French Studies Seminar Series

Designed by graduate students, the French Studies Seminars provide a format in which students and faculty can meet to discuss their academic work and the latest scholarship in the field of French studies. Every year, two graduate students from the French department at the University of Pennsylvania invite scholars from Penn and other institutions to present their work to the graduate students, faculty, and other individuals who share an interest in French and Francophone culture. The current seminar series grew out of the French Cultural Studies seminars created in 1993 by Drs. Joan DeJean and Lynn Hunt.

Past speakers include David Barnes, David Bell, Philippe Bordes, Roger Chartier, Robert Darnton, Pricilla Ferguson, Michael Fried, Georges May, Elena Russo, Michael Sheringham, and Natalie Zemon Davis.

Our speakers for the 2008-2009 year were:

• October 3: Dr. Stephen Nichols from John Hopkins University discussed his paper on "Erich Auerbach: History, Literature, and Jewish Philosophy."
• November 7: Dr. David LaGuardia of Dartmouth College discussed his paper "On Henri III as Media Star and Victim: Sexuality, Masculinity, and Royal Identity in Late Renaissance France." 
• February 27: Ian McConnan from the University of Pennsylvania presented his dissertation chapter entitled "Exegesis and the problem of the thing," within the area of medieval French literature.

Our speakers for the 2007-2008 year were:

• October 5: Dr. Gary Ferguson from the University of Delaware and Dr. Elizabeth Stephens from the University of Queensland gave a joint presentation on queer studies. Dr. Ferguson spoke about women and pleasure in 16th-century France; Dr. Stephens spoke about homoeroticism in the fiction of Jean Genet.
• December 9: Emily Adams from the University of Pennsylvania presented on women and bohemia in 19th-century France.
• February 8: Dr. Catherine Dana from Bryn Mawr College spoke about translation and writing in a foreign language.
• February 29: Angelina Stelmach from the University of Pennsylvania presented on medieval phallic symbolism in Jean de Meung's section of Le Roman de la Rose.
• April: Dr. Louisa Sheafrom Ohio State University presented a paper on "Sade and the Cynic Tradition."

Our speakers for the 2006-2007 year were:

• October 27: Dr. Michel Jeanneret from the Johns Hopkins University presented on authors' biographies.
• December 1: Tilden Daniels from the University of Pennsylvania presented on Michaux's "existential cinema."
• January 26: Dr. Dominic Thomas from UCLA presented on colonialism, immigration and transnationalism.
• February 16: Dr. François Rigolot from Princeton University presented on the interpretation of dreams in the Renaissance.
• March 16: Dr. Philippe Met from the University of Pennsylvania presented on the semiotics of gender in singing moments of French crime films.
• April 13: Dr. Warren Breckman from the University of Pennsylvania presented on Hegelianism and Post-Marxism in Žižek and Nancy.