February Newsletter, 2006

   

Departmental News:

Claire Chi-ah Lyu's book A Sun Within a Sun: The Power And Elegance of Poetry is coming out this month from the University of Pittsburgh Press. Book Description: A sustained poetic reflection on the enterprise of poetry, on what poetry is and might be, not only for poet and theorist but also for reader, critic, teacher, and student. It sees poetry as life at its most genuine. Using Baudelaire and Mallarmé as principal examples, but drawing on a wide range of poets and thinkers, from Greek mythology to Poe, Rimbaud, Rilke, and Blake; from Nietzsche, Gilles Deleuze, and Italo Calvino to William James and Henry Miller, Claire Chi-ah Lyu challenges contemporary poetic theory, using precise and acute deconstruction of poetic imagery to reconstruct language so that it celebrates both meaning and beauty. Editorial Reviews: " Lyu's project ultimately-and here is the place I find it to be truly daring-has to do with inventing a new way of reading: to retain the analytic rigor of the deconstructive tradition along with the possibility of an emotional literary responsiveness, and to keep the two engaged in a fine equilibrium, a tension in which each interrogates the other, keeps the other honest, as it were. This is of course to take great--though also necessary--risks in our post-deconstructive era. Claire Lyu's text invokes my whole reading self in a manner that little contemporary scholarship does." --Janet Beizer, Harvard University "A lyrical celebration of the savoir-vivre of lyricism, Claire Lyu's beautifully written study is a joyous affirmation of the centrality of poetry. Blended with insights borrowed from the sciences and grounded in contemporary theory, her passion for the poetic invites the reader to rediscover some of the most powerful of all poetic voices, and thus to awaken to present experience." --Rosemary Lloyd, Indiana University "A graceful and resolute examination of a concept many critics have abandoned--Beauty. Lyu takes 'the beautiful' seriously. She speaks of beauty's risks, and makes its drama compelling. Her readings are remarkable for their ingenuity and their penetration." --Richard Terdiman, University of California, Santa Cruz The prologue from A Sun Within a Sun: The Power And Elegance of Poetry featured online February 28: The online publication Poetry Daily arranged with the University of Pittsburgh Press to feature the prologue from A Sun Within a Sun: The Power And Elegance of Poetry as part of its weekly series of prose features. The feature appeared on Tuesday, February 28th. Poetry Daily currently has 24,000 subscribers to their weekly e-mail newsletter, and they expected to have more than 22,000 visits to the site on the day Claire Lyu's prologue from A Sun Within a Sun appeared. The prologue will be linked from the main news page for one week, and then be linked in the archive for a year thereafter.

Cheryl Krueger's article "Princesse Tam-Tam: A Cultural Makeover Story" appears in Women in French Studies: French /Francophone Culture and Literature through Film (2006, pp. 182-202).

Philippe Roger spent most of January and February fighting the flu (including bird-flu, a.k. H5N1) as well as Critique's lazy contributors, while teaching two seminars at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes. He gave a conference at the Sorbonne in January on «Le "plaisir aux Classiques" selon Roland Barthes» and one at the Ecole du Louvre in February («L'art aux cochons : le Yankee comme philistin, de la guerre de Sécession à la Grande Guerre »). He also had the pleasure to meet with two distingued members of the UVA community in Paris: Cara Welch and Michael Meere, who do not seem to miss Charlottesville too bitterly. Critique's special issue about «Dieu», which appeared in February, was reviewed in Le Monde, Libération and La Quinzaine littéraire. Une fois n'est pas coutume, God knows... "
Publication : entry «Critique» in The Columbia History of Twentieth-Century Thought, ed. by L. Kritzmann, which came out in January.

Emeritus Professor Robert Cook's edition of the Venice-Four (Franco-Italian) version of The Song of Roland has appeared in the collection of Roland editions under the general editorship of Joseph Duggan of Berkeley (vol. 1 of La Chanson de Roland/The Song of Roland: The French Corpus).

John Lyons will be the "second opponent" in a dissertation defense at the University of Oslo on March 17. The dissertation, by Hall Bjoernstad, is entitled "Créature sans créateur: Pour une anthropolgie baroque dans les Pensées de Pascal." The "first opponent" will be Gérard Ferreyrolles of Paris IV. Also on that trip John Lyons will give a lecture at U of O on "Chance in the Princesse de Clèves: the supplement of desire."

Nadia Mamelouk’s article “Shifting Centers: Views of Tunis in the Literary Review Afrique Littéraire (1940-1944),” appeared in Equinoxes, Spring 2005. A second article, “When Feminist and Nationalist Discourses Meet in the 1930s: Margueritte’s Tunisiennes and the Tunisian Women’s Review Leïla,” has been accepted for Limag’s on-line review, Expressions Maghrebines.

Nadia is the recipient of the UVA French Department Dissertation Fellowship for 2006-7, and has been accepted for the AIMS (American Institute of Maghrebine Studies) Dissertation Workshop in March, which includes a travel grant.

Jacqueline Couti presented a paper "What's Love got to do with it: Sex in the Tropics in Gisèle Pineau's L'esperance Madacam," in a panel untitled “Créolité and sexuality” prearranged by Luciano Picanço and Nick Nesbitt, at the 20th Century Literature Conference organized by the University of Louisville, Kentucky, February 23.

Danielle Smith has been invited to give a paper at the University of Cincinnatti Conference on Romance Languages and Literatures, from May 11-13. Her paper is titled “Sugar, Memory, and Identity in La rue Cases-Nègres and Commandeur du sucre.” She received partial funding for the conference from UVA's Graduate Student Council.

The department hosted its second Graduate Open-House Weekend, February 16-18, giving prospective students the chance to experience life in our graduate programs. The weekend featured class and campus visits, a teaching information session, our Graduate Conference, a concert by African Griot Alhaji Papa Susso (co-sponsored by the Department of Music and the Woodson Institute for African and African-American Studies) and much good food.

Graduate Alumni News:

Lisette Luton (Phd 1997) and John Travers were married on June 11, 2005 in Virginia Beach, VA. French Department alumni Elsa Conrad Conley and Jennifer Doucet were in attendance. (click images for full sized version)

Up-coming Events:

   March 17th, 18th and 19th (see schedule for times and locations)

FRANCOPHONE FILM FESTIVAL

Organized by Aline Charles, Pierre Dairon and Isabelle Choquet, with the support of the French Department, the French House and FACE Tournées program and with the help of Vincent Baudoin.

You are cordially invited to the opening reception on the 17th of March at 4pm in the French House and to the screenings of five great movies, introduced and discussed by members of the French Department. We hope to see you there!

For more information, please visit the Film Festival website at : http://www.student.virginia.edu/~maison/festival/

   Friday March 24 ~ 4:00 pm, at the French House

Eric Michaud (EHESS)

"Matisse et Picasso"

talk will be given in French
Reception to follow
(Sponsored by the Department of Art History and the French House)

   *Friday May 5 ~ time and location TBA (* please note date change from 3/31 to 5/5)

Roland Simon (Department of French, University of Virginia)

"Les livres que j'aime"

Reception to follow - location TBA