Toril Moi Director for PAL, 2009-present James B. Duke Professor of Literature and Romance Studies

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3 Contents Introduction Writing is Thinking Intellectual Women Lectures...10 Symposium...12 Young Scholars Workshop...14 PAL/FHI Seminars Jimmy P. Film Screening...20 Simone de Beauvoir and the Other...22 Writing is Thinking Sara Danius Visit...26 PAL/FHI Seminars PAL Graduate Certificate...30 PAL Steering Committee...33 PAL Graduate Students Assistants

4 reports Toril Moi Director for PAL, 2009-present James B. Duke Professor of Literature and Romance Studies The last two years have been eventful. By now, some of our events and initiatives have become part of our brand. What would PAL be without Writing Is Thinking, Intellectual Women, The Young Scholars Workshop, and the Graduate Certificate? The Mellonfunded FHI/PAL seminar series continued in 2015/16, and reached its end with the two last seminars in 2016/17. 4 Over these past two years we have studied ethics in movies and literature, investigated Simone de Beauvoir s writing, and explored misogyny. We have gathered regularly to study the difficulties and joys of the craft of writing. We hosted our fourth Young Scholars Workshop with Niklas Forsberg and Nora Hämäläinen, and our fourth Writing Is Thinking Workshop with Patricia Hampl. We rounded off this last year with a fantastic visit from Sara Danius, who arrived at Duke fresh from handing the Nobel Prize for Literature to Bob Dylan. Her talk in the Nasher was memorably introduced by Duke s President Brodhead. Sara Danius s visit would not have happened if PAL had not received the the support and collaboration of The Graduate Schoool, The President s Office, the

5 Introduction Provost s Office, The Literature Program, and the English Department. In 2016/17 PAL s first Certificate Earner, Thomas Manganaro, worked as an Assistant for the PAL/FHI seminars. We wish him all the best as he begins his academic career at the University of Richmond. Finally, we are happy and relieved to announce that thanks to the English department, we now have new, regular staff support, in the person of Matia Guardabascio. Her presence makes a huge difference! As usual, I and everyone else associated with PAL, are grateful to Heather Wallace, PAL s Associate Director, for her administrative skills, and to Filippo Screpanti for his design acumen. I am looking forward to PAL s ninth year, which will begin with a bang, since we will be launching the new semester already on September 8 with a mini-conference on the topic of The Other with Professor David Palumbo-Liu from Stanford as our keynote speaker.. Toril Moi Director of PAL 5

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8 reports The Pleasure of Producing Good Sentences Aaron Sachs History Cornell University Friday September :30pm Academic writers typically evaluate their work at the level of ideas or arguments. But there is no indication of your thoughts beyond the sentences you use to capture them. What happens when we shift our attention to the careful crafting of each individual sentence? Can there be rhythm and music in scholarly prose? How to write for newspapers and magazines Ane Farsethås Scandinavian editor and critic March 22nd p.m. A talk and mini-workshop with Ane Farsethås, one of Scandinavia s leading editors and critics, who taught us how to begin and not to begin a book review, and how to keep the attention of a general audience. This workshop was sponsored by the TWP Faculty Write Program, the Forum for Scholars and Publics, and PAL 8

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10 reports Beauvoir s Masculinities: thinking about the first sex and beyond Ursula Tidd The University of Manchester Wednesday Oct pm Simone de Beauvoir is admired all over the world for The Second Sex, her pioneering study of the situation of women in patriarchal society. But does Beauvoir also contribute to our understanding of masculinities? Trigger Discipline: On the Myth of Victim Culture Kate Manne Cornell University Wednesday Nov pm Manne dissected the arguments that claim that a so-called victim culture has emerged in US society, and showed how such arguments fit within a broader discourse of misogyny. 10

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12 reports Cavell and Modernism R.M. Berry and Paul Grimstad The University of Manchester Wednesday Mar pm Stanley Cavell s Modernism, R.M. Berry Is A Genre A Medium?: Modernist Aesthetics in Cavell s The World Viewed, Paul Grimstad Berry explained how what Cavell has called the problem of the modern subject is solved, in both the arts and philosophy, by the discovery of an aesthetic medium. Grimstad read Cavell in relation to Clement Greenberg s and Michael Fried s arguments about medium specificity. 12

13 Symposium R.M. Berry Paul Grimstad 13

14 reports PAL Young Scholars Workshop Feb This year s Young Scholars Workshop involved a record number 19 graduate students as well as 2 Duke undergraduates. Graduate students came from Duke, UNC, and Wake Forest, representing a dozen different departments and every stage of graduate study. They joined our keynote speakers and our two invited young scholars: Lucy Alford (Stanford) and Lucy Bergeret (John Hopkins) for rich conversations across disciplinary boundaries. Friday s all-day group sessions discussed the symposium lectures and delve into texts by J.M Coetzee, Forsberg, and Hämäläinen. The workshop closed with a soirée at director Toril Moi s home. The PAL Steering Committee attended this delightful celebration. Literature and Moral Thought Niklas Forsberg Uppsala University, Sweden Carver, Cavell and the Uncanniness of the Ordinary Nora Hämäläinen Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies Literature and Moral Change Thursday Feb pm PAL s 2016 Young Scholars Workshop focused on some of the ways literature can be philosophically important without being didactic (exemplifying, illustrative, exemplary for conduct, etc.). How can literature be a partner in the philosophical and ethical work of coming to see our form(s) of life? Niklas Forsberg discussed seeing one s own habitat with new eyes, and Nora Hämäläinen explored literature s capacity to describe and negotiate change in our moral habitat.

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16 reports Melodrama Convened by Jacqueline Waeber Music Anne-Gaëlle Saliot Romance Studies Michael Valdez Moses English This seminar reconsidered melodrama scholarship by bringing diverse disciplinary approaches English studies, French studies, cinema and media studies, theater studies, musicology, and political science into conversation. Through its public symposia and connection with the Melodrama Research Consortium, the seminar created new platforms of exchange between scholars from these different fields. Cooperation Convened by Jakob Norberg German James Ong Philosophy Kenneth Surin Literature The aim of this PAL-FHI Seminar was twofold: first, to examine how various fields in the humanities have conceived of cooperation and the conditions that enable it; and second, to critically assess the received view that cooperation must presuppose shared grounds or forms of commonality. The seminar featured lectures and workshops led by distinguished scholars from across the humanities who have been working on the theme of cooperation. 16

17 PAL/FHI Seminars P A L-FH I IN T E RDIS CIPLINARY FACULTY SEMINA R ON COOPER ATION On the Scalability of Cooperative Structures Joseph Heath Professor of Philosophy University of Toronto FRIDAY 0 1 A PRI L Lecture: Reception: 11:30 am 1:00 pm Pink Parlor East Duke Building For more information, please james.ong@duke.edu or visit 17

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20 reports Jimmy P., Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian Panel Speakers: Markos Hadjioannou, Deborah Jenson, Ranjana Khanna, Brandon Kohrt, Toril Moi, Dhipthi Mulligan Sep 13& pm PAL and FHI co-sponsored a film screening and panel discussion of French director Arnaud Desplechin s Jimmy P Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian, a 2013 English-language movie, set in Topeka Kansas, based on the memoir of the Hungarian Jewish ethnologist/psychoanalyst Georges Devereux about his work with Jimmy Picard, a Blackfoot Indian and Second World War veteran. Film Screening Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016 Ahmadieh Family Lecture Hall Smith Warehouse, Bay 4 7:00pm 20 Panel Discussion When: Thursday, Sept. 15, 2016 Where: Ahmadieh Family Lecture Hall Smith Warehouse, Bay 4 Time: 6:00pm

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22 reports Simone de Beauvoir and the Other Sponsored by the PAL/FHI Seminar on The Other Simone de Beauvoir on Motherhood and Otherness Nancy Bauer, Tufts University Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2016 Ahmadieh Family Lecture Hall, Smith Warehouse Bay 4, Duke University 5:00pm (reception at 4:30 p.m.) Material Mediations of Alterity: Simone de Beauvoir and Marxism Sonia Kruks, Oberlin University Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2016 Carpenter Conference Room, Rubenstein Library (Rubenstein 249) 5:00pm 22

23 Simone de Beauvoir and the Other Nancy Bauer Sonia Kruks 23

24 reports Writing is Thinking PAL collaboration with Working Group in English Department In 2016/17, the English Department generously sponsored a working group on Writing and Academic Work: What academics can learn from nonfiction writers, which met every 2-3 weeks. The working group, which had 20 members from across the humanities, spent the year investigating the essay and the memoir. The highlight of the group s work was the renowned writer and writing teacher Patricia Hampl s day-long visit. The group wrapped up the year with a writing retreat, attended by 9 graduate students and faculty. Graduate Students Summer Writing Groups May Along with the Versatile Humanists at Duke, Franklin Humanities Institute, the English Department, Forum for Scholars and Publics, the Thompson Writing Program, and The Graduate School, PAL co-sponsored a Summer Writing Kickoff to establish graduate student writing groups. Ph.D. students across the humanities and interpretive social sciences participated in two days of workshops and faculty-led conversations about the writing life. Friday s all-day group sessions discussed the symposium lectures and delve into texts by J.M Coetzee, Forsberg, and Hämäläinen. The workshop closed with a soirée at director Toril Moi s home. The PAL Steering Committee attended this delightful celebration.

25 Writing is Thinking First Person Singular: Voice as an Aspect of Thinking Patricia Hampl University of Minnesota Friday Mar am Patricia Hampl addressed the powers and pitfalls of the personal voice in non-fiction writing. She also shared excerpts from her new book, The Art of the Wasted Day (a meditation on Montaigne and the descriptive habits of the essay). Hampl also met with the PAL/English Department Writing is Thinking Working Group for a closed writing workshop in the afternoon. Patricia Hampl is Regents Professor and McKnight Distinguished Professor at the University of Minnesota. She is a MacArthur Fellow, and a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts (in poetry and in prose). 25

26 reports Balzac and Fashion: The Question of Realism Tuesday Apr pm Sara Daiuns About Sara Danius Sara Danius is a 1997 Duke Literature PhD. She has held a professorship in literary studies at Stockholm University since She has also been a visiting professor at the University of Michigan and a fellow at Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin in Germany. She was elected to the Swedish Academy in 2013 and became the Academy s permanent secretary in A talk co-sponsored by the Literature Program How to Get the Nobel Prize in Literature Wednesday Apr pm At the conclusion of Danius engaging talk, Jacqueline Looney, on behalf of the Dean of the Graduate School, presented Danius with the 2017 award as an inductee to The Duke Graduate School Few-Glasson Alumni Society. This honor is given to Duke Ph.D. s whom have distinguished themselves through their career accomplishments. Looney applauded Danius as the very best of what we produce at Duke. Danius visit was highlighted in the Duke Chronicle and Duke Today as a headlining event on campus.

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28 reports The Other Convened by Toril Moi Literature Corina Stan English Over the past decades, the concept of the Other has been absolutely central to work in the humanities and the interpretive social sciences. The concept of the other is fundamental to the increasingly urgent question of how to live with others. How far does it help us to imagine a non-exclusionary community? In this seminar, we read widely in literature, philosophy, and critical theory, then in contemporary sociology and political science to explore ideas of the Other in all their variety and investigated whether those ideas map onto the experience of political, class, and social division today. These conversations will culminate in a public conference in September 2017 on the Other. Adorno Convened by Henry Pickford German Joseph Winters Theology The aim of this PAL-FHI Seminar was to examine some of Theodor W. Adorno s major writings in their historical context of production as well as to evaluate their significance today. The seminar included: a reading group composed of graduate students and faculty, who met monthly for three hours to discuss texts; visiting speakers; and a twoday conference in the spring. 28

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30 reports PAL Graduate Student Certificate The PAL Graduate Certificate seeks to connect the study of specific works of art and specific art forms (e.g., literature, music, theater, painting, film) to questions concerning creativity, the nature of specific art forms, the relationship between knowledge and art, and between ethics and aesthetics. The Certificate aims to make students conversant with philosophical reflections on literature and the arts. The Certificate seeks to foster an understanding of the historical nature of different art forms, and of aesthetics and philosophy, and to encourage exploration of philosophy, art and literature from different historical periods. Certificate Courses Fall 2015 Topics in Romance Studies: The Novel Professors Roberto Dainotto and David Bell. Modernism & the Recovery of Tradiation: T.S. Eliot s Spiritual Poetics Professor Thomas Pfau. 30 Auditory Cultures: Sound and Double Consicousness Professor Titsi Jaji Frankfurt School Critical Theory Professor Henry Pickford

31 PAL Graduate Student Certificate Spring 2016 Film Philosophers/Film Makers Professor Markos Hadjioannou Melodrama and the Melodramatic Professor Jacqueline Waeber Wittgensteinian Perspectives on Literary Theory Professor Toril Moi Symbolism and Philosophy Professor Neil McWilliam Fall 2016 Shakespeare, Tragedy, Ethics Professor Sarah Beckwith Film Philosophers/Film Makers Professor Markos Hadjioannou Simone de Beauvoir: Literature, Philosophy, Feminism Professor Toril Moi Novel Theory Professor Nancy Armstrong Romantic Aesthetic Theory and Aesthetics Professor Robert Mitchell Aesthetics and Poetry Professor Gabriel Trop Incomprehensible Certainty: Vision and Theological Aesthethics Professor Thomas Pfau Spring 2017 Writing is Thinking Professor Toril Moi How to Live Together? Community and Migration Professor Corina Stan Modernism, Language, Theory Professor Kata Gellen 31

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33 PAL Steering Committee Sarah Beckwith Professor of English and Theater Studies; Chair of Theater Studies Owen Flanagan James B. Duke Professor of Philosophy; Professor of Neurobiology Neil McWilliam Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Art History Toril Moi James B. Duke Professor of Literature and Romance Studies; Professor of Philosophy, English and Theater studies Thomas Pfau Alice Mary Baldwin Professor and Eads Family Professor of English and German; DGS-German Studies Jacqueline Waeber Associate Professor of Music 33

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35 PAL Graduate Students Assistants Heather Wallace Associate Director Filippo Screpanti Assistant & Graphic Design Devin Buckley Assistant, Kaylee Alexander Assistant, 2016 Thomas Manganaro FHI-PAL Seminar Assistant Matia Guardabasco PAL s Staff Support in the English Department 35

36 Center for Philosophy, Arts and Literature Duke University B184 Smith Warehouse, Bay 5, 1st Floor Box S. Buchanan Blvd. Durham, NC