The Altamont School and the Alliance Française of Birmingham invites you to attend the annual concert at the Altamont School's Fine Arts Center by

Eric Vincent

(http://www.eric-vincent.com/)

Eric with one of his best friends and neighbor, Georges Moustaki.

Eric with Emily Saliers of Indigo Girls.

Eric meeting with James Taylor, whose songs he interprets.

The Altamont School's French Club would like to inform you about a unique educational experience which we offer our students each year, the Eric Vincent concert. Eric's unique music reflects the influence of his travels and performances in over 140 countries worldwide. Some of his songs are a blend of folk, jazz, rock and ethnic rhythms, while others are closer to traditional French ballads and love songs. He has also adapted several of James Taylor's songs, and some of his newest include an amusing incident with Alfred Jarry and the myth of Sisyphus. You may consult his website to learn more about his music and hear clips.
(http://www.eric-vincent.com)
We invite any francophiles to attend the concert, which will take place Friday, November 18 at 10 a.m. in Altamont's Fine Arts Center. There is no admission charge, as the French club funds the event as a public service to our students and community.
Please join us if you can!

Time: 10:00 AM
Place: The Altamont School's Fine Arts Center
4801 Altamont Road South, Birmgham, AL 35222
Phone: (205) 879-2006
Admission: FREE

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Saturday, November 19, 2011

Alliance Française of Birmingham & UAB Department of Foreign Languages
Invite the Public to a Lecture in English by

Mimi Gregory
(President of the Federation of Alliances Françaises USA)

"Relations Between France & Serbia"

Born in New York City, Mimi Gregory was an executive recruiter for the banking industry. She represented Warren Management Consultants in Paris during the years 1978-1980. Upon returning to the US, she continued to pursue her interest in the French language and culture.

In 1983, she was elected President of the Minneapolis chapter of the Alliance Française and served as President of the Boston chapter for over eight years. She is currently President of the Bonita Springs chapter in Florida. She has served as Vice President of the National Board of the Alliances Françaises in the United States for three consecutive terms and was elected National President in October 2008, and still serves in that capacity. In 2005, she was named the Florida Council for Social Studies’ Outstanding Citizen, and in March 2007, the American Association of University Women honored her as a “Woman of Achievement”. In 2010, she was named to the Advisory Board of WGCU Public Media in Ft. Myers, Florida; a National Public Radio affiliate.

Her contributions to the various French organizations were recognized in 1990 when she was honored by the French Government as “Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters”. Her lecture on France and Serbia will highlight the relation between the Kingdom of Serbia and France. This alliance was never made formal, nor were its terms ever defined, it rested on an identity of values rather than on political and territorial
concessions at the expense of neighbors. But, its genuineness overcame all trials and tribulations and was crowned in the Great War.

Date: Saturday, November 19, 2011
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: 105 HULSEY RECITAL HALL
(950 13th Street South, Birmingham, AL 35294)
Admission: Free
Reception: Mme Annie McCarter

For more information call 879 9939 or http://www.afbirmingham.org

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Saturday, October 29, 2011

Alliance Française of Birmingham & UAB Department of Foreign Languages
Invite the Public to a Lecture in English by

Éric Saugera
(French Historian)

"Reborn in America"

French historian Éric Saugera will give an illustrated talk in English about his new book, Reborn in America, published by University of Alabama Press. (Some may remember his 2004 talk to the Alliance Française of Birmingham, in the early phase of this nine-year project.)

Saugera looks at the long-cherished story of Alabama's Vine and Olive Colony -- a legend of a doomed attempt by Napoleonic exiles, fleeing the restored monarchy after the defeat at Waterloo, to grow grapevines and olives in the wilderness of Alabama. It conjures up memorable images of French ladies dressed in the fashion of Empress Josephine and gentlemen in military dress uniforms, dancing after a day spent clearing and cultivating their fields. The colonists named the city they founded Demopolis, "city of the people," commemorating the ideals of the French Revolution.

The reality Saugera discovered, however, is more complex. Drawing on a trove of never-before-published nineteenth-century letters from French emigrants in the United States, he brings the story of the colony to life with rich and hitherto unknown details. The most important of the letters, written by a former officer in Napoleon's army, Jacques Lajonie, had been carefully preserved by his descendants in a small city in southwestern France, where they were made available to the author. In addition, Saugera tells of the importance of refugees who had fled the slave revolt in what became Haiti, and he provides new insights into American and international politics of the period, as well as European settlement in the United States, relations between the immigrants and Native Americans, and complicated French attitudes toward slavery. His extensive research included contacting dozens of descendants to track what became of the original settlers, most of whom left Demopolis to settle elsewhere in Alabama and the South, and beyond, some as far away as California.

Copies of the book will be available at the talk, which will be followed by a reception in the nearby Redmont neighborhood.

Date: Saturday, October 29, 2011
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: 105 HULSEY RECITAL HALL
(950 13th Street South, Birmingham, AL 35294)
Admission: Free
Reception: Mme Alice Bowsher

For more information call 879 9939 or http://www.afbirmingham.org

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Friday, September 30, 2011

Alliance Française of Birmingham & UAB Department of Foreign Languages
Invite the Public to a Lecture in English by

Bérangère Cagnat
(Journalist at Courrier International)

"Courrier International:
A Magazine Not Like Any Other"

Date: Friday, September 30, 2011
Time: 7:00-9:00 PM
Location: HULSEY RECITAL HALL (105)
(950 13th Street South, Birmingham, AL 35294)
Admission: Free
Reception: TBA

For more information call 879 9939 or http://www.afbirmingham.org

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Saturday, August 27, 2011

UAB Department of Foreign Languages & Alliance Française of Birmingham
Invite the Public to a Lecture in English by

NARJES BEN YEDDER
(Assistante Universitaire à l’Institut Supérieur des Langues de Tunis)

"The Rise and Fall of a Myth:
Muhammad Bouazizi,
The Prometheus of the Tunisian Revolution"

Date: Saturday, August 27, 2011
Time: 7:00-9:00 PM
Location: HULSEY RECITAL HALL (105)
(900 13th Street South, Birmingham, AL 35294)
Admission: Free
Reception: TBA

For more information call 879 9939 or http://www.afbirmingham.org or Janice Smith at jansmith@uab.edu

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Saturday, April 30, 2011

UAB Department of Foreign Languages & Alliance Française of Birmingham
Invite the Public to a Lecture in English by

Jean-François Clervoy

French Astronaut (Discovery & Atlantis) and Cosmonaut (Soyuz & Mir)

"Living and Working in Space"

Jean-François Clervoy holds degrees from two prestigious institutions: Ecole Polytechnique
(1981) and Toulouse's School for Advanced Study in Aeronautics and Space (1983). In 1991,
he trained at the City of the Stars near Moscow on the Russian spacecraft Soyuz and space
station Mir. In 1992, he joined European astronauts at the European Space Agency (ESA)
center in Köln, Germany.

In August 1992, Jean-François Clervoy was sent to NASA's Johnson
Space Center in Houston. He flew two missions of the space shuttle Atlantis and one aboard
Discovery, for a total of 675 hours in space. Clervoy completed space flight STS103
(December 19 -27, 1999), where he helped repair the Hubble Space Telescope. He is the
author of the book, Space Stories (Histoire(s) d'Espace), which recounts his third mission to the
Hubble Space Telescope. Clervoy has received the Space Flight Medal three times and has
twice received the Exceptional Service Medal from NASA. He is an Officer in the Legion of
Honor and a Knight of the National Order of Merit.

Living and Working in Space? Life in space means camping, though the astronauts rarely
leave their “tent.” Working there essentially means completing a series of specific instructions.
An astronaut may have been a scientist; another may have been an engineer or a pilot. But
in space, they're required to be operators. They often operate complex scientific instruments
which require fine adjustments in direction, calibration and other parameters. They also need
to be able to pilot and repair damaged satellites. Even though most astronauts are explorers
at heart, in space they are above all operators who make sure everything is done according
to a strict set of procedures. The main challenge in life aboard a space vehicle is, first and
foremost, organization. It's “camping,” so to speak, while weightless, which includes taking
care of hundreds of tasks per day, such as sleeping, eating, washing up, relaxing, etc.

For more information call 879-9939
This program is co-sponsored by the Délégation Générale of Alliance Française (USA) in partnership
with CNES (National Center for Space Studies) and the ESA (European Space Agency)

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Saturday, April 16, 2011

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Saturday, May 2, 2009

UAB Department of Foreign Languages and the Alliance Française of Birmingham invite the public to a free lecture in French by

Aurélien Mokoko Cécile Mokoko
(Visiting Professors at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa)

"The Black Question and the French Republic"

"The collapse of slavery in the French Antilles and of the French colonial empire a century later gave rise to the emergence of a variety of Francophone Black nationalities and communities both worldwide and in metropolitan France. With the passing of time and generations, Black people have gradually yet deeply taken root in the French Republic. Still, the meaning of Black identity in France remains equivocal to many of their fellow citizens, for the French national self-identification typically entails a number of identity markers that render ambiguous the place of Black citizens and residents in the French social order.
The riots that took place in the “banlieues” in 2005, as well as the political and scholarly debates over the memory of slavery and the “positive role of colonization” triggered renewed interest in current issues encountered by Black French-men and -women. Among these, I have chosen to focus more specifically on the following questions: What does it mean to be a Black French person? Is there a Black French community, or are there many Black communities in France? To what extent is the current demand for greater visibility also a rising claim for a special treatment for Black people in France?"

Aurélien Mokoko Gampiot earned his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Rennes 2 and is currently a visiting professor at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa where he teaches a graduate seminar on African societies and Diaspora as seen through colonial and postcolonial African Francophone literature.

Time: 7:00 PM
Place: UAB Hulsey Recital Hall, 950 13th Street South
Admission: FREE
Reception: Home of Mr. David Blake & Mr. Bob Burns
(Address @ Lecture)

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Saturday, April 11, 2009

UAB Department of Foreign Languages and the Alliance Française of Birmingham invite the public to a free lecture in English by

Dr. Nicole Bacharan
(Chercheur associée à la Fondation nationale des Sciences politiques (Science-Po) et National Fellow de la Hoover Institution à l'Université Stanford en Californie)

"Faut-il avoir peur de l'Amérique?"

L'histoire de l'anti-américanisme français est antérieure à la naissance des Etats-Unis. Néanmoins, les " années Bush " ont suscité un regain sans précédent de cette vieille passion française. Dès le lendemain du 11 septembre, certains pointaient du doigt une Amérique coupable, source de menaces et avide d'affrontements. La guerre d'Afghanistan, mais plus encore la guerre d'Irak, ont renforcé cette hostilité._L'Amérique est-elle conforme à l'image dont on l'affuble volontiers à l'étranger : arrogante, violente, inégalitaire, impériale, arc-boutée sur ses convictions, si sûre de son modèle démocratique qu'elle voudrait l'imposer à la Terre entière ? _Alors que le pouvoir vient de changer de mains à la Maison Blanche (après une élection qui a suscité une véritable passion chez les Français), la démocratie américaine mérite d'être passée au sérum de vérité, sans tabou, sans préjugé. Le rêve américain a-t-il encore un sens à l'heure du terrorisme et de la guerre ? La religion prend-elle peu à peu le pouvoir ? Le pays de la peine de mort et de Guantanamo est-il vraiment une démocratie ? L'Amérique a-t-elle trahi ou non ses idéaux ? Veut-elle dominer le monde ? En somme, faut-il en avoir peur ?
Nicole Bacharan est historienne et politologue spécialiste de la société américaine et des relations franco-américaines. Nicole Bacharan est chercheur associée à la Fondation nationale des Sciences politiques (Science-Po) et National Fellow de la Hoover Institution à l'Université Stanford en Californie.

The history of French anti-Americanism precedes the birth of the United States. Nonetheless, “the Bush years triggered a revival without precedent of this old French passion." Immediately following September 11, 2001, some people were pointing their finger at America as the guilty culprit, as a source of threats and of avid confrontations. The war in Afghanistan and then even more so the war in Iraq served to reinforce this hostility. Has America conformed to the stereotype often heard abroad: arrogant, violent, elitist, imperial, buttressed by its convictions, so sure of its democratic model and willing to impose it on the entire world? After a change of power in the White House (following an election that incited a real passion among the French), American democracy warrants a close scrutiny without taboo or prejudice. Does the American dream still make sense in a time of terrorism and war? Is religion, slowly, gaining power? Is a country that kept capital punishment and Guantanamo really a democracy? Has America betrayed her own ideals? Does America want to dominate the world? In short, should the world fear the US?
Nicole Bacharan is an historian and political science professor specialist in American society and Franco-American relations. She is a senior fellow with la Fondation nationale des Sciences politiques of Paris (Science-Po), France, and a National Fellow at the Hoover Institute of Stanford University in California.

Time: 7:00 PM
Place: UAB Hulsey Recital Hall, 950 13th Street South
Admission: FREE
Reception: chez Mme Gerda Carmichael

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Saturday, February 28, 2009

UAB Department of Foreign Languages and the Alliance Française of Birmingham invite the public to a free lecture in French by

Dr. Cécile Coquet
(Professor at the University of Tours &
Visiting Professor at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa)

"Communautés et communautarisme en France
et aux Etats-Unis"

Dr. Cécile Coquet-Mokoko is a former student of the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Fontenay-St. Cloud. After teaching at Harvard University's Department of Romance Languages and Literature, she earned her Ph.D. in African American Studies from the university of Paris VII. She is associate professor of American and African American Studies at the University of Aix-en-Provence and the University of Tours. She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, where she teaches in the American Studies Department while carrying out personal research on the (self)perception of biracial couples and multi-and trans-racial families in present day Alabama.

The aim of this lecture is to discuss what the French and the Americans mean when they talk about "community" and "communitarianism." These two words encompass two such widely different conceptions of social interaction; and of how individuals and groups (whether socio-professionally, ethnically or culturally defined) find their place in each society's mainstream. By discussing them together, we may hope to reconsider, and maybe ultimately discard, the mutual preconceptions and misrepresentations that have proven a constant source of misunderstandings between the two cultures and their representatives in the political sphere, and hopefully work towards a better appreciation of both societal models.

Time: 7:30 PM
Place: UAB Humanities Building, Room 105, 900 13th St. S.
Admission: FREE
Reception: Home of Mr. & Mrs. John Floyd
(Address @ Lecture)

For more information, call 934-8902

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Saturday, January 17, 2009

The University of Alabama at Birmingham and the Alliance Française of Birmingham invite the public to a free lecture in English by

Dr. Stephen Miller

"The Terror in Southern France During the French Revolution 1793-1794."

Dr. Stephen Miller completed his doctorate at UCLA in 1999. Three year-long research grants from the Fulbright Foundation, the Chancellor of UCLA, and the UCLA history department, as well as a Faculty Development Grant from UAB, permitted Dr. Miller to complete research for a book about eighteenth-century France and the Revolution. The book shows that positions of political authority such as seigneurial domains and venal offices were central to the wealth and status of the nobility and bourgeoisie of eighteenth-century France. This insight allows Dr. Miller to show that social forces played a critical role in the origins and unfolding of the French Revolution. Miller documents this thesis with meticulous research on the old regime province of Languedoc. His work can be seen in several articles in journals including French Historical Studies, The Journal of Social History, and European History Quarterly. The book, State and Society in Eighteenth-Century France: A Study of Political Power and Social Revolution in Languedoc, was published in 2008 . Miller's next project, for which he has received grants from the American Philosophical Society and the Faculty Development Program of UAB, analyzes the monarchy's efforts to reform its institutions by creating provincial assemblies of landowners in the 1770s and 1780s.

Time: 7:30 PM
Place: UAB Hulsey Recital Hall, 950 13th Street South
Admission: FREE
Reception: TBA

For more information, call 934-8902

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Saturday, October 25, 2008

The University of Alabama at Birmingham and the Alliance Française of Birmingham invite the public to a free lecture in French by

Dr. Lamia Ben Youssef Zayzafoon
(Professor of French & Arabic at U.A.B.)

"Le Droit à la Mémoire:
Le Cauchemar Postcolonial à Travers la Peinture Folie de Moncef Ben Amor (1943-1990)"

Agnostique, misogyne, opposant politique versé dans la pensée Kafkaïnne, l'école Freudienne, le surréalisme "Dalien," le nihilisme Nietzschien et la culture arabo-musulmane du Maghreb, Moncef Ben Amor est le seul artiste Tunisien qui soit parvenu à libérer la peinture Tunisienne de sa thématique coloniale et à réinscrire dans l'histoire le Guernica de Bourguiba avant de se suicider un 19 Juillet 1990

Time: 7:30 PM
Place: UAB Hulsey Recital Hall, 950 13th Street South
Admission: FREE
Reception: TBA

For more information, call 934-8902

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Saturday, April 5, 2008

The University of Alabama at Birmingham and the Alliance Française of Birmingham invite the public to a free lecture in English by

Antoine Sfeir
(Journalist, Publisher of Les Cahiers de l'Orient, Director of the Centre d'Etudes et de Réflexions sur le Proche-Orient (thinktank on the Middle East) since 1990)

"Turmoil in the Middle East"

French-Lebanese journalist, Antoine Sfeir contributed to French paper La Croix and magazine L'Express as well as to several periodicals such as Esprit and Etudes. He currently teaches at the journalism school CELSA (Paris IV Sorbonne). Sfeir is the author of a series of studies about the Arab world for the French Government (Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs). He authored works on religion, Dieu, Yahweh, Allâh : Les Grandes Questions sur les trois religions, 100 réponses à des vraies questions d'enfants (Bayard Jeunesse, 2004), on Islam and Islamism, Les Réseaux d'Allah (Plon, 2001), and on communitarism and secularism with René Andrau, Liberté, Égalité, Islam (Tallandier, 2005.) In 2006, in collaboration with Nicole Bacharan, he published a book on the Middle East, Américains, Arabes: la confrontation (Seuil, 2006) and Vers l'Orient compliqué (Grasset, 2006).

Why did the United States invade Iraq? It has now been five years that this question has been asked. Antoine Sfeir tries to answer the question by recalling the history of these countries from the Sykes-Picot accords to today; retelling the stories of their coming to independence; the regional power struggles, and the Gulf war of 1991. However, by stressing the more recent date of September 11, 2001, his demonstration takes on greater meaning. Finally, Antoine Sfeir sets forth a hypothesis, which, beginning from an analysis of American foreign policy, appears to find greater confirmation each day, and puts in perspective the opinion of an American failure in Iraq.

Time: 6:30 PM
Place: UAB Humanities Building, Room 105, 900 13th St. S.
Admission: FREE
Reception: Chez Mme Cynthia Butler
3525 Cliff Road
Birmingham Al 35205
326 0866

Call UAB Associate Professor Serge Bokobza, Ph.D., for more details at 204-934-8902.

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Saturday, February 16, 2008

The University of Alabama at Birmingham and the Alliance Française of Birmingham invite the public to a free lecture in English by

Gaston Kelman
(French author and consultant)

"An End to The Racial Alibi"

Kelman, a native of Cameroon, is author of the book "I Am a Black Man and I Don't Like Manioc" published in 2003. In this bestseller, Kelman, with provocation and a dose of humor, castigates the clichés associated with the condition of being black in society.

Among his controversial views, Kelman denies there is black culture. He thus favors what he calls an assimilating humanism and is unsympathetic toward certain associations or organizations that call for the integration of black populations while at the same time maintaining the right to assert a difference.

In 1992, Kelman started an association for the discussion of matters relating to the integration of the races, known by its French acronym as the CRI. He also owns a consulting firm that deals with socio-cultural issues related to immigration from black Africa.
Time: 7:30 PM
Place: UAB Humanities Building, Room 105, 900 13th St. S.
Admission: FREE
Reception TBA

Call UAB Associate Professor Serge Bokobza, Ph.D., for more details at 204-934-8902.

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DR.ROBERT SATLOFF

WEDNESDAY - JANUARY 30, 2008

Hulsey Recital Hall

“Countering the Holocaust Denial in the Arab World:

A Personal Approach”

1:00PM – 2:00PM

“In Search of an Arab Schindler: Did Any ARABS SAVE ANY JEWS DURING THE HOLOCAUST?”

6:30PM – 7:30PM

Book signing session

3:00PM-4:20PM

Lamia Ben Youssef Zayzafoon, Ph.D. /Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures / University of Alabama at Birmingham / HB 408 / 1530 3rd Avenue South / Birmingham, Alabama 35294-1260 / 205.934.2214(tel.) / 205.934.1944 (fax) / lzayzafo@@uab.edu

Reception to follow

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Friday, January 11, 2008