Tuesday, April 27
11:45 AM Humanities 401
Dr. Hilary Jones
History Department, Macalester College
France and Africa: A History of Colonialism and Cultural Exchange in the town of Saint Louis, Senegal
Today the legacy of African and French interaction is evident in the plethora of French products, television shows and magazines imported to the French speaking areas of the continent. At the same time, metropolitan France finds itself transformed by the settlement of immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa and the introduction of new music and cuisine from these regions. The history of cultural exchange between Africa and France dates to the era of the Atlantic slave trade and became solidified during the period of formal colonial empires in the twentieth century. This talk explores the history of French and African interaction through an examination of Saint Louis – a port town and the former colonial capital of Senegal. A study of this vibrant nineteenth century center and the Muslim black African, mixed race and European residents that inhabited this coastal town offers new insight into the nature of French-African relations in the period of colonial rule.
Monday, March 1
4:30 PM John B. Davis Lecture Hall
Aminata Sow Fall
Senegalese Novelist
African Women: When Light Emerges from Darkness
Femme africaine: Quand la lumière jaillit de l’ombre
Thursday, February 19
11:45 AM Humanities 401
Dr. Francine Conley
French Department, College of St. Catherine
1968: Was There a Revolution Coming?
In May 1968, what started as a student protest against the French university system rapidly grew into a full-scale revolt, as workers and students went on strike in support of social reform. Barricades were erected in the Latin Quarter, and an all-out student revolt began. By May 18, 10 million workers were on strike in solidarity with the students. The government responded by deploying tank and commando units in the streets of Paris. This talk takes a look back at 1968 and how the arts — in particular, theatre — responded to the euphoria and changes brought on by the confusion of May 1968 in France.
Thursday, December 4
11:45 AM Humanities 401
Dr. J.B. Shank
Department of History, Univeristy of Minnesota
Between France and America: The Life and Political Thought of Alexis de Tocqueville
In 1831, the French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville spent the better part of a year touring the recently founded United States of America. The result was his monumental La Démocratie en Amérique, a work that quickly became a classic of American political and social thought. Returning to France, de Tocqueville witnessed the revolutionary upheavals of the July Monarchy, the revolution of 1848, and the ascent of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte’s Second French Empire. Near the end of his life, de Tocqueville turned his observations of French revolutionary upheavals into a comparable account of the development of modern France, L’Ancien Régime et la Révolution Française, published in 1851. With an eye toward the recent flare up of Franco-American tensions, this talk will explore de Tocqueville’s navigation between the parallel French and American traditions of democracy
Thursday, November 6
11:45 AM Humanities 401
Dr. Cecilia Konchar Farr
Department of Engligh, College of St. Catherine
The Lost Generation in Paris: American Expatriates
Paris in the 1920’s was home to some of the finest young American writers, among them Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Djuna Barnes, Ezra Pound and Langston Hughes. In Left Bank bars and cafes and in Sylvia Beach’s Shakespeare and Co. bookstore, these writers and their friends created a community that both embraced and resisted its own American roots. With influences as diverse as cubism and communism, the rise of fascism and the growing influence of jazz music, they explored together what it means to be an expatriate and how, as Stein famously stated, “We are all a lost generation.”
Tuesday, October 14
11:45 AM in Olin Rice 100
Dr. Babila J. Mutia
Department of English, University of Yaounde I, Cameroon
African Storytelling
Dr. Babila Mutia, a professional storyteller from Cameroon, will dramatize one of his stories after a brief introduction of storytelling in Africa.
Dr. Mutia is currently the Head of the English Department at Ecole Normale Supérieure, The University of Yaounde I-Cameroon.