Noted French critic, philosopher, playwright, and director Denis Guenoun spoke at a performance Wednesday with Duke Theater Studies professors Ellen Hemphill and Jay O'Berski. The three collaborated on a reading/solo performance adapting works by the major figure in modern theater, Antonin Artaud. The Q & A with the participants drew students into the play, and allowed audience members to discover Guenoun’s own play, Artaud-Barrault, to be staged this fall at the Theatre Chaillot, Paris.
A professor of French literature and theater at the University of Paris Sorbonne-Paris IV, Guenoun was on campus for a week working with Romance Studies and Theater Studies classes and seminars.
Guenoun, along with translators Ann and Bill Smock, from UC-Berkeley, presented the forthcoming translation of his narrative Un Semite, "A Semite: A Memoir of Algeria." The bilingual discussion of the memoir and its translation ranged over subjects including the life of Guenoun’s Jewish Communist family from World War II through the Algerian Revolution.
On Friday, Guenoun gave a final seminar, and with Professor Roberto Dainotto, and other participants debated changing conceptions of Europe.
Throughout the week, Guenoun also participated in undergraduate courses, including the "Global France" course taught this semester by Professors Achillle Mbembe and Laurent Dubois. In Roberto Dainotto’s "What is Europe?," a course that explores ideas of identity, citizenship, nationalism and culture on a continent that, unlike Australia, Africa and the Americas, lacks clear geographical separation, students questioned Guenoun about his book "About Europe: A Philosophical Hypothesis."
The author/scholar was invited to Duke by Romance Studies Professor Helen Solterer as part of the Department of Romance Studies' launch of a new Program in European Studies. The program offers a number of courses, taught mostly in English, for students interested in both the European Union, and the historical and cultural formations of idea of Europe. A second course, on European cinema, is also being taught for the first time this fall by Prof Anne-Gaëlle Saliot. The program includes "Translating Europe," a lecture series that will bring to campus international speakers, such as Guenoun and, in November, Anne Duprat.
Photo by Les Todd/Duke University Photography