Tag Archives: francophonie

L Autre Dumas

March 3 10

So they made a film in France about Alexandre Dumas, père, called L Autre Dumas, starring Gerard Depardieu.  Look at the photo of Dumas and think about how Gerard Depardieu looks, and hopefully you will see the issue.

The thing that is very interesting is that Le CRAN has attacked the film for this in a post on their website that makes me quite happy (really, I am so glad these types of organizations exist now in France), is that Dumas himself, in ” Mes Mémoires (French Edition)“ discusses the issues he has because of his blackness, the fears his mother had before he was born etc.

My favorite part, because it is so true, is the following quote:

Trop peu de nos compatriotes savent qu’Alexandre Dumas, l’un des plus grands auteurs français, était un métis, qu’il était considéré à son époque comme Noir et qu’il se décrivait lui-même comme un « nègre » aux « cheveux crépus » - Le Cran

Too few of our countrymen know that Alexandre Dumas, one of the greatest French writers, was mixed, he was consider black  in his time he described himself as a “negro” with ” frizzy hair” — translation, Jade

So why is this important?  For me personally, learning that Alexandre Dumas was black like my family (in that most American black people are “métisse”),  was life changing.  I was familiar with his work, specifically the Three Musketeers (below) and the Count of Monte Cristo from a very young age, even if i was not familiar with him, the man.

The day I learned about his ethnic/racial heritage was life changing for me. I took it the same way I took Obama. Here is this name, this person who changed the face of the world, this person who is seen as one of the best and a (French) cultural icon, whose work has turned in to so many plays and films etc. and he looks like my cousin. He looks like my future children. He looks like me. That experience showed me that, despite the message I received from those around me, the only true limits of my ability to achieve and to reach would be from me. It meant so much more than people telling me to reach for the stars, because here was someone who had already done it, despite all the odds and circumstances that were not in his favor… and he did it without denying who he was or where he came from.

So, the film bothers me. People do not know about the heritage of Alexandre Dumas, and films like this mis-educate people (and that isn””t even with acknowledging the assistant issue that apparently exists in the film, making Dumas in the film a figurative “Nègre littéraire” the idiomatic French term for ghost writer, rather than the literal “Nègre littéraire” that he was).

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To NYC for Memory, Translation, and the Transmission of Knowledge

March 2 09

Provided my son continues to get better *fingers crossed* I will be going to NYC for a workshop being held at NYU. I am excited.   It looks like it will be very interesting and it is open to the public.  They request that you attend the whole thing though.   I am not finding a website for the workshop/organized/etc so the details are below:

PDF for the workshop can be downloaded here: http://econ.as.nyu.edu/docs/IO/10554/workshop_march_20093.pdf

Memory, Translation, and the Transmission of Knowledge Inaugural Workshop of the new NYU-CNRS research center, March 5-6

The Center seeks to explore the diversity of systems of thought and knowledge in the world and in different eras, the modes through which knowledge is constituted and/or institutionalized, the interaction or isolation, and the permeability or conflictuality of cultures.

The Center’s focus is the relations between universal and differential cultures, systems of knowledge and understanding; across disciplines, it will promote research on the translatability of systems, the transmission and transformation of cultures, concepts and theories. The plurality of histories and languages, as well as the complexities of memory, consciousness and its philosophical accounts, will also form part of our initial projects.

Thursday, March 5th

Venue: CIRHUS conference room, 4 Washington Square North

9:30 am : Welcome Address
Bruno Laurioux, Director of Institute of Humanities and Social sciences, CNRS
Richard Foley, Dean of Faculty of Arts and Science
9:45: Introduction: Emilienne Baneth-Nouailhetas (CNRS), Edward Berenson (NYU), Christophe J. Goddard (CNRS)
10: 00 am to 12: 00 pm: Memory and memorialisation; chair: Edward Berenson (NYU)

  • Cliff Chanin (Senior Advisor, September 11 National Memorial Museum)
  • Denis Peschanski (CNRS) and Ed Berenson (NYU): “History and Memory”
  • Joseph Ledoux (NYU): “Memory, emotion and the brain”
  • F. de Vignemont (CNRS), Ned Block (NYU) : “Memory Inside and Out”
  • Brigitte Sion (NYU): “Performing memory”

12:00 to 12:30 pm: Discussion
12:30 to 1:30 pm: LUNCH
1:30 p.m. to 3:00 pm: Transmissions and religions; chair: Randall White (NYU)

  • Randall White (NYU): “The dialogue with the caves”: religion and the underground in Paleolithic France
  • Christophe Goddard (CNRS): “Questioning syncretism and religious transitions: the Syrian Sanctuary in Rome and its recent archaeological discoveries (2005-2007)”
  • Stefania Capone (CNRS): “Rethinking Religious Change: Transnationalism, Divination Practices, Ritual Borrowings “

3:00 pm to 3:30 pm: Discussion
3:30 pm to 4:00 pm: Coffee break
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm: Postcolonial theory: chair Robert Young (NYU)

  • Robert Young (NYU); Cliff Siskin (NYU); Emilienne Baneth-Nouailhetas (CNRS): “Postcolonialism and Re:Enlightenment: An Experiment in Reconstituting knowledge.”
  • Laetitia Zecchini (CNRS): “Knowledge and the ‘subaltern’: the dalit question as a contrapuntal exploration of postcolonialism.”
  • Frederic Regard (CNRS-University Paris 4-Sorbonne): “Sir Richard Francis Burton, the ‘Amateur Barbarian’”.

5:30 pm to 6 pm: Discussion

Friday, March 6

Venue: CIRHUS conference room, 4 Washington Square North

9:30 am to 11:30 am
Translation and translatability chair: Barbara Cassin (CNRS)

  • Barbara Cassin (CNRS), Emily Apter (NYU), Jacques Lezra (NYU): “Translating the Untranslatable”
  • Muriel Debie (CNRS), Roger Bagnall (NYU): “Bilingualism in the Ancient Mediterranean area”
  • Anca Vasiliu (CNRS): “The slippery semantics of ‘image’ in late Antiquity”

11:30 am to 12:00: Discussion
12 am to 1:30 pm: LUNCH
1:30 pm to 2:15 pm: Photography and film, visualization and transmission: chair Jean-Loup Bourget (ENS-CNRS)

  • Jean-Loup Bourget (ENS-CNRS): “Fritz Lang from Berlin to Hollywood”
  • Didier Aubert (CNRS – University Paris 3 – Sorbonne Nouvelle) : “Pictures against the picturesque – photography and Americanization in the early 20th-century”

2:15 pm to 2:45 pm: Discussion
2:45 pm to 3 pm: Coffee break
3:00 pm to 3:45 pm: Slavery, slaveries

  • Frederique de Vignemont (CNRS) : “Habeas Corpus ; the sense of ownership of one’s body”
  • Myriam Cottias (CNRS) : “Connected slaveries: the stakes for modern history”

3:45 pm to 4:15 pm: Discussion

4:30 pm: Conclusion of workshop: John Sexton, President of New York University Bruno Laurioux, Director of Institute of Humanities and Social sciences, CNRS
5:15 PM: Ground floor auditorium, 19 University Place

Screening of the film Tropiques Amers, the first cinematic treatment of slavery in French colonies ever shown on French television. Myriam Cottias, author of the film’s screenplay, will be with us for this special event.

7:00 PM: Reception. 19 University Place, Great Room.

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Thoughts on Black and Blackness in France

February 19 09

On Wednesday, February 4, there was a French Studies Colloquium hosted by my old school. The talk was Pap NDIAYE on Blacks and Blackness in France: A Historical and Sociological Perspective. I was unable to be there, but I was lucky enough to receive a CD of the talk, and it was very very good. I generally don’t like to get in to conversations with people about blackness and racism in France because while it is similar to the US, it is also very different. As Pap Ndiaye is actually a prof of American Studies in France, he was able to make so many great points that pointed out the differences. He also wrote a book (I got the last in stock copy from amazon.ca har har), CONDITION NOIRE (LA) : ESSAI SUR UNE MINORITÉ FRANÇAISE.

Here are some of the main points that I think are important to understand the difference in perspectives that came up in the talk:

  • The Black population didn’t really begin to exist in large numbers in France until WWI, when Senegalese and Afro-American soldiers came to France and stayed.
  • The Black French population is more diverse than the American Black population (the Caribbean, West Africa, Islands like Reunion, Madagascar, etc). This means that, historically, the black populations in France have been very compartmentalized based on a secondary ethnicity.
  • This means there is no monolithic blackness in France (though this is changing). In face, if you ask the people who were born and raised there, they are more likely to say and accept that they are French. However, their social interactions are what makes them black. In the talk he said there is a “loos transnational blackness with a strong feeling of being French.”
  • Thus, being black in France is not a cultural experience, but a SOCIAL experience built through social interactions. The term that has come in to use, as a result, to describe this social group is visible minorities.
  • There are class issues in terms of discriminatory employment. For instance, while the unemployment is basically equal among white French people and black French people, underemployment amongst black people is a big issue. There is a joke that France has the most educated security guards in the world.
  • There is an issue with visual minorities never being allowed to assimilate completely, even though they see themselves as French. This is illustrated by the use of the term immigrant to describe people who are visual minorities that are 2nd, 3rd etc generation French born citizen. The great example he pointed out was Sarkozy, the current French president. Though his father was born in Hungary, Sarkozy would never be referred to as an immigrant. He is considered French through and through.

One thing he said that was really great was:

In France, as well as in the United States, people can identify as black without believing that the designation says anything deep about who they are.

I hope people get that. I’m often left thinking that they don’t.

As time as gone on, though the black population in France is diverse, they have come to realize that they have a shared social experience (again, not cultural), and as a result, a new negritude is being born. It is very interesting to watch. I’m sad I wasn’t in school when this started (it start right after I graduated), but I saw the early since of it’s impending arrival nonetheless. Hopefully his book, and the few studies that have been funded to examine visible minorities (though it is seen as an attack on the fundamentals of the French republic, which was to remain raceless after the revolution) will continue this dialogue. It is always intersting to do compartivie studies. Alsoin the post colonial world with the continued post colonial migration and France still having strong vested interests in many of her former colonies, the social interactions of race when whiteness is the norm will need to be addressed, as people can’t stay invisible forever and there is racism and discrimination in the hexagon.

One point Ndiaye did make though, is that, despite the lack of monolithic blackness one thing that has linked all black populations, transnationally and internationally is music. We all exchange music. I thought that was pretty awesome, considering I really got interested in France and the construction of identity because of the amazing hip hop and rap that was being produced in the 90s.

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Madagascar

January 29 09

Madagascar has been one of the most interesting places to me on the planet since I learned that the native language is Malayo-Polynesian when I was in undergrad in Hawaii. As languages have always been of interest to me, learning the actual reach of the polynesian family of languages, and what that means for this history of all the people across the globe that speak those languages makes me squee a little. Anyway, I am getting off the point of me making this post.

I am not sure why, but we never hear anything about Madagascar… even after that movie was made. Even in my studies, while we discussed a lot about North Africa and a little bit about sub-Saharan Africa and even less about Indochina (mainly Vietnam… who cares about Laos and Cambodia?), Madagascar, and all of the other little places (even the ones that are still part of France as DOM/TOMs… I am more interesting in the TOMs as those are newer acquisitions), were kind of, sort of, totally left out. So, with everything that is happening now in Madagascar, CNN’s ticker is happily reporting how many people died daily without really going in to details about what is going on there.

Madagascar is a former French colony. I found an interesting article on Le Monde that gave some hard French facts about it. There are 20,000 people with French Passports still there and there is a heavily vested French interest in Tourism to the island nation. Apparently this past summer, they kicked out the French ambassador yet, and have refused to reinstate him. As a result, France closed the French schools there and put the country on the list of places to avoid visiting. As a side note, the article says the president doesn’t want to bring the ambassador back because he is “superstitious”… hahahahaa really?

So, what is leading to the random death count ticker on CNN? Marc Ravalomanana’s government (the current president), is accused of misspending funds and threatening democracy. So people are protesting the government. Would that have been so hard to put across the news ticker? Going just a little further, Andry Rajoelina, the mayor of the capital city, is apparently a leader in these protests. He had a TV station that he started to help his campaign (he ran as an independent), and the government shut it down last month after he ran an interview of the former president (who had ruled Madagascar for 25 years). Apparently, another plan in the works that has upset people is a plan to lease farmland to Daewoo (the South Korean company). Anyway, here is a Reuters article with some key facts about the two main players in all that is going on.

Regardless, I am upset that, rather than actually talk about what is going on in Madagascar, the new outlets seem to be focusing on the deaths and looting. I suppose it is normal though.

As an aside, here are some other places that are actually still associated with France that I never heard enough/anything about in school: French Polynesia (Austral Islands, Bass Islands, Gambier Islands, Marquesas Islands, Society Islands including Tahiti and the Tuamotu Archipelago), New Caledonia, Réunion, Territorial Collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Clipperton Island, Mayotte, Wallis and Futuna, French Antarctica (Saint-Paul Island, Amsterdam Island, Crozet archipelago, Kerguelen archipelago and Adélie Land).
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Burkina Faso, France and Africa

January 13 09
[caption id="attachment_298" align="aligncenter" width="567" caption="Map of French West & Equitorial Africa"]Map of French West Africa[/caption]

I read a news story today that has me asking “did French West Africa ever dissapear or was it just reborn?”… The former République de Haute-Volta, now known as Burkina Faso, has reached an agreement to let some sans-papiers work in France if they have a legal work assignment. I am trying to make sense of it all.  It seems that from both sides, experience in France and French involvement is seen as a conduit to success.  It is one of those interesting side effects of colonial past that ended less than 50 years ago (in 1960).

Apparently there are over 4,000 Burkinabè in France (both legally and illegally) and they will be giving out 500 work cards out. Here is a partial quote from Brice Hortefeux, Minister of Immigration, found in the article:

Selon M. Hortefeux, Paris délivrera 500 cartes professionnelles par an pour permettre à des Burkinabè de se rendre en France « dans la légalité et la transparence » pour bénéficier de « qualification et d’expérience sur le territoire français ».

The parts that are directly quoted make me cringe and I really want to find the whole quote… “in legality and transparency”? to benefit from “qualification and experience on French soil”… I’m not sure why it makes me cringes. I understand both sides really. I guess I wish that the standards for success could be different. But, as I said above, it is less than 50 years after independence and things take time.

Now, the reason I am asking about French West Africa being reborn is, this story introduced me to l’Uemoa (Union Economique et Monétaire Ouest Africaine)
. It is basically a bunch of West African countries that have come together for the economic betterment of the region. When you think of the French colonial expansion in terms of the silly civilizing mission myth (sorry, not buying it) and from the economic standpoint of expanding markets and work forces, it looks like it is the same old song. With economic growth in the region, the civilizing aspect was rendered moot, because people had to learn the language and customs of commerce, thus they learned French language and customs, and are still using them for their advancement, and France is still investing in the region with groups like Groupe Agence Française de Développement. It is all, very interesting to follow.

Anyway, that is it for random thoughts brought up by that article. I am looking forward to seeing how the region continues to grow and define itself.

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