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Lectures 2010 |
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Saturday, April 24, 2010 The Alliance Française of Birmingham and UAB Department of Foreign Languages invite the public to a free lecture in English by Pascal Fioretto
"You Think it's Funny? Humor on Both Sides of the Atlantic" A graduate of the National School of Chemistry, Pascal Fioretto joins the team of the famous Marcel Gotelieb's publication, Fluide Glacial. After working as a ghostwriter, Fioretto published his first book in 2006 and he reaches fame with his 2007 book, Et si c'était niais, a pastiche of eleven contemporary writers. Humor can be the melting pot of an identity or perhaps of a cultural community. From Molière to Desproges, from Rabelais to Feydeau, is there a typical French sense of humor? And from Lawrence Sterne to Ricky Gervais, or from Mark Twain to W.C. Fields, is there a specifically Anglo-Saxon humor? Pascal Fioretto will try to sketch, with examples from theater and literature, but also from film and television, the main fundamentals of these two ways of laughing, and thus, of seeing the world. Time: 7:00 PM Saturday, February 6, 2010 The Alliance Française
of Birmingham and UAB Department of Foreign Languages invite the public
to a free lecture in English by Jean-Louis Bruguière Jean-Louis Bruguière was a successful juge d'instruction (a mixture of special prosecutor and district attorney in the French legal system) particularly in charge of fighting terrorism. He was responsible for the prosecution of infamous terrorist Carlos. After warning the United States of a possible attack on the United States prior to September 11, he became an advisor to the American government. He is today the High Representative of the European Union to the United States for terrorist affairs (Terrorism Finance Tracking Program/ SWIFT). Mr. Bruguière is the author of: Ce que je n'ai pas pu dire (2009) [What I Could not Say], with the subtitle, "30 years of fighting terrorism." "Translatlantic Cooperation in the Fight Against Terrorism" This lecture discusses Franco-American cooperation in the fight against terrorism before and after the attacks of 11 September 2001. Jean-Louis Bruguière explains that the trans-Atlantic partnership to combat terrorism has been a success story despite differences or political tensions. The lecture will also evaluate the potential for further development and improvement of cooperation between the United States and France, and the European Union, after the abandonment of the concept of "war on Terror," and provide suggestions and recommendations for future enhancements. Time: 7:00 PM Saturday, Januarly 16, 2010 The Alliance Française of Birmingham and UAB Department of Foreign Languages invite the public to a free lecture in French by Jean Macary "Le combat de Voltaire contre les fanatismes" Monday, November 23, 2009 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/)
There is no admission charge, as the Altamont French
club funds the event as a public service to our students and community. Saturday, November 14, 2009 The Alliance Française of Birmingham and UAB Department of Foreign Languages invite the public to a free lecture in French by Laurent Cohen-Tanugi "The State of the European Union:
Ten years after the launch of the euro, five years after the great expansion to Central and Eastern Europe and four years after the rejection of the constitutional treaty, where is the European Union on economics, politics and diplomacy? Is Europe finally ready to become a world player? Can Europe become a credible and effective partner of the United States in an increasingly uncertain world? How can Europe deal with the economic crisis? Is it the laboratory for future global governance or an outdated vision? International lawyer and member of the Paris and New York bars, Laurent
Cohen-Tanugi specialized in trans-national mergers and acquisitions and
international arbitration. He was an associate with the firm Skadden,
Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, then with the firm Cleary, Gottlieb,
Steen and Hamilton from 1991 to 2003. He was also Senior Vice-President
and member of the executive committee of Sanofi-Synthélabo, the
European pharmaceutical group, in 2004. Time: 7:00 PM Saturday, October 3, 2009
UAB Department of Foreign Languages and the Alliance Française of Birmingham invite the public to a free concert of French songs and commentary. Featuring soprano Performing the works of Debussy, Delibes, DuParc, and Faure Time: 7:00 PM
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 "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. Time: 7:00
PM 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 "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 ? 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? Time: 7:00 PM
UAB Department of Foreign Languages and the Alliance Française of Birmingham invite the public to a free lecture in French by Dr. Cécile Coquet "Communautés et communautarisme en
France 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 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 Saturday, October 25, 2008
Dr. Lamia Ben Youssef Zayzafoon "Le Droit à la Mémoire: 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 Saturday, April 5, 2008
Antoine Sfeir
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). Time: 6:30
PM Saturday, February 16, 2008 Gaston Kelman 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. DR.ROBERT SATLOFF WEDNESDAY - JANUARY 30, 2008 Hulsey Recital Hall 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 Friday, January 11, 2008Alliance Française of Birmingham and UAB Department of Foreign Languages invite the public to a free lecture in English by Christopher Thompson "Giants of the Road or Junkies" Time: 7:30 PM Friday, November 30, 2007 Alliance Française of Birmingham and UAB Department of Foreign Languages invite the public to a free lecture in English by Antoine Malamoud "Léon Blum en captivité: Time: 7:30 PM Saturday, October 27, 2007 Alliance Française of Birmingham and UAB Department of Foreign Languages invite the public to a free lecture in French by Evelyne Bloch-Dano Time: 7:00 PM Cette conférence est organisée avec le soutien
de la Délégation générale de l'Alliance Française
de Paris aux Etats-Unis. Sunday, October 14, 2007
Alliance Française of Birmingham and UAB Department of Foreign Languages invite the public to a free lecture in English by Jean Harzic Cette conférence est organisée avec le soutien
de la Délégation générale de l'Alliance Française
de Paris aux Etats-Unis. Saturday, May 5, 2007
Alliance Française of Birmingham and UAB Department of Foreign Languages invite the public to a free lecture in French by Yasmina Kadhra Yasmina Khadra is the pen name of Mohammed Moulesselhoul,
born in Algeria in 1955. An officer in the Algerian army, he became a
commander by the time he left in 2000 after thirty-six years of military
life, to dedicate himself to his real vocation: writing. In 2001, after
a short stay in Mexico , he settled in France where he has lived ever
since with his family. His wife suggested he take on a pseudonym and lent
him two first names. Les Hirondelles de Kaboul, translated in the USA by John Cullen, was best book of the year in 2005 according to the San Francisco Chronicle and Christian Science Monitor. LAttentat, pubished in 2005, confirmed his talent and international acclaim. Nobel prize winner J. M. Coetze sees in this prolific
writer, now translated into 17 languages, a novelist of the highest order.
In 2004, Newsweek acclaimed him as one of the rare writers capable of
giving a meaning to the violence in Algeria today. His novel set in Afghanistan
under the Taliban The Swallows of Kabul was short listed for the 2006
International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Time: 7:30 PM Saturday, February 10, 2007 Alliance Française of Birmingham and UAB Department of Foreign Languages invite the public to a free lecture in English by Philippe Gumplowicz "Jazz: American Musicians in Paris" Born in Paris in 1950, Philippe Gumplowicz is distinguished
lecturer in musicology at the University of Bourgogne and teaches seminars
at the Sorbonne as well as at the School for Advanced Studies in Social
Studies. Time: 7:30 PM
Place: UAB Hulsey Recital Hall, 950 13th Street South Admission: FREE Reception to be announced For more information, call 934-8902 Sunday, January 28, 2007 Alliance Française of Birmingham and UAB Department of Foreign Languages invite the public to a free lecture in French by Jean Plantu Time: 6:30 PM Click here
to learn more about M. Plantu Home
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