November 6th & 7th 2006
Two days of discussion, colloquia and presentations considering Duras' impact as a genre-bending artist and comparing the poetics of the film and the play, featuring a Burack President’s Distinguished Lecture by Dr. Jane Winston, Northwestern University and involving scholars and guests from around the region. 

Roundtable #1, 2:30–4:00  Marsh Lounge
Topic: Gender, Melancholy & Trauma in the work of Duras

Burack Lecture, 4:30–6:00  Billings North Lounge
J. Winston, "Situating India Song," with reception to follow

Reception, 6:00–6:45  Billings Apse

Film Screening, India Song 7:00pm
Merrill’s Roxy Cinemas, Downtown Burlington

Roundtable #2, 2:00–5:00  Billings, MLK Lounge
Topic: Space, Memory & Nostalgia in the work of Duras

Small Group Meetings/Break, 4:00–5:00   Billings, MLK Lounge

Interdisciplinary Course Open House, with scenes from the play in progress 5:45 pm, Mann Hall

Click here to register for the Symposium

Dr. Jane Winston, Northwestern University

Jane Winston (Ph.D. Duke University, 1993) is Associate Professor of French and Gender Studies at Northwestern University, where she is chair of the Department of French and Italian and former director of the Program in Gender Studies.

Her main interests are in literary and cultural studies, Marxist critical theory, Freudian psychoanalysis, Guy Debord and the Situationists, orientalism, and utopian narrative and practice, as defined by Marin and developed by Marxist critics including Jameson and Wegner.

Her publications include Postcolonial Duras: Cultural Memory in Postwar France (Palgrave 2001) and Of Vietnam: Identities in Dialogue (Palgrave 2001), co-edited with Leakthina Chau-Peck Ollier as well as numerous articles on Duras, Linda Lê, gender, sexuality and the modern French novel, and the social function of French colonial signifiers in postwar American culture.

She has organized panels and presented her research at the Modern Language Association annual convention, Société Duras in London, the University of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Stanford University, the University of Florida, Scripps College, Amherst College, the University of Pennsylvania, Sousse, Tunisia, West Virginia University, Northwestern University and elsewhere.

She is currently completing a manuscript on orientalism and utopia in the postwar and postmodern eras. She seeks, in this project, to contribute to our understanding of the social and psychic function of culture and to the possibilities of utopian practice in our present social and historical juncture.

For more information on the symposium, please contact the project curator, Rachel Perlmeter, at rperlmet@uvm.edu or call Theatre Department Chair, Jeffrey Modereger at 802.656.0085 or email jeffrey.modereger@uvm.edu .

Last modified November 07 2006 10:55 AM