project that restored the beloved French landmark in just five years marks a triumph in preservation and a renewed commitment to safeguarding our shared cultural heritage.

Following Notre-Dame's reopening in December 2024, get a behind-the-scenes look at the revival of this icon of French medieval architecture with World Monuments Fund’s annual Paul Mellon Lecture on March 12, taking place this year as part of the organization’s 60th anniversary program.

Special guests will include Philippe Villeneuve, chief architect for historic monuments in France, including Notre-Dame de Paris; Barry Bergdoll, Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History and Archaeology professor of art history and archaeology at Columbia University; Bas Smets, landscape designer; and Patrick Malloy, dean at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, in conversation with WMF President and CEO Bénédicte de Montlaur.

Co-presented with the WWorld Monuments Fundand CCathedral of St. John the Divine, NYC this event will share insights from what has become the largest preservation project of the century and consider how sacred and historic sites around the world can learn from each other about preventing and rebuilding after a fire.

This event is free and open to the public with an RSVP. The event will also be livestreamed for those wishing to join us from home. The video will be available on this page and on the Cathedral's YouTube channel.

The Paul Mellon Lecture at World Monuments Fund is made possible, in part, by the Paul Mellon Education Fund.
This program is co-presented by World Monuments Fund (WMF), the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and the Columbia University Maison Française and is part of a national lecture series presented by WMF with events in San Francisco, Palm Beach, and New York City. Explore upcoming events at wmf.org/events

📅 Date: March 12, 2025
🕡 Time: 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
📍 The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, 1047 Amsterdam Avenue at 112th Street, New York, NY 10025

Register here: https://host.nxt.blackbaud.com/registration-form/?formId=4cb3eef6-3159-4d60-ad15-5691be3d3260&envId=p-4oUZlJfmHE6WkLxXe6z5sg&zone=usa

Join us for a FREE SCREENING of BYE BYE TIBERIAS in the presence of director Lina Soualem.

In her early twenties, Hiam Abbass left her native Palestinian village to pursue her dream of becoming an actress in Europe, leaving behind her mother, grandmother, and seven sisters. Thirty years later, her filmmaker daughter Lina returns with her to the village, questioning for the first time her mother’s bold choices, her self-imposed exile, and the profound influence the women in their family have had on both their lives.

Set between past and present, Bye Bye Tiberias weaves together contemporary imagery, family footage from the 1990s, and historical archives to portray four generations of courageous Palestinian women. Through their enduring bonds, they preserve their stories and legacy, despite exile, dispossession, and heartbreak.

“This urgent personal documentary of longing, displacement and connection illuminates Palestinian family archives at a time when these documents and stories are being erased in the ongoing genocide. Cinematically weaving generations of matrilineal history with that of her motherland, we honor filmmaker Lina Soualem for her courage and artistry.”�

In French and Palestinian Arabic with English Subtitles�

Screening followed by a Q&A with Director Lina Soualem and Thomas Dodman

📅 Date: February 14, 2025
🕡 Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
📍 Location: East Gallery, Maison Française, Buell Hall.

RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/screening-of-bye-bye-tiberias-bye-bye-tiberiade-tickets-1138448252369?aff=oddtdtcreator

The Columbia campus is currently open only to Columbia-affiliated guests (with a CUID). Outside guests who register to attend a public event will be allowed to enter campus for the event if we provide their names and emails to Public Safety the day before. Please be sure to register for any events at least 48 hours ahead of time and you will get an email from [email protected] with a unique QR code giving you access to the campus. Don't forget to bring your ID with you.

Join us for the next screening on the theme of "In the Middle: Women Documenting Arab Struggles", on March 6, the US Premiere of From Abdul To Leila.�Produced by Columbia Maison Française and co-sponsored by the Center for Palestine Studies and Middle East Institute.

RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/from-abdul-to-leila-tickets-1228104065319?aff=oddtdtcreator

Printemps Cinema: Free Screenings and Director Talks -

Columbia Maison Francaise Newsletter Upcoming events and French Culture Chez Vous

We are delighted to invite you to a special three-day conference, taking place from Thursday, April 3 to Saturday, April 5, to celebrate the remarkable academic career of Professor Souleymane Bachir Diagne on the occasion of his retirement from the Departments of French and Philosophy at Columbia University.

The event will begin with a Keynote Lecture by Professor Diagne on the evening of Thursday, April 3. It will continue on Friday, April 4, and Saturday, April 5, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM each day. Colleagues and former students from Africa, Europe, and the U.S. will present talks reflecting on Professor Diagne’s impactful research, writings, and teaching. These contributions will later be compiled into a festschrift published in his honor.
More information here: https://lnkd.in/ecSHqVEk

Thursday, April 3, 6:30-8:00 PM
In Praise of the Universal
Keynote Lecture by Souleymane Bachir Diagne
Location to be announced
RSVP HERE https://lnkd.in/epr2Andk

Friday, April 4 and Saturday April 5, 10:00 AM-4:00 PM
Celebrating the work of Souleymane Bachir Diagne
With contributions by:
Salim Abdelmadjid, Mouhamadou El Hady BA, Alioune Bah, Etienne Balibar, Akeel Bilgrami, Ali Benmakhlouf, Françoise Blum, Charles Bowao, Jean-Godefroy Bidima, Hamid Dabashi, Daniel Dauvois, Vishakha N. Desai, Penelope Lisa Deutscher, Mamadou Diouf, Thomas Dodman, Pierre Force, Lewis R. Gordon, Philippe Gouët, Chike Jeffers, Nadia Yala Kisukidi, Anais Maurer, Ramatoulaye Diagne Mbengue, bado ndoye, Nasrin Qader, Emmanuelle Saada, Felwine Sarr, Achille Varzi, Gary Wilder, Frédéric Worms, and Souleymane Bachir Diagne.
East Gallery, Maison Française, Buell Hall
RSVP HERE https://lnkd.in/eDgcjuef

This conference is organized by Columbia Maison Française and the Department of French at Columbia University, with additional support provided by Columbia’s Institute of African Studies, Office of the Dean of Humanities, Department of Philosophy, Committee on Global Thought,
Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities, Alliance Program, Arts and Sciences, Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies, and by Villa Albertine, the French Institute for Culture and Education, Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States

Please mark your calendars—we hope you will join us for this meaningful celebration!

Souleymane Bachir Diagne: Mark Your Calendar -

Columbia Maison Francaise Newsletter Upcoming events and French Culture Chez Vous

Join us for a Conversation with Pierre Hazan and Jean-Marie Guéhenno.

After many years in the little-known world of back-channel mediation, helping sworn adversaries to prevent, manage or resolve conflict, Pierre Hazan reexamines in his book the practical and ethical dilemmas that affected his work in Bosnia, Ukraine, the Sahel and the Central African Republic, and reflects more generally on the evolving conditions affecting mediation and conflict resolution. Should governments talk to terrorists? Should war criminals be included in dialogue? When trying to bring peace, should we “negotiate with the devil”? In this discussion Hazan will also consider how mediation needs to adapt to new forms of war (cyber), new technologies (AI), and a new geopolitical environment, characterized by more conflicts, less multilateralism, less of a role played by the UN, and less adherence to International Humanitarian Law?

📅 Date: February 6, 2025
🕡 Time: 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
📍 Location: East Gallery, Maison Française, Buell Hall.

RSVP here: https://maisonfrancaise.columbia.edu/events/negotiating-devil-inside-world-armed-conflict-mediation

The Columbia campus is currently open only to Columbia-affiliated guests (with a CUID). Outside guests who register to attend a public event will be allowed to enter campus for the event if we provide their names and emails to Public Safety the day before. Please be sure to register for any events at least 48 hours ahead of time and you will get an email from [email protected] with a unique QR code giving you access to the campus. Don't forget to bring your ID with you.

This Graduate Student Conference is organized by the French Graduate Student Association and the Department of French at Columbia University

In recent years many works of Francophone literature, especially written by second-generation immigrants —such as Alice Zeniter or Faïza Guène to cite a few— highlight the many fractures encountered in the postcolonial francophone world, testifying to the difficult experiences of the “double culture.” Throughout this conference, we will examine the question of (re)conciliation, notably through a postcolonial lens, echoing the complexity of the French-speaking world and its history, its diversity and richness, and considering the (im)possibilities of (re)conciliation in the face of colonial history and the current political context. Can you truly reconcile with France? How can we work from and within this divide?

RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/re-conciliation-tickets-1141746567719?aff=oddtdtcreator

The Columbia campus is currently open only to Columbia-affiliated guests (guests with a CUID). However, outside guests who register to attend a public event will be allowed to enter campus for the event if we provide their names and emails ahead of time.

Please be sure to register for any events at least 48 hours ahead of time to ensure

Join us for a discussion in French with Kaoutar Harchi

Introduction by Renate Mattar

In this lecture, Kaoutar Harchi will explore what it means to "write of the self" — and to write about one’s people — in a French postcolonial framework. In her talk, she will therefore adopt a reflexive approach, focusing on her autobiographical novel Comme nous existons (As We Exist: a Postcolonial Autobiography). She will investigate three particular times: the time before the writing, the process of writing itself, and the time that follows the writing process. In her talk Kaoutar Harchi will give particular attention to the economies of affect underlined in the narrative of Comme nous existons. These affects are perfectly political: especially the quest for appeasement, the attachment to one’s anger, the fear of forgetting, and the demand for justice.
Kaoutar Harchi is a French sociologist whose work focuses on political relations between speciesism, racism, and sexism in postindustrial societies. Comme nous existons was recently translated into English by Other Press under the title As We Exist: a Postcolonial Autobiography. Her other books include A l’Origine notre père obscur, Ainsi l’animal et nous, and L’Ampleur du saccage.

This talk is presented as the keynote lecture in the conference on the theme of “(Re)-conciliation?” organized by the French Graduate Student Association on January 30-31, 2025.

📅 Date: January 30, 2025
🕡 Time: 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
📍 Location: East Gallery, Maison Française, Buell Hall.

RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-writing-of-the-self-or-the-effort-toward-peace-tickets-1137927274109?aff=oddtdtcreator

The Columbia campus is currently open only to Columbia-affiliated guests (guests with a CUID). However, outside guests who register to attend a public event will be allowed to enter campus for the event if we provide their names and emails ahead of time.

Please be sure to register for any events at least 48 hours ahead of time to ensure

Join us for a the U.S. avant-première of NO CHAINS NO MASTERS in presence of film director Simon Moutaïrou,

In French with English subtitles�

Ni Chaînes ni maîtres (2024, 98 min) takes place in 1759 on the Isle de France, the French colony now known as Mauritius. In this fictional story, Massamba and his daughter Mati, enslaved people on Eugène Larcenet’s plantation, live in fear and toil. One night, Mati flees in search of a community of fugitive slaves – known as maroons – who are said to live free in the greatest secrecy. The plantation owner hires a slave hunter, Madame la Victoire, to track Mati down, and Massamba has no choice but to escape as well.

No Chains No Masters marks his directorial debut and is the first film about slavery in France in 35 years.

Simon Moutaïrou shared his perspective on the transformative power of cinema:�“Cinema is a powerful art form! It can hit you in the gut and make your hair stand on end. When everything aligns, you leave the theater a little changed. Cinema has the ability to make history come alive. As a Franco-Beninese filmmaker, I was deeply affected by the idea of slavery as a teenager. The thought that men and women were once considered mere property, no different from a table or a coat rack as outlined in the Code Noir, made me angry. However, the idea of resistance and marronage, of men and women breaking their chains, gave me immense pride.
I believe we all must embrace the spirit of marronage. Whether it’s societal oppression or personal constraints, be it due to race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion, we must break free. There are still chains holding us back, and it’s time to shatter them."
Please be aware some of the content is emotionally charged and is sensitive in nature.

RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/us-avant-premiere-no-chains-no-masters-ni-chaines-ni-maitres-tickets-1137945889789?aff=oddtdtcreator

📅 Date: February 3, 2025
🕡 Time: 6:30 PM - 9:00 PM
📍 Location: East Gallery, Maison Française, Buell Hall.

The Columbia campus is currently open only to Columbia-affiliated guests (guests with a CUID). However, outside guests who register to attend a public event will be allowed to enter campus for the event if we provide their names and emails ahead of time. Please be sure to register for any events at least 48 hours ahead.

Join us for the annual AATF Workshop for Teachers of French presented by the Columbia Department of French and the Metropolitan Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of French.

Pédagogie, langue et société : perspectives croisées sur les interrogations d’aujourd’hui et de toujours en cours de français

This year’s free, annual workshop for French teachers, co-hosted by the Columbia French Department and the Metropolitan Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of French, will feature presentations by Columbia faculty on effective strategies and tips for teaching French.

This workshop will be in French. It is open to all who RSVP.

📅 Date: January 25, 2025
🕡 Time: 9:30 AM - 2:00 PM
📍 Location: East Gallery, Maison Française, Buell Hall.

The Columbia campus is currently open only to Columbia-affiliated guests (guests with a CUID). However, outside guests who register to attend a public event will be allowed to enter campus for the event if we provide their names and emails ahead of time.

Please be sure to register for any events at least 48 hours ahead of time to ensure your name is on the list, and bring your ID with you.

Join us for a Presentation in French With Claire Zalc.

Historian Claire Zalc presents “Sur les lieux de Georges Perec,” a four-part documentary podcast she created for France Culture that traces chapters in the life of French author Georges Perec. This fascinating historical and literary adventure is told through four places that held special meaning in Perec’s life: la rue Vilin in the Belleville neighborhood of Paris where he grew up; the Moulin d’Andé in Normandy, a literary community where he wrote and fell in love; Ellis Island, associated for him with exile and his Jewish identity; and Lubartów in Poland, the birthplace of his father he barely knew. Zalc’s poignant, expertly researched radio history explores Perec’s life and writings against a larger history of family ties, immigration, and persecution, drawing on archives, oral testimonies, readings, and visits to these special places in Perec’s life.

Zalc will share and discuss several excerpts of “Sur les Lieux de Georges Perec” and reflect on the unique opportunities and challenges of telling history through an aural documentary rather than a book -- using words, voices, sounds, and music.

RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/scenes-from-the-life-of-georges-perec-a-radio-history-tickets-1137913101719?aff=oddtdtcreator

Listen to the Sur les lieux de Georges Perec here: https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/serie-sur-les-lieux-de-georges-perec

Claire Zalc is also presenting the inaugural Jack Abel Lecture in Antisemitism on Monday, January 27, 2025 at 4:00 PM, titled "Family Separation and Antisemitism: Reconstructing the Migrations of a Jewish Sibling from Poland Across the Early 20th Century." The lecture is presented by the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and can be attended in person at 617 Kent Hall or virtually via Zoom. For more information and to register, please link here: https://www.iijs.columbia.edu/upcoming-events/jack-abel-antisemitism-lecture-with-claire-zalc-byb3h

Both of these events with Claire Zalc events are made possible with the support of the Knapp Family Foundation.

📅 Date: January 29, 2025
🕡 Time: 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
📍 Location: East Gallery, Maison Française, Buell Hall.

The Columbia campus is currently open only to Columbia-affiliated guests (guests with a CUID). However, outside guests who register to attend a public event will be allowed to enter campus for the event if we provide their names and emails ahead of time.

Please be sure to register for any events at least 48 hours ahead of time to ensure your name is on the list, and bring your ID with you.

What's Happening in January at the Maison Française -

Columbia Maison Francaise Newsletter Upcoming events and French Culture Chez Vous

Join us for the First Event of the Spring Semester at the Maison Française!

FREE SCREENING of LUMUMBA: DEATH OF A PROPHET directed by Raoul Peck.

Investigating revolutionary Patrice Lumumba's brief tenure as the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as the machinations behind his shocking assassination, legendary Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck discovers critical flashpoints where a nation's officially curated narratives intersect with repressed truths. At eight years-old Peck was brought by his family to the newly independent DRC, where his father worked for the United Nations as an agricultural professor and his mother served as secretary to the mayor of Kinshasa. Sifting through his childhood recollections and interviewing Belgian journalists and politicians who witnessed the country's descent into internecine violence, Peck fashions a prismatic meditation on the elusiveness of political objectivity and the ethics of personal remembrance in chronicling the traumas of history.

This screening is supported by Albertine Cinematheque.

📅 Date: January 23, 2025
🕡 Time: 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
📍 Location: East Gallery, Maison Française, Buell Hall.

RSVP here https://www.eventbrite.com/e/lumumba-death-of-a-prophet-film-by-raoul-peck-tickets-1137899149989?aff=oddtdtcreator

The Columbia campus is currently open only to Columbia-affiliated guests (guests with a CUID). However, outside guests who register to attend a public event will be allowed to enter campus for the event if we provide their names and emails ahead of time.

Please be sure to register for any events at least 48 hours ahead of time to ensure your name is on the list, and bring your ID with you.

Warm Wishes from CU Maison Française -

Columbia Maison Francaise Newsletter Upcoming events and French Culture Chez Vous