Wednesday, April 17
7:00 PM 
Humanities 401
Béatrice Coron
Art by a Thousand  Cuts

French Artist, Béatrice Coron, will present “Art by a Thousand Cuts.”  Béatrice Coron will introduce the many facets of contemporary paper cutting as well as their historical roots. From a panorama of international artists and her own work she will demonstrate the endless possibilities and applications of this simple media. Used for graphic design, story telling or animation you will discover another dimension where there is no limit but your imagination.

Born in France, Béatrice Coron lived in Egypt, Mexico and China before moving to New York. Coron tells stories in illustrations, bookarts, fine arts and public art. She adapts her papercut designs in metal, stone and glass. Coron’s  papercuttings were shown at Slash at the Museum of Arts & Design and she spoke about her creative process at TED 2011. You can see her work in major collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Walker Art Center and her public art in subways and airports. To catch all in one place, visit her website at www.beatricecoron.com.

Wednesday, April 10
4:45 PM 
Olin Rice 250
Nelly Trocmé Hewett
A Discussion of the film “Weapons of the Spirit”  by Pierre Sauvage

Pierre Sauvage was born during WWII in the village of Le Chambonsur-Lignon in France, one of several villages that sheltered Jewish families and children to protect during the Holocaust. In his film The Weapons of the Spirit, Sauvage tracks the people who disobeyed the French government to hide his family.

Nelly Trocmé Hewettt will respond to questions about Sauvage’s film The Weapons of the Spirit and his memorable interview with Bill Moyers.

Nelly Trocmé Hewett is the daughter of Magda and André Trocmé, spiritual leaders of the Protestant community of le Chambon, who urged their congregants to give shelter to the persecuted. The Trocmés and several other villagers of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon have been honored by Yad Shavem “in tribute of their humane conduct during the war.”

Monday, March 4
4:45 PM   
Humanities 401
Vanessa Doriott Anderson
Mapping Modiano’s Bordeaux

The prolific contemporary novelist Patrick Modiano is well-known for his minute observations of a modern-day Paris that is haunted by its past. Scholars have mapped this half-imagined, half-historical site of memory; relatively few, however, have ventured outside its “boulevards de ceinture” to explore other places that play a central role in his work. In this talk, I propose to explore the city of Bordeaux as a literary, historical, and cultural site of significance in Modiano’s novels. Aside from its literal place on the map, what does Bordeaux signify? What meanings lie below the surface of the city? 

Sunday, March 3
7:00 PM  –
John B. Davis Lecture Hall
Cherif Keita
Cemetary Stories:  A Rebel Missionary in South Africa

“Cemetery Stories,” directed by documentary filmmaker and Carleton College Professor Cherif Keita, tells the story of William and Ida Wilcox, missionaries from Minnesota, and their struggle for racial equality in the face of South African social racism and segregation.

Monday, November 12
4:45 PM
Humanities 401 
Margot Irvine
Prizes, prestige, lobster and tired eyes:  Reconstruction the early history of the prix Femina

In 1904 a group of women authors, supported by the women’s press, founded a new literary prize, the prix Vie heureuse (which would become known as the prix Femina in 1919). They felt this new award was needed to recognize writing by women, who were excluded from the other existing literary award, the prix Goncourt, both as prize winners and as members of the jury. Drawing on archival research, this lecture will examine some of the strategies used by the members of the jury of the prix Vie heureuse to legitimize their prize and to seek recognition for writing by women. Many of these strategies, such as the authors’ insistence on their femininity and domesticity in their self-presentations in the women’s press, their use of family ties, and their refusal to call themselves a women’s academy (a term the members of the Académie Goncourt adopted without difficulty), point to their still uncomfortable position at the margins of the literary institution. The commitment of the jurors to this new literary adventure was remarkable and all the more so as there were often few immediate returns from their long hours of work. As Madeleine Saint-René Taillandier remarked jokingly in a letter to her colleague on the jury, Judith Cladel, the only returns they see are lobster lunches and tired eyes. Their friendships, the networks they created and the collaborations these fostered, are the other tangible results. I will argue that these are, eventually, most successful in helping this generation of women writers to gain recognition for their writing. 

Monday, October 29
7:30 PM 
Hewitt Hall, Room 113
Georges Méliès
Father of Modern Cinema

Georges Méliès, whose work was put in the spotlight thanks to Martin Scorseses Hugo revolutionized the movie industry with his creativity and ingenuity. On the 150th anniversary of his death, come learn more about the life and work of the father of modern cinema. 

Enjoy the silent films of Georges Méliès with live piano accompaniment, and narration.  The pianist is none other than the great-great-grandson of Méliès, Lawrence Lehérissey-Méliès, and the narrator the great granddaughter, Marie-Hélène Lehérissey-Méliès.

Tuesday, October 23
11:30 AM  
Humanities 401
Boubacar Boris Diop
Les “printemps arabes” d’une perspective sub-saharienne – The “Arab spring” from a Sub-Saharan perspective

Boubacar Boris Diop is a writer, journalist, and eminent intellectual from Senegal. He has published six novels in French, from Le temps de Tamango in 1981 to Kaveena in 2006. While most of his work is anchored in Senegal and its daily cultural subtleties, and refers to national, regional, and colonial history, the novel that made him famous in the United States is Murambi, the Book of Bones (2000 in France, 2006 in the United States), about the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda. Diop has also authored several plays, a novel in Wolof, Doomi Golo, subsequently translated into French, an opera libretto staged in Bordeaux in 2011, and many journalistic articles. He has also written several essays, including Négrophobie, and L’Afrique au-delà du miroir [Africa Beyond the Mirror]. He has received many literary awards and residencies in France, the United States, Italy, Rwanda, and Mexico among others. At Macalester, he has lectured on the role of African Intellectuals (2005) and on Afropessimism (2008). He is currently writing a book with Malian activist, former Minister of Culture, and author Aminata Traoré.

Boubacar Boris Diop was living in Tunisia where the “Arab Spring” started, in December 2010, and President Ben Ali was ousted. He was in Bamako, Mali, in March 2012 when President Amadou Toumani Touré was overthrown, and witnessed the effects of the North African popular revolution on Sub-Saharan countries. He will share his experience and observations about the consequences of the “Arab Spring” for Sub-Saharan Africa.

Wednesday, October 10
4:45 PM
Humanities 401
Stephanie Ziebell
From Macalester to the United Nations:  Peace-Building and Community Based Projects

Stephanie Ziebell, Coordination Officer for the Office of the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General for the United Nations in Haiti will present From Macalester to the United Nations: Peace-Building and Community Based Projects.

Stephanie Ziebell graduated from Macalester with a B.A. in French and International Studies. After pursuing a Master’s degree in Global Affairs, Ziebell continued to build on the diplomatic skills she acquired in her positions as Academic Dean at the San Domenico School in California and as Program Officer of the International Diplomacy Council in San Francisco to coordinate a Civil Society Peace Coalition in liaison with UNIFEM in conflict affected districts in Uganda and support a civil society inter-agency coalition of women’s organizations in Haiti.

As program analyst of UNIFEM’s Governance, Peace, and Security section, she coordinated a six country peace building community-led program for women victims of violence before joining the United Nations’s Community violence reduction program in Haiti and becoming the Coordination Officer for the Office of the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General.

Stephanie will share her experience in peace building, women’s community led projects, and her work with youth in Haiti and several African countries as well as her experience with specific organizations such as the United Nations.

This presentation will be in English followed by a question and answer session.