Comparative Cultural Studies Research Group Seminar
Secularism in France Now: Reviving Joan of Arc's Fairy Tree

Françoise Meltzer

March 17th, 2009, 17:00, CES Seminar Room

 
Presentation
This lecture has to do with two aspects of the French/European scenario. The first considers Nicolas Sarkozy's suggestion that the 1905 French law, separating church and state ("laïcité"), should be rewritten or repealed, thus destabilizing a secular republic. The second aspect looks at how celtic tradition - once a reason for heresy (as for Joan of Arc, for example) - is now being promoted as a justification for European cultural unity.  The role of religion, then, is what is at question in the present imago of "Europe."

 
Biographic Note
Françoise Meltzer is professor of French Studies and Compared Literature at University of Chicago. Since 1982, she is member of the editorial board of the journal Critical Inquiry. Meltzer has been published several times regarding contemporary critical theory, 19th century French literature and culture and compared literature. She has published, among several other books, For Fear of the Fire. Joan of Arc and the Limits of Subjectivity (University of Chicago Press, 2001). Was consultant of the CES research project “Representing Violence and the Violence of Representation”.

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