Lectures, 2005-present Marina Van Zuylen April 18, 2005 Jacques Neefs April 11-12, 2006 Léon-François Hoffmann April 20, 2006 Béatrice Didier April 27-28, 2006 Carrie Noland May 4, 2006 Margaret Cohen May 13, 2006 Jean-Paul Sermain April 17, 2007 Claudie Bernard May 7, 2007 Peter Wortsman May 8, 2007 Frank Lestringant May 17-18, 2007		Marina van Zuylen (Bard College) Talk: "The Monomaniacal Imperative: How Literature Puts Obsession To Good (and Bad) Use" April 18, 2005 / 4:00pm/ UCEN, Santa Barbara Harbor Room This lecture is based on Professor Marina van Zuylen's new book Monomania. The Flight from Everyday Life in Literature and Art (Cornell University Press, 2005). Marina van Zuylen is Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Bard College.  She is the author of a book on modernist literature, Difficulty as an Aesthetic Principle and of numerous articles about aesthetics, literature, and philosophy.Marina van Zuylen is also the author of a book on modernist literature, Difficulty as an Aesthetic Principle and of numerous articles about aesthetics, literature, and philosophy.
		Jacques Neefs (University of Paris-8; Johns Hopkins University) Talk: "Flaubert, Madame Bovary, la subjectivité mimétique"." Tuesday, April 11 /4:00pm, Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, McCune room (HSSB6020) A renowned specialist of modern French literature, Neefs will present the manuscript of Madame Bovary in order to study the identification between author and character in Flaubert's 1857 masterpiece. -On Wednesday, April 12, at 4:30pm, Professor Neefs was a guest speaker in Professors Lévy and Holland's seminar on Improvisation, talking on "L'improvisateur, Stendhal."
		Léon-François Hoffmann (Emeritus, Princeton University) Talk: "Literature and Nation-Building: The Case of Haiti ". Thursday, April 20 / 4:00pm / UCEN State Street Room. Hoffmann is a renowned specialist of Francophone Studies, especially the Antilles and Haiti. His publications include: Haitian fiction revisited (1999), Haiti : lettres et l'être (1992); Essays on Haitian literature (1984). This lecture is organized in conjunction with Professor Prieto's seminar on Haiti.
		Béatrice Didier (Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris) Talk: "Sand: la figure de l'auteur" Thursday, April 27, 4:00pm / IHC, McCune room, HHSB 6020 A prominent specialist of feminist writing, and 18th-19th century literature and music, spoke on George Sand and the issue of authorship for women writers. -April 28: 11:00am-1:00pm: mini-seminar on Diderot's Le Neveu de Rameau. Phelps 5313.
		Carrie Noland (University of California, Irvine) Talk: "Poetry in the Political Field: Aimé Césaire and the Affaire Aragon." Thursday, May 4, 4:00pm / South Hall 2635 Noland addressed the ways in which postcolonial theory addresses poetry. She dealt with the relationship between Césaire's Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (Notebook of a Return to the Native Land) and the Affaire Aragon (in which the claims of politics and the claims of poetics were hotly debated). Sponsored by the Series in Contemporary Literature. A Poetics@ucsb events (http://www.english.ucsb.edu/poetics/)
		Margaret Cohen (Stanford University) Talk: "The Novel and the Sea: Adventures in Practical Reason." Saturday, May 13, 10:00 am / South Hall 2635 Professor Cohen was one of our keynote speakers for the 7th annual UCSB-UCI Graduate Student Conference. Her publications include Profane Illumination: Walter Benjamin and the Paris of Surrealist Revolution (1993) and The Sentimental Education of the Novel (1999), that was awarded the MLA's Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione prize in French and Francophone literature.
		Jean-Paul Sermain (Université de Paris-III, Sorbonne Nouvelle) Talk: "A Western Vision of Oriental Women: Antoine Galland’s Translation of the Thousand and One Nights." Tuesday, April 17, 4:00pm, UCEN-Harbor Room Jean-Paul Sermain is a specialist of 18th century French literature, the aesthetics of Classicism and fairy tales. His books include Rhétorique et roman au 18e siècle (1985), Marivaux, Cervantes et le roman post-critique (1999), Métafictions (1670-1730). La Réflexivité dans la littérature d'imagination (2002) and Le Conte de fées du classicisme aux Lumières (2005). Co-sponsored by the Department of Germanic, Slavic, and Semitic Studies, the Comparative Literature Program, and the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center.
		Claudie Bernard (New York University) Seminar : "Penser la famille au XIXe siècle" Monday May 7, 2:00-4:00pm. Location: Phelps 5313. Claudie Bernard received her Ph.D from Princeton University. She is a specialist of nineteenth-century French studies, with a focus on the intersections of literature, history, and historiographical theories. Her books include: Le Chouan romanesque: Balzac, Barbey d'Aurevilly, Hugo (1989) ; Le Passé recomposé, le roman historique français au dix-neuvième siècle (1996). She also edited Balzac Paterfamilias with Franc Schuerewegen (2001). She recently completed on book on the family in nineteenth-century French culture to be released in the spring 2007.
		Peter Wortsman Talk: "Talking in Tongues: Translating Others and Myself." Tuesday May 8, 4:00pm. Location: McCune Conference Room, Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, HSSB 6th floor. Peter Wortsman is the author of a book of short fiction, A Modern Way To Die (1991), two stage plays, The Tattooed Man Tells All (2000) and Burning Words (2004), and an artists’ book, “it-t=i” (2005) in collaboration with his brother, the artist Harold Wortsman. A critically acclaimed translator from the German, his translations include Posthumous Papers of a Living Author, by Robert Musil, now in its third edition; Telegrams of the Soul: Selected Prose of Peter Altenberg and Travel Pictures, by Heinrich Heine. He is the recipient of the Beard’s Fund Short Story Award and fellowships from the Fulbright and Thomas J. Watson Foundations.Co-sponsored by the Department of Germanic, Slavic, and Semitic Studies, the Comparative Literature Program, and the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center.
		Frank Lestringant (University of Paris-IV Sorbonne) Talk (in French): " INSULAIRES en mouvement : Saint-Exupéry, Michaux, Calvino, Glissant." On: Thursday, May 17, 4:00pm, UCEN-Harbor room. Frank Lestringant is a specialist of Renaissance literary and cultural Studies. He has published on Renaissance cosmography and anthropology as well as on Huguenot poetry and philosophy. His most recent books include: Jean de Léry ou l’invention du sauvage (1999),  Le Livre des îles. Atlas et récits insulaire, de la Genèse à Jules Verne (2002) ; Sous la leçon des vents. Le monde d’André Thevet, cosmographe de la Renaissance (2003) ; Lumière des martyrs. Essai sur le martyre au siècle des Réformes (2004). Sponsored by the Series in Contemporary Literature, The Early Modern Center and the Renaissance Studies Program.