Cultural and Intellectual Immersion

in Postcolonial Paris

BY ALISON RICE AND OLIVIER MOREL

The Nanovic Institute provided generous support that enabled students from Notre Dame who participated in a 2022 summer program in Paris to benefit from an impressive number of cultural opportunities in the French capital. These outings inspired the intellectual growth of students who were enrolled in two intensive six-week courses taught by Alison Rice and Olivier Morel, Notre Dame professors and faculty fellows of the Nanovic Institute. Support from the Nanovic Institute made the summer program a truly unforgettable experience. Without it, the program would have consisted of some meaningful classroom interaction and guided tours of the city. These components would have constituted a valuable abroad experience, but not an immersive and involved cultural and intellectual adventure. The grant from the Nanovic Institute was indeed transformative, making possible outings to the ballet, the opera, and a classical music concert in the heart of the city, a daylong excursion to the Palace of Versailles, and subsidizing a wide variety of significant culinary outings to diverse locations throughout the capital alongside visits to special museums. The grant also provided support for the visits of authors, filmmakers, and producers to enhance and expand the classroom experience. Alison Rice, professor of French and Francophone studies, taught “Postcolonial Paris: Contemporary French Cultures in Literature and the Arts,” a course that concentrates on the way “French” cultures are reconsidered and redefined by writers and artists from outside France. The assigned readings illuminated the ways in which Paris is truly a “postcolonial” capital city, containing a mixture of ethnicities, beliefs, and customs that lead to an increasingly complicated national identity. Defining what it means to be “French” is a particularly complex task at present, in a period of a changing European Union and a dynamic nation that is heavily influenced by globalization and migration. Invited speakers included writers Bessora, the accomplished author of a number of books, including a beautifully conceived graphic novel titled Alpha: Abidjan to Paris, and Leïla Sebbar, a particularly prolific writer whose publications include a moving tribute to a monumental moment in Parisian history, The Seine Was Red: Paris, October 1961. These two works of literature came alive as the authors engaged students in conversation and fielded questions regarding the details of their composition. Other special events specifically related to “Postcolonial Paris” included a culinary outing to enjoy falafels in the Marais, often referred to as the Jewish Quarter, and hot mint tea at the Grand Mosque of Paris. Olivier Morel, associate professor of film, television, and theatre, taught “Paris: Visual Capital,” a study of “cinema, photography, and the media” that explores “how Paris was invented by its images.” Special outings for this course – made possible by Nanovic support – included a visit to the Carnavalet Museum devoted to the history of Paris, a cruise of the Canal Saint-Martin and the Seine River highlighting sites that have become synonymous with great cinematic moments, an on-site discussion with filmmaker and author Ruth Zylberman at the location of her award-winning documentary film, a visit to the special interactive Musé des arts forains that concentrates on Circus and Fairground Arts, and the Cinémathèque Museum that focuses on creator Georges Méliès and the history of cinema.

There were a number of spectacular outings included in the program that had connections to both courses and contributed in special ways to the creation of a vibrant, energetic intellectual community during the summer program. These included a ballet performance choreographed by Mats Ek (including music from Georges Bizet’s Carmen as well as Maurice Ravel’s Bolero), a new staging of Charles Gounod’s opera Faust, a stunning musical and visual homage to the Cathedral of Notre Dame in the Châtelet Theater (including images and scents – as well as the sound of the bells ringing – from the great Gothic cathedral, both before and after the tragic fire of 2019), and culinary outings to Angelina, a tea salon once frequented by literary greats such as Proust and Colette, and the Procope, a café dating back to 1686 and frequented by the likes of Voltaire, Diderot, and Benjamin Franklin.

Stimulating conversation and fine dining have always gone together in establishments like these in the City of Light, and the Nanovic Institute made rich exchanges possible on so many levels for the students in the 2022 Notre Dame Summer Program in Paris. ◆

Support from the Nanovic Institute made the summer program a truly unforgettable experience...an immersive and involved cultural and intellectual adventure.

Students outside of the Panthéon in Paris, the final resting place of over 70 illustrious figures that have shaped the history of France.

Opening Eyes to Europe

Through Encounters and Experiences

One of the most important books in the history of humanity is, undoubtedly, The Little Prince. Written by the French pilot and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, this story was published in early 1943, about 50 years before the founding of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies. Just like the Nanovic Institute, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was a bridge builder between the United States and Europe.

The Nanovic Institute is an academic unit and part of a great university that is deeply committed to teaching. The Little Prince could inspire us in this regard. Let us imagine a simple scene: The little Prince encountered a teacher. “I am about to teach a class,” she explains to him. “What does that mean – ‘to teach?’” asked the little Prince. He had never seen a school from the inside. What he knew, he knew because of life itself. “Teaching means stretching a person’s imagination to see the world differently,” said the teacher who may have thought about this. “Stretching a person’s imagination to see the world differently,” repeated the little Prince. He could not really follow. “What does it mean to stretch a person’s imagination?” he asked.

“Well, it means to open your eyes to something you have not seen before,” said the teacher. “And then you cannot deny that it is there and it will be important. And then you see the world differently. And your life will never be the same.” “But I like the world and the way it is,” said the little Prince and thought about the fox and the rose and maybe even the drawing of the sheep. It was a good world, full of good planets. And it was a good life, too, but sometimes challenging and difficult.

The Nanovic Institute wants to stretch the imagination of the people we work with – through encounters and experiences. We want to serve the idea of creating artisans of a new humanity committed to the common good of all, and touched in their hearts since, as Saint-Exupéry wrote, “it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

– Clemens Sedmak

STAFF Clemens Sedmak Director and Professor of Social Ethics Monica Caro Senior Associate Director Bruna Celic Research Program Coordinator Anna Dolezal Student Programs Assistant Director Jennifer Lechtanski Graphic Designer Gráinne McEvoy Writer and Editorial Program Manager Hildegund Müller Senior Liaison for Research and Curricular Affairs, and Associate Professor of Classics Grant Osborn Associate Director Rebecca Prince Events Coordinator Melanie Webb Operations Assistant Director

FACULTY COMMITTEE 2021-22 Meredith Chesson, Anthropology John Deak, History Ulrich Lehner, Theology Olivier Morel, Film, Television, and Theatre Alison Rice, Romance Languages and Literatures Yasmin Solomonescu, English

ADVISORY BOARD Robert and Elizabeth Nanovic Founding Benefactors Jane Heiden Chair Dominica Annese R. Stephen Barrett Paul Black David Buckley Jennifer Flanagan Recent Alumna Representative Terrence Keeley Claire Shannon Kelly Paul L. Mahoney Susan Mahoney Hatfield Patrick Moran Susan Nanovic Flannery Sean M. Reilly Peter Šťastný

Nanovic Institute for European Studies Keough School of Global Affairs 1060 Jenkins Nanovic Halls Notre Dame, Indiana 46556-7000

Telephone: 574-631-5253 Email: nanovic@nd.edu Website: nanovic.nd.edu