2018
December 9 Piano concert: London-based pianist Kamilla Arku is a graduate of Yale University and the Royal Northern College of Music. Kamilla has taken part in prestigious programmes such as the Britten Pears Young Artists Programme, and she has been awarded with renowned scholarships and prizes. The concert featured French masterpieces along with works by Yale composers. http://kamillaarku.com/
November 14 Dinner with the Yale Club: Paloma Pineda (Yale '12) is a social entrepreneur passionate about creating employment through sustainable industrial growth in developing economies. Following a stint at Bain Consulting she co-founded Ethical Apparel Africa three years ago. She is now based between West Africa (Ghana / Benin) and Paris. Paloma talked about the journey of launching and growing a start-up in West Africa that prioritizes both profit and people. To date Ethical Apparel Africa has enabled three African-owned factories to complete their first-ever shipments to the US/EU, achieve over $1M in export, and create 180 jobs.
September 16 Walking tour with the Yale and Harvard clubs: The tour met at the Tuileries metro. We heard how the Parisians survived the dark years of the Occupation from 1940-44 on this walk in the area of the rue St. Honoré, the Concorde Square and the Champs Elysées, with stories of daily life, the Gestapo, the Resistance and the Liberation. We saw the traces of the last street battle on rue de Rivoli and the Hotel Meurice where General Von Choltitz surrendered the German forces. We saw the Jeu de Paume Museum, where Rose Valland's heroic endeavors saved priceless artworks from Nazi plunder. We contrasted instances of collaboration with accounts of magnificent courage displayed by French and foreigners alike in the face of arrest and deportation. We probed the murky activities of Coco Chanel and why Edith Piaf was arrested at the Liberation. We celebrated with Ernest Hemingway the liberation of the Ritz Hotel, stride with Charles de Gaulle down the Champs Elysées and asked the burning question; "Why wasn't Paris destroyed as Hitler ordered?"
July 26 Dinner with the Yale Club: Amy Hungerford, Dean of the Humanities Division and Bird White Housum Professor of English, talked about how Yale is building the humanities in and for the 21st century. Her talk was framed by broad questions for discussion: How do the humanities as academic disciplines have to change to meet a changing student population and a world transformed by technology? What is the role of humanities education for today’s students? How does that education prepare them for life and careers after graduation?
June 24 Picnic with the Yale Club at Parc des Buttes Chaumont
May 2 Dinner with the Yale Club: Ariane Kirtley (Yale, 2001, Yale EPH 2004) presented "The Repercussions of Climate Change on Livelihoods and Security in the Sahel". Ariane grew up in West Africa with her parents who worked as photo-journalists for National Geographic. After graduating from Yale University with a B.A. in Anthropology and a Master’s in International Public Health, Ariane returned to the Sahara in 2005 as a Fulbright scholar. The help curb the devastating effects of climate change and water scarcity on nomadic populations, she founded the international NGO Amman Imman: Water is Life. In addition to being CEO of Amman Imman since 2006, Ariane is a photographer and storyteller, and has published several of her fictional and non-fictional works. https://ammanimman.org/
March 28 Talk: Jessica Kasje, PhD Candidate in the Yale French Department, specializes in literature by women writers of the July Monarchy (1830-1848) in France. She spoke on her recent research on author George Sand (Aurore Dupin), and how her complicated feminist legacy, often viewed as self-contradictory, can in fact reveal a consistent politics of anti-oppression and activism.
March 27 Dinner with the Yale Club: Steven Nelson (Yale BA ’85; Harvard AM ’94; PhD ’98) is Professor of African and African American art history and Director of the African Studies Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is in Paris as a Visiting Professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.
From Henry Ossawa Tanner’s paintings of the late 19th and early 20th centuries to the contemporary work of Faith Ringgold, French art and intellectual life has had a deep impact on many African American artists. This talk looked at a few of these instances, focusing on the effects such activity has had on these artists’ work.February 17 Opera - recital: Opera singer and Yale alumnus Lauren Libaw gave a recital with pianist Enrico Cicconofri at the American Church in Paris. Program: Donizetti, Liszt, Offenbach, Rossini, Schubert, Schumann and Weill.
January 31 Interview with the French writer Edouard Louis: The LGBTQ intercollegiate community with the Harvard and Yale Clubs co-hosted an interview with the French writer Edouard Louis. As a recent writer-in-residence at Dartmouth and having lectured at several American universities, Louis brings a dynamic perspective to comparing how the interlocking challenges of social inequality and sexuality manifest in America and in France. The evening provides an exceptional moment to situate Louis’ work in the history of Franco-American relations - and especially in the fertile role LGBTQ authors have played in that intellectual exchange.
