In collaboration with the IU Department of French & Italian, a Center of Excellence of the French Embassy at IU, the IU departments of Theatre & Dance and African American and African Diaspora Studies, and thanks to the generous participation of the African Studies Program and the Babel Theater Project, artist-in-residence Penda Diouf will bring four exciting events to Bloomington’s campus September 14-18: a playwriting workshop, a Babel Theater Project reading of her play “The She-Bear,” Diouf’s own reading of her play “Tracks,” and a conversation with Diouf on the poetics of the black diaspora.
Join us! All events are in English, open to all, and the “Conversation” event will be livestreamed.
Restitute African Film Heritage brings together researchers, curators, and filmmakers from institutions around the world where African film collections are located in order to contribute to this ongoing discussion and generate projects that will make restitution possible.
Penda Diouf writes for the performing arts (theater, opera, music, and dance). Her plays have been translated into German, English, Armenian, Czech, and Finnish. She has received various awards for her plays in France and Germany, and has held residencies at the Royal Court in London, the Institut Français in Tunis, the Villa Albertine in New York and the Théâtre National in Strasbourg.
The film Speak Up (Ouvrir la voix in French) by French filmmaker, scholar, and afrofeminist Amandine Gay, will be shown at the IU Cinema on February 21. It opens with women talking about the event that first made them realize they were Black. These shared Fanon-like events set the tone for the rest of the film: what does it mean to be a Black woman in countries like France and Belgium, two places where they are constantly surveilled and monitored while also invisibilized? The Center of Excellence is a proud co-sponsor of Ms. Gay's visit to IU, along with her collaborator Enrico Bartolucci. In addition to the film showing, Gay will give a lecture on Wednesday, February 23.
How did France deal with the global crisis of COVID-19? Professor Oana Panaïté’s Fall 2021 course titled France during the Pandemic: Resistance and Resilience explores this question as part of the College of Arts and Sciences Themester program, where this year’s theme is Resilience. With support from the Center of Excellence of the French Embassy, Professor Panaïté welcomed French guest speakers to speak with her students and elucidate the impacts of the pandemic on French society.
Image: Pont des Arts on the Seine, Paris
Center of Excellence of the French Embassy social media channels
