Research Seminar on Recent Algerian Documentary Cinema

Great research seminar coming up this week as we kick off the second half of our Spring semester. Guy Austin (Newcastle University) will be giving a paper as part of the regular Literature and Languages series entitled ‘Trauma in Recent Algerian Documentary Cinema: Telling Stories of Civil Conflict’, examining the representation in recent Algerian documentary cinema of trauma generated by the so-called civil war or “black decade” that Algeria experienced in the 1990s. Taking as case studies the films Algérie la vie quand même (Sahraoui, 1998), Aliénations (Bensmaïl 2004) and Lettre à ma soeur (Djahnine, 2008), the analysis will address the means whereby the themes of loss, depression and trauma are represented.

More French and Francophone seminars in the weeks ahead.

French ‘Feel-Bad’ Cinema

Great seminar yesterday, in the weekly (more or less!) Literature and Languages series, given by Nikolaj Lübecker of St John’s College Oxford on ‘The Feel-Bad Comedy: Bruno Dumont’s P’tit Quinquin (2014).’ Nikolaj’s book on feel-bad cinema will be out with Edinburgh University Press later this year and includes analysis of key films by directors including Dumont, Lars von Trier, Michael Haneke and Gus Van Sant. You can hear a talk by Nikolaj on this subject here.

More French and Francophone-themed talks coming up in the series over coming weeks from Guy Austin (on Algerian documentary cinema), Tom Conley (in Stirling as the inaugural Society for French Studies Visiting Fellow) and our own Fiona Barclay (on melancholy, depression and the colonizing of the pieds-noirs) and current PhD student Mauro di Lullo (on Blanchot).