Villa Gillet - Rhône-Alpes - recherches contemporaines

Ariella Azoulay teaches the visual arts and contemporary philosophy at the Bar Ilan University in Israel. Her latest work, The Civil Contract of Photography, constitutes a fascinating study of the political and ethical status of photography via a discussion of the disasters of contemporary history and the way in which these events and their victims have been presented. This is an unprecedented analysis of the link between photography and citizenship.

Luc Boltanski, born in 1940, is a sociologist. He is currently director of studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. In the 1970s he founded the journal Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales with Pierre Bourdieu. Disagreeing in part with Bourdieu’s stance on sociological criticism, in 1984 he founded the Groupe de sociologie morale et politique with Laurent Thévenot. He has published Le nouvel esprit du capitalisme (with Eve Chiapello - Gallimard, 1999), La Condition fœtale : Une sociologie de l’engendrement et de l’avortement (Gallimard, 2004) and, most recently, Rendre la réalité inacceptable (Demopolis, 2008) and De la critique : Précis de sociologie de l’émancipation (Gallimard, 2009). He also published an opera with Champ Vallon in 2009, Déluge.

Agnès Desarthe was born in Paris in 1966. Formerly a student at the École Normale Supérieure and trained as an English-teacher, she began her career as a translator before publishing novels for teenagers. She has also written six novels for adults, such as Quelques minutes de bonheur absolu (L’Olivier, 1993 – Seuil, 2007), Mangez-moi (L’Olivier, 2006) and, most recently, Le remplaçant (L’Olivier, 2009). This book, intended to be the story of Janusz Korczak, a Polish educator who directed a number of orphanages during the Second World War, actually recounts the tale of another great man, the second husband of her grandmother. It is this ‘stand-in’, the mysterious story-teller who becomes the real subject of the novel.

Axel Honneth, born in 1949, is a philsopher and sociologist and professor at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, where he followed in Jürgen Habermas’ footsteps. He is also director of the Institut für Sozialforschung. He is author or a number of books on social philosophy, namely La Lutte pour la reconnaissance (Éditions du Cerf, 2000), La Société du mépris: Vers une nouvelle Théorie critique (La Découverte, 2006), La Réification : Petit traité de Théorie pratique (Gallimard, 2007) and Les Pathologies de la liberté: Une réactualisation de la philosophie du droit de Hegel (La Découverte, 2008).

Randall Kennedy enseigne le Droit à l’Université de Harvard. Reconnu comme l’un des experts de la question raciale aux États-Unis, il est l’auteur de livres à la fois érudits, provocants et engagés sur la question de la discrimination dans la société américaine (Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word ou Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal). Il est aujourd’hui membre des barreaux du District de Columbia et de la Cour Suprême des États-Unis, de l’Académie Américaine des Arts et des Sciences et de l’Association Américaine de Philosophie. Dans son prochain livre à paraître aux États-Unis, il propose une analyse sans précédent de la campagne présidentielle et du « phénomène Obama ».

Vincent Message was born in 1983. Les Veilleurs plunges us into the world of Oscar Nexus, a misfit who has just killed three people in the street before falling asleep over their bodies. Using this grisly tale as a starting point the novel then leads us into a fascinating exploration of madness and sleep. Using some formulae borrowed from the great Hollywood thrillers, the author paints a picture of the role the imaginary plays in a modern society which is fascinated by virtual worlds and the shady underside of reality

Alain Planès is one the most distinguished pianists of his generation. His career as a soloist has led him to participate in the most well-known festivals. He has done a complete recording of Schubert’s sonatas for the label, Harmonia Mundi. This recording has, like all his others (Chopin, Haydn, Scarlatti) been widely praised by international critics. His latest record, Debussy – Estampes / Images inédites, was awarded a ‘Choc’ prize by the Monde de la Musique and the German magazine Fono-Forum.

Raphaëlle Rérolle has been a journalist at Le Monde since 1986. She first worked for the ‘société’ section, then for the Monde des Livres, where she was responsible for foreign literature for ten years, and then for Le Monde 2. She participates to the organisation of the Forum. She is currently assistant director at the Monde des Livres.

Yuri Slezkine is professor of history and director of the Institute of Slavic, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North (Cornell University Press, 1996) and co-directed the work, In the Shadow of Revolution: Life Stories of Russian Women from 1917 to the Second World War (Princeton University Press, 2000). His book, The Jewish Century, translated into French as Le Siècle juif by Marc Saint-Upéry, will be published in France in Autumn 2009 by La Découverte

Jean-Yves Tadié, a enseigné la littérature française aux universités d’Oxford et de la Sorbonne et est actuellement éditeur chez Gallimard (Folio classique et Folio théâtre). Ses travaux portent principalement sur l’esthétique des genres. Il a dirigé la nouvelle édition d’À la recherche du temps perdu, ainsi que celles des œuvres de Nathalie Sarraute, d’André Malraux et de Walter Scott dans la « Bibliothèque de la Pléiade ». Il a également consacré plusieurs ouvrages à Marcel Proust. Son dernier livre, Le Songe musical : Claude Debussy, a paru en 2008 aux Éditions Gallimard.