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2008-2009 Events

Italy Adrift: Contemporary Migrations, Colonial Memories, Civic Society
A Symposium
May 14-15, 2009
This two-day symposium centered on the issue of Italy's colonial history and contemporary postcolonial society. In the last twenty years, the arrival of African, Asian, and Eastern European immigrants has turned Italy from a country of emigration into a nation that now hosts one of the most diverse literature and films. The symposium began with a screening of the 2008 Ethiopian-Italian film, Come un uomo sulla terra (As a Man on Earth) by Riccardo Biadene, Andrea Segre, and Dagwami Yimer. The director, lead actor, and producer were in attendance; the film was followed by a discussion. On May 15, the department hosted a workshop on African immigration in Italy and related issues, featuring scholars from the US and Italy.

The event was co-sponsored by the Universita degli Studi di Napoli, Orientale, and the Buffet Center for International and Comparative Studies at Northwestern University.

4 May: Marco Baliani presented his show Corpo di Stato. Il delitto Moro. Based on the book of the same name, the show reflects on the aftermath of the violent death in 1978 of Prime Minister Aldo Moro, whose body was found in the trunk of a parked car following 55 days of captivity. Using direct testimony, Baliani gives insight into an event that still resonates in Italy today.

31 January: La Grande Dictée de la Francophonie took place on Saturday, Jan. 31st at 10 AM. This French spelling bee contest is open to everybody, all Francophones and Francophiles in Illinois.

The  4 catégories  are:
A  High School students
b. College/other till age 21
c. Seniors amateurs
d. Seniors professionnels

There were several prizes of books, dictionaries, and restaurants rewarding the winners. The best NU student will be invited to participate in the Grande Dictée des Amériques taking place in Québec City in March 2009; all expenses paid.
For any questions, email : mpa347@northwestern.edu, or come and see M.-S. Pavlovich : Crowe 2-137.

13-14 November 2008: Algerian writer Ahmed Bouguarche visited several department classes and gave a public lecture. The lecture was held on Friday, November 14th from 4-5:30pm in the FIG room (Crowe 2-130). Bouguarche's visit was made possible in part by a Simeon E. Leland Forum grant.

23 October 2008: Comedy in the Piazza is a round-table dedicated to a book project that consists of translations of plays from the Italian peninsula that are set in piazzas, since the era of the Greeks, through Roman comedy, through the Renaissance and Commedia dell'Arte, up to nineteenth century Melodrama.

29-30 October 2008: Every Fall, NU's Study Abroad Office hosts a Study Abroad Fair where prospective students can meet program representatives and returnees to help them decide what kind of study abroad experience would best fit their needs. This year's Fair was held on Thursday, November 6, 2-5. Students interested in Francophone countries got a head-start at either of two department information sessions the week before.

Wednesday, October 29, 5-6 pm (Kresge 2-420)
Thursday, October 30, 4-5 pm (Kresge 2-420)

Keep a weather eye out for future announcements.

2007-2008 Events

22 October 2007: The Mediterranean between Literature and History, a Conference Panel with Theodore J. Cachey (University of Notre Dame), Andrea Ciccarelli (Indiana University, Bloomington), Manuel Rota (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), Marco Ruffini (Northwestern University)

25 October 2007: Ross Chambers, On Inventing Unknownness: The Poetry of Disenchanted Reenchantment: Leopardi, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, and Justice.

10-11 November 2007: 25th Anniversary French & Italian Film Marathon!

The White Sheik (Federico Fellini, 1952) - Fellini's first film as solo director, a comedy about a provincial couple on their honeymoon in Rome. The husband wants to show off his bride to his relatives and climax their day with an audience with the pope. But the bride has other plans...

The Earrings of Madame De... (Max Ophuls, 1953) A gorgeous society drama starring the great Charles Boyer and Vittorio De Sica (the great Neorealist director). To cover secret debts, a countess sells the diamond earrings her husband gave her, leading to a spiralling sequence of passionate encounters.

Pepe le Moko (Duvivier, 1936) A gangster thriller with an atmosphere and plot that set the model for thousands of followers, from James Cagney to Pacino. Starring the great Jean Gabin.

Il Mafioso (Lattuada, 1962). Thought lost until recently, this comedy stars Alberto Sordi as an Italian dad, born in Sicily but long since emigrated to the north, who takes his family back to his hometown to banish all their stereotypes about the south. But it doesn't quite work out that way...

29-30 November 2007: A Conference on Art, Text, and Imagination

“Art/Text/Imagination” is a two-day workshop designed to explore the socio-political, art historical, and literary context of early modern imagination by focusing on the production, function, and reception of visual and textual representations of imagined images. It will privilege interdisciplinary discussion and comparative approaches between the north (German, Burgundian, Flemish, and Dutch territories) and the south (France, Spain, and the Italian peninsula), as also between media.

Internal images, dreams, and visions resist representation and shared comprehension, though their history indicates otherwise. The impulse to transform unrepresentable subjects or qualities into coherent narratives or forms is a characteristic feature of early modernity. In its search for political and cultural unity, early modern society strove to render imagined images part of the physical world, depictable and describable, and to neutralize the potentially subversive power of imagination. At the same time, imagination served as a point of departure in shaping new ways of representing and articulating that very unity. Experiences of imagination (recollections, dreams, demonic possessions, visions, ecstasies, etc.) and their contemporary modalities (art of memory, theology, theories of animation, imagination, and fantasia) provided inspiration and models for new ways of thinking and producing texts and images.

23 February: La Grande Dictée de la Francophonie will take place on at 10 AM. This French spelling bee contest is open to everybody, all Francophones and Francophiles in Illinois.

The  4 catégories  are:
A  High School students
b. College/other till age 21
c. Seniors amateurs
d. Seniors professionnels

There will be several prizes of books, dictionaries, and restaurants rewarding the winners. The best NU student will be invited to participate in the Grande Dictée des Amériques taking place in Québec City in March 2008; all expenses paid.
Last year, John Lee had a great time taking part in…both events! So make sure that you study all these challenging rules of French grammar, and that you take them with you on the day of the contest. Please do not be afraid of signing up: the participants are given a number and we do not know the names of the contestants until he/she is declared a winner. Sign up sheets and exercise sheets will be available in the Department of French&Italian office. (Kresge 2-375) from January on. For any questions, email : mpa347@northwestern.edu, or come and see M.-S. Pavlovich : Crowe 2-137. Click to Download PDF.
Refreshments will be served.

28 February - 1 March : Archives of Cinema/Memories of War

Place: Northwestern University, Block Cinema and Harris Hall 108
Organizer: Domietta Torlasco

ARCHIVES OF CINEMA/MEMORIES OF WAR was a two-day symposium comprising lectures, screenings, and a round-table discussion on the representation of war in the context of contemporary media practice. It brought together prominent American scholars and internationally recognized filmmakers who have a history of engaging the aesthetic and political possibilities of the audio-visual archive. Rethinking the boundaries between the theory and the practice of cinema, the symposium explored the tension between memory and creation, the persistence of the past and the irruption of the new in the age of transition from analog to digital media.

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15 May 2008: Graduate/Faculty Colloquium featuring the work of Annica Schjött and Bill Paden.

29 May 2008: Book Release Reception for Domietta Torlasco and Doris Garraway.

6 June 2008: End of the Year Party!

20 June 2008: Reception for Graduating Seniors and their families

2006-2007 Events

21 May 07
Peter Hallward, Professor of Modern European Philosophy at Middlesex, "Dialectical Voluntarism: Towards a Theory of Determination"

April 13-15 07
Hedi Abdeljaouad, Suzanne Gauch, Nasrin Qader, Alison Rice, Ronnie Scharfman, Lucy Stone McNeece, Samuel Weber, Abdelkabir Khatibi: Khatibi's Oeuvre: Materiality and Writing (Khatibi Colloquium)

April 12-17 07
"Khatibi's Oeuvre: Materiality and Writing," a colloquium dedicated to the work of Morrocan thinker and writer Abdelkébir Khatibi. Also featuring professors Hedi Abdeljaouad, Suzanne Gauch, Nasrin Qader, Alison Rice, Ronnie Scharfman, Lucy Stone McNeece, and Samuel Weber.

24 Oct 06
Tariq Ali: "Imperial Blues: Wars in the Middle East/Axis of Hope in South America

11 Apr 07
Brigitte Weltman-Aron, University of Florida, public lecture titled, "Perjury in the Work of Hélène Cixous"