Parisian Literary Salon

Here you will find the notes from Toni Morrison’s opening talk on The Foriegner’s Home- and thanks to Susan Luraschi who gave me the ticket!!

Link to Notes on Toni Morrison’s Presentation, Nov 6, 2006

In honor of Dr. Morrison’s presence herein Paris as the guest curator for the Louvre, I am offering a special petite Salon on Beloved. Although it feels almost disrespectful to try and discuss Beloved in six hours, I think with the right group this can be meaningful. Clearly there is interest!! I encourage those who have read or studied the work before as well asthose coming to the book for the first time.
>From the response I have had, the following dates seem to work for the majority:- and this means starting NEXT MONDAY!!!
I have studied & taught this book extensively & have most of the background work on the computer- to facilitate our starting. The cost of the Salon is sliding scale: 30-45 euro.

3 Mondays in a row: Monday Nov. 20, 27, Dec. 4….

I have studied & taught this book extensively & have most of the background work on the computer- to facilitate our starting. The cost of the Salon is sliding scale: 30-45 euro.
Please email me to reserve your place- this will be an evening Salon meeting in the 14th (or possibly more centrally…) from 8-10 PM. AS of Wednesday AM- 4 spaces available

Since Beloved is the text that impelled the Salon in the first place, I am passing on the news(that many of you have already) that Toni Morrison is the guest curator at the Louvre for the month of November. Below is the list of events that I pulled off the Louvre website- but I believe there are other events not listed there- since a Salon member just gifted me an extra ticket for her first lecture Monday the 6th. If I get any more information there, I will certainly pass it along.

In honor of Toni Morrison’s presence here in Paris- and in honor of the recent citation of Beloved as the best work of American Fiction of the last 25 years(see below), I would like to offer a Salon special. If there is enough interest, I will offer a petite Salon to meet perhaps 3 times at the convenience of the majority of participants- several Sunday nights for example, or Monday evenings or Friday afternoons or some combination- to study & discuss this work. This Salon would be enriching for those reading the book for the first time or an opportunity to revisit the work. I have found that Beloved acts as a starting gate for the glimmer of an understanding about the experience of Slavery- and from here, we can begin to discuss race issues. The book allows every reader- from all backgrounds- to grasp first the agony of the lived experience of slavery, then the struggle to try to lay claim to oneself in the aftermath of being owned. If you are interested, please email me by Nov. 10th with your preferred dates & times for meeting. If I have 8 participants, I will run this Salon.

Early this year, the Book Review’s editor, Sam Tanenhaus, sent out a short letter to a couple of hundred prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages, asking them to please identify “the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years.” Check out A.O. Scott’s thoughts on this idea of ‘best’: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/books/review/scott-essay.html?ex=1162616400&en=6c4dbea00774db12&ei=5070

Le Louvre invite Toni Morrison

du 6 novembre au 29 novembre 2006 Conférences, Slam session, Rencontres, Lectures, Musique filmée, Rétrospective de films, Concerts

Toni Morrison, prix Nobel de littérature en 1993, présente à l’auditorium un programme développé autour d’un thème qu’on retrouve dans ses romans Jazz ou Beloved : « étranger chez soi » (The Foreigner’s Home). Colloques, conférences, lectures, cinéma, concerts, rencontres avec des écrivains et des artistes venus de tous les horizons (William Forsythe, Peter Welz, Charles Burnett, Toumani Diabaté, Michael Ondaatje, Assia Djebar …) illustreront cette thématique de manière à la fois forte et nuancée. Une exposition «Corps étrangers», trois parcours dans les départements d’Antiquites montrant bien l’intemporalité du thème et une soirée devant la peinture française du XIXe siècle consacrée à de jeunes slamers français accompagnent ce programme dans les salles du musée.Grâce au soutien de The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, d’American Friends of the Louvre, d’Agon Shu et du Festival d’Automne à Paris. Avec la participation de American Airlines, l’Hôtel Le Bristol, Jeffrey’s World of Travel et des Editions Christian Bourgois. En partenariat média avec Le Point, Le magazine littéraire, l’Histoire et RFI.Conférence d’introduction par Toni Morrison, le 6 novembre à 18h30 Rencontre entre Toni Morrison, William Forsythe et Peter Welz, le 8 novembre à 18h Slam session : improvisations poétiques dans les salles du musée, le 10 novembre à partir de 19h Conférences d’histoire culturelle «Etrangers dans les sociétés anciennes : Mésopotamie, Egypte, Grèce les 13, 16 et 20 novembre à 18h30 Journée-débat « Musée-musées » Le musée, lieu d’intégration culturelle ?, le 15 novembre Lecture Texte inédit de Toni Morrison, par Toni Morrison et François Marthouret, le 17 novembre à 18h30 Après-midi et soirée consacrés aux écrivains entre deux cultures, le 18 novembre à partir de 14h30 Projection (public scolaire) Carmen Jones d’Otto Preminger, le 20 novembre à 14h Rétrospective des films de Charles Burnett les 23, 24 et 25 novembre Musique filmée «Voix noires, figures de l’émancipation », le 26 novembre à 15h et 17h Concerts Toumani Diabaté, le 29 novembre à 20h30