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Associate Professor of French Joseph Mwantuali gave an invited lecture at Mount Holyoke College on Feb. 18, titled “The Congo in the Colonial Imagination and the Response of the Congolese National Literature.” He discussed a range of topics including history and politics of colonization in the Congo and their relation to the present tragedy and the responses of the Congolese artists and writers.

The Hamilton College French Club Tournées Film Festival will screen Entre Les Murs (The Class) on Sunday, Feb. 21, at 2 p.m., in the KJ Auditorium. The screening is free and open to the public.

The Hamilton College French Club Tournées Film Festival will screen Paris Je T’aime on Sunday, Feb. 14, at 2 p.m. in the KJ Auditorium. The screening is free and open to the public.

The Hamilton College French Club is hosting the Tournées Film Festival which includes the screening of five French films that provide a glimpse into French cinematic tradition and the diversity of French culture. The first film, Le Fils de L’Épicier (The Grocer’s Son), will be screened on Sunday, Feb. 7. Screenings will continue every Sunday through March 7, all at 2 p.m., in the Kirner-Johnson Building auditorium. The screenings are free and open to the public.

Professor of French Martine Guyot-Bender recently received a Camargo Foundation Fellowship for spring 2010 to work on a book on film documentaries. She will be spending her sabbatical leave at the Camargo Foundation, in Cassis, France, researching the link between the (stern) subjects of social French documentary and aesthetic choices, with an emphasis on ISKRA, an underground French film producing company started by Chris Marker in 1967. The Camargo Foundation was created by independent filmmaker Jerome Hill.

Members of the Hamilton College Junior Year in France group traveled to Provence on Nov. 13-15. The first stop of the weekend trip was the Roman aqueduct, the Pont du Gard, built between 38 and 52 A.D. Guided by Hamilton Junior Year in France art professor Laurent Lecomte, the students also visited the amphitheater, stadium and baths in Arles, the picturesque town known as well as the setting for a number of Van Gogh’s paintings.

Members of the Hamilton College Junior Year in France recently went to the Sonja Helle Ice Rink at Bercy Stadium in Paris to cheer on Kyle Roulston ’09, the newest member of the Paris hockey team, Les Français Volants. With the help of Norm Bazin, Hamilton’s men’s ice hockey coach, Roulston joined a team that travelled to Europe this past summer looking to place North Americans in the European hockey system. Offered a spot on a team in Bad Tolz, Germany, and in Paris, Roulston jumped at the chance to play in the French capital.

Burgess Professor of French Roberta Krueger has contributed an introductory essay, “Teach Your Children Well: Medieval Conduct Guides for Youths,” in Medieval Conduct Literature: An Anthology of Vernacular Guides to Behaviour for Youths, with English Translations (ed. Mark D. Johnston). It is published for the Medieval Academy of America by the University of Toronto Press.

Associate Professor of English Naomi Guttman and Burgess Professor of French Roberta L. Krueger published their article "Utica Greens: Central New York's Italian-American Specialty" in the Summer 2009 edition of Gastronomica, The Journal of Food and Culture. Based on interviews with local residents, the article traces the history and significance of one of Utica's signature dishes. This article is based on a paper Krueger and Guttman gave last year at the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery.

The biennial meeting of the Rousseau Association, held this year in Los Angeles, June 25-28, had as its theme "Rousseau's Legacies." In his paper for this conference, "Saint-Preux Becomes a Woman: Gender-Bending in Rousseau’s La Nouvelle Héloïse" Professor of French John C. O'Neal argues against the depiction of Rousseau as a misogynist by illustrating the profoundly transgendered qualities of the male protagonist in Rousseau's best-selling novel.