Brigitte Poitrenaud, Return to the humus: arts and Franciscan thought (in French)
Francis of Assisi occupies a singular place in the collective imagination: his personality, his gesture and his writings mark a "rupture in the history of spirituality" (André Vauchez). A quest for spirituality based on empathy with the Living and even with the Existing that is expressed today by renowned thinkers (Giorgio Agamben, Gilles Clément, Stefano Mancuso, Edgar Morin or Simone Weil).
The conference addresses the question of its topicality, from a secular perspective, in order to understand how and why this thought is still 'active' today. The feeling of the current ecological urgency, through a pressing need to return to humus, humility and sobriety, nourishes and inspires contemporary creation. There are many examples of this vitality in the literary and artistic fields, and personalities as diverse or offbeat as Christian Bobin, Liliana Cavani, François Cheng, Dario Fo and Pier Paolo Pasolini have been passionate about this distant figure of the Middle Ages.
Brigitte Poitrenaud-Lamesi is an associate professor of Italian, a lecturer and a qualified researcher. She teaches Italian literature, civilisation and artistic culture at the University of Caen Normandy. She is the deputy director of the Laslar research unit and co-editor of the Liminaires-Passages interculturels collection published by Peter Lang. Her research focuses on the actuality of the Old and is organised around two axes: Imaginaries and cultural passages between Italy and France on the one hand, and Ethics and Aesthetics of poverty on the other.
She has published and edited several books on these themes: Gold and Rubbish (2013); Francesco Ora. The hour of Francis of Assisi; Francis of Assisi on screen (2017) ; Silone o la logica della privazione (2020) ; La letteratura italiana del Secondo Novecento fuori d'Italia: ricezione e immaginario, 1945-1989 (2022) ; A Need for Homer, Contemporary Imaginations of the Cathedral (to be published in 2023) and Francis of Assisi in contemporary creation (ed. Cahiers de l'Hôtel Galliffet, 2018 ; to be published in Italian in 2022). For more information, click here.
This series of lectures is a co-production of UCArts - Cultural Department of the Côte d'Azur University and the 20th Century National Museums of the Alpes-Maritimes. The six lectures are organised in partnership with the Friends of the Marc Chagall National Museum Association.
The programme is developed by the museum in collaboration with Josiane Rieu, professor of 16th century French literature at the Côte d'Azur University and member of the Transdisciplinary Centre for the Epistemology of Literature and the Living Arts.
To discover our series of lectures for the 2022-23 season, click here
Portrait of Brigitte Poitrenaud. Photo: © DR
The museum is open every day except Tuesdays, January 1st, May 1st and December 25th.
From November to April: from 10am to 5pm
From May to October: from 10am to 6pm
Free admission to the auditorium, depending on the number of seats available.
