Video and audio recordings of selected events at the Maison Française can be accessed below. We hope you will join us soon for one of our upcoming events.
Critically acclaimed, award-winning author Maryse Condé has pieced together the life of her maternal grandmother to create a moving and profound novel about Victoire, her white-skinned mestiza grandmother who worked as a cook for a family of white Creoles in the French Antilles. Condé's book is a blending of memoir and imagination, detective work and storytelling artistry.
Edwidge Danticat was born in Haiti and moved to the United States at age twelve. She is the author of several books, including Breath, Eyes, Memory, Krik? Krak!, a National Book Award finalist, and The Farming of Bones, an American Book Award winner. Danticat earned a degree in French Literature from Barnard College and an MFA from Brown University. She was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2009.
Event co-sponsors: Institute of African Studies, IRWAG, Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race
This conference examined the status of the object as it relates to the construction of desire at a time when objects have become structurally obsolete. This analysis, based on a reading of Playing and Reality by Donald Winnicott, analyzed the economic, moral, and spiritual crisis created by the obsolescence of objects.
Event co-sponsored by the Columbia University Department of Religion
At Columbia, French President Sarkozy Calls for Cooperation on Global Issues
On the first stop of his two-day trip to the U.S., French President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke at Columbia University’s Low Library to a packed audience of students and faculty. The Columbia World Leaders Forum event was co-sponsored by the University’s Maison Française and The Columbia-Paris Alliance Program.
University President Lee C. Bollinger welcomed Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the First Lady of France. “President Sarkozy’s visit to Columbia allows us to celebrate two important relationships—that of Columbia with France and the French language and culture, and that of the U.S. with France,” said Bollinger. Just before Bollinger brought President Sarkozy to the stage, he added, “When you dine tomorrow evening alone with President Obama, extend to him our very best regards from his alma mater.”
Setting aside his prepared remarks, President Sarkozy stressed the need for Europe and the United States to work in concert on multiple fronts: regulating the world economy, fighting the war on terrorism, redesigning the framework of the United Nations Security Council and creating a more cooperative approach to world governance.
“We are in the 21st century. There is not a single country that can direct the world on its own,” said Sarkozy. “If together [Europe and the U.S.] do not come up with fresh ideas then no one else will do it instead of us. That’s the reason why I came to the United States.”
The need for more effective economic regulation was a core theme in Sarkozy’s remarks and responses to student questions. “Europe and the United States together can redesign the rules to stabilize the world economy,” he said. “If Europe is backed by the U.S., then we will win.” When he meets with President Obama on Tuesday, he said he plans to discuss ways to prevent another financial crisis.
Gérald Garutti bridges theory and practice in his research, teaching, and directing at the Théatre National Populaire and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts et Techniques du Théatre. He also directs the program on Theater and Politics at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris.
