Bridges to the Future: 100 Years of French Thought
In 2021, the publisher Presses Universitaires de France is celebrating its 100-year anniversary.
Over the past century, the iconic French publishing house has published some of the greatest minds from Sigmund Freud to Julia Kristeva, Gilles Deleuze to Hannah Arendt, André Gorz to Léopold Sédar Senghor. Today, the Presses Universitaires de France provide a home to works of Slavoj Zizek, Didier Fassin, Catherine Malabou, Tristan Garcia, Cynthia Fleury, Edouard Louis, Judith Butler, Alain Badiou, and many other forward-looking thinkers. From enlightening accessible works to ambitious academic ones, it has made its marks on French intellectual life and beyond.
On the occasion of this anniversary, several campuses – University of Chicago, Cornell University, Rutgers University, Ohio State University – will welcome some of today’s bright thinkers who have been published by the Presses Universitaires de France for a series of conversations with their American counterparts.
Taking part in these celebrations, Political scientist Gilles Pinson, Philosopher Tristan Garcia, Psychoanalyst Clotilde Leguil, and Historian Renan Larue will engage in vibrant dialogues with American luminaries. Without giving in to mortiferous thinking of a general collapse nor the naive assumption of a bright and reclaimed future, these transatlantic dialogues will ponder how today’s writings guide us towards another tomorrow.
The public online talks will take place throughout the fall of 2021. Please stay tuned for additional information and the announcement of further dates.
Gastronomic Controversies
Renan Larue is a writer and teacher of French literature at the University of California in Santa-Barbara, where he created a Vegan Studies program which explores the intersection between vegetarian and vegan food choices and philosophy, touching on politics, economics, religion, and psychology.
Form and Object
What is a thing? What is an object? In his ambitious Form and Object Tristan Garcia decisively overturns 100 years of Heideggerian orthodoxy about the supposedly derivative nature of objects and in so doing gives deep insights into the world and our place in it.
Watch the talk (link forthcoming)
On Consent
Rutgers University is hosting Clotilde Leguil for a conversation on her most recent book about sexual consent Céder n’est pas consentir: une approche clinique et politique du consentement (PUF, 2021). Relying on psychoanalysis, cinema, and fairy tales (such as Bluebeard), Clotilde Leguil explains the crucial differences between “being forced” and “giving consent”.
Watch the talk (link forthcoming)
The Neo-Liberal City
The concept of the neoliberal city has become a key structuring analytical framework in the field of urban studies. It explains both the ongoing transformation of urban policies and the socio-spatial effects of these policies within cities and highlights the prominent role of cities in the new geography of capitalism.
Watch the talk (link forthcoming)
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