Language and Culture Studies: News & Events

April in Paris finale- Friday, April 12 at Cinestudio

Please join us for a festive reception from 6:45pm -7:30pm before the show. 

Feature film, Ouvertures at 7:30 pm by directors Louis Henderson and Olivier Marboeuf (2020) 132 min. 

At a time of violent political upheaval in Haiti, Ouvertures explores the conflicted heart of the first country to win independence from European colonizers. The inspired collaboration is the work of directors Henderson and Marboeuf with a group of Haitian artists, actors and poets called The Living and the Dead Ensemble. “A mediation of how the pain and triumphs of a nation’s history are eternal. It is alive, breathing and evolving through the people they influence.”- Gabrielle Pascal, Haitian Times.     

After the screening, Professor Indira Karamcheti of Global South Asian Studies at Wesleyan University, will lead the discussion and field Q&A. https://cinestudio.org/film/ouvertures/

Marjorie Agosín is known for her poetry that conveys the core of human experiences, especially those impacted by historical and cultural circumstances relevant to human rights. Agosín has been the recipient of multiple accolades and distinctions in recognition of her literary contributions and contributions as a proponent of human rights. Notably, she has been honored with the Jeanette Rankin Award in Human Rights and the United Nations Leadership Award for Human Rights. And was bestowed with the Gabriela Mistral Medal for Lifetime Achievement by the Chilean government.

In The Thirty Names of Night, Nadir, a Syrian American trans New Yorker, searches for the connection between his late ornithologist mother and the mysteriously vanished bird artist Laila Z, who both encountered the same rare bird before their deaths. Following his mother’s ghost, Nadir uncovers the silences kept in the name of survival by his own community and learns that Laila Z’s secrets are intimately tied to his family’s–and his own–in ways he never could have expected. In this talk, Zeyn Joukhadar will discuss the process of researching and imagining the queer histories in which Nadir finds precedent for his own life, the search for the sacred in artmaking and embodiment, and the novel’s many birds.

“The Truth in Translation: Telling Stories of Women and the Lebanese Civil War”

2023 Distinguished Scholar Lecture

Sponsored by the Department of Language and Culture Studies, Arabic Section.

Date: Wednesday, September 27, 2023 at 4:30pm

Location: Rittenberg Lounge, Mather Hall