The FPSA officers for 2016-2017 will be:

Executive committee representatives: Saiful Saleem, Alicen Weida

• Alternates: Allison Faris, Marguerite Van Cook

Chair, FPSA: Saiful Saleem

Graduate Council Rep (thru 2018): Alicen Weida

Secretary, FPSA: Lisa Karakaya

• Alternate: none

Faculty Membership committee: Lisa Karakaya, Amy Martin

• Alternates: Parfait Kouacou, Fréderick Baitinger

Admissions and Awards committee: Iziar de Miguel, Allison Faris

• Alternates: Patricia Winter, Saiful Saleem

Curriculum and Exams committee: Fréderick Baitinger, Thomas Muzart

• Alternates: Marguerite Van Cook, Allison Faris

Student Elections committee: Eric Benchemoun, Jasmine Narcisse, Patricia Winter

• Alternates: Lisa Karakaya, Angélique Aristondo, Rebecca Raitses

Ad-hoc Alumni Relations committee: Patricia Winter, Lisa Lyulekina

• Alternates: Simon Chartrand, Rebecca Raitses

Congratulations to our new representatives!

The editors of Irish Journal of French Studies are very pleased to announce that this peer-reviewed and newly electronic journal is now free to access from 2009 to 2012 (for tables of contents see http://www.adeffi.ie/ijfrs-back-issues), having implemented an Open Access policy subject to a 24-month paywall.

This means that all articles in the below issues are available for free download at http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/irjofs/ijfs:

• No. 12, 2012 — Thematic Issue: Trangression(s). Guest Edited by Paul Hegarty. General Editor: Patrick Crowley. Co-Editors: Gillian Jein, Maeve McCusker, Maria Scott.
• No. 11, 2011 — General Editor: Patrick Crowley. Co-Editors: Maeve McCusker and Maria Scott.
• No. 10, 2010 — Thematic Issue: Intellectuals and Public Opinion: A Transhistorical Perspective. Guest Editors, James Hanrahan & Mairéad Ní Bhriain. General Editor:  Patrick Crowley. Co-Editors: Maeve McCusker and Maria Scott.
• No. 9, 2009 — Thematic Issue: Exploring Supermodernity: Marc Augé in Context(s). Guest Edited by Douglas Smith. General Editor: Johnnie Gratton. Co-Editors: Philip Dine, Douglas Smith and Jacinta Wright.

The FPSA officers for 2015-2016 will be:

Executive committee representatives: Thomas Muzart, Angélique Aristondo

• Alternates: Saiful Saleem, Chris Brandon

Chair, FPSA: Thomas Muzart

Graduate Council Rep (thru 2016): Allison Faris

Secretary, FPSA: Amy Martin

• Alternate: Parfait Kouacou

Faculty Membership committee: Chris Brandon, Frederick Baitinger

• Alternates: Jasmine Narcisse, Lisa Karakaya

Admissions and Awards committee: Thomas Muzart, Lisa Karakaya

• Alternates: Allison Faris, Marguerite Van Cook

Curriculum and Exams committee: Chris Brandon, Chris Clarke

• Alternates: Frederick Baitinger, Saiful Saleem

Student Elections committee: Thomas Muzart, Eric Lynch, Angélique Aristondo

• Alternates: Allison Faris (currently serving as Eric’s alternate), Marguerite Van Cook

Ad-hoc Alumni Relations committee: Eric Lynch, Saiful Saleem

• Alternates: Allison Faris, Mariana Goycoechea

Congratulations to our new representatives!

The FPSA officers for 2014-2015 will be:

Executive committee representatives: Thomas Muzart, Allison Faris

• Alternates: Parfait Kouacou, Marguerite Van Cook

Chair, FPSA: Thomas Muzart

Graduate Council Rep: Phillip Griffith (2014-2017, 2-year term)

Secretary, FPSA: Amy Martin

Faculty Membership committee: Chris Brandon, Ashley Williard

• Alternates: Mariana Goycoechea, Patricia Winter

Admissions and Awards committee: Phillip Griffith, Eric Lynch

• Alternates: Lisa Karakaya, Marguerite Van Cook

Curriculum committee: Chris Brandon, Eric Lynch

• Alternates: Frederic Baitinger, Amy Martin

Student Elections committee: Frederic Baitinger, Amy Martin, Antoinette Williams-Tutt

FPSA Alumni Relations ad-hoc committee: Amy Martin, Antoinette Williams-Tutt

Congratulations to our new representatives!

The University Student Senate (USS) is pleased to announce their Ernesto Malave Merit, Graduate Peer Mentoring, and Donald and Mary Ellen Passantino Scholarships competition.

One Ernesto Malave Merit Scholarship of $1500.00 will be awarded to a Graduate Center student in good academic standing with a 3.5 and above demonstrating outstanding academic and leadership performance under extraordinary circumstances.

The Donald and Mary Ellen Passantino Awards are for Graduate Center students with a disability and / or international students that have at least a 2.5 GPA. One Donald and Mary Ellen Passantino Award of $750.00 shall be awarded to a student with a disability and one to an international student. This scholarship recognizes international students and students with disabilities who have demonstrated outstanding scholarship and enthusiastic leadership and service under extraordinary circumstances.

In 2013, the University Student Senate of the City University of New York established the Graduate Peer Mentoring Scholarship. The scholarship awards $1000.00 to one student per campus, per academic year for demonstrating a tremendous effort to help other graduate students through academic support, professional development, and leadership development within their college community.

Applicants can apply to only one scholarship per academic year (either the Ernesto Malave Merit, Graduate Peer Mentoring, or the Donald and Mary Ellen Passantino Scholarship).

All applications must be received by the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs, The Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue – Room 7301– New York, New York 10016, byApril 7.

Please see the scholarship application forms.

The French Program Student Association will be holding the third meeting of the semester on Wednesday, December 11 at 12pm in room 5489.

The first order of business is always to approve the proposed agenda and the previous meeting’s minutes, so be sure to review both before arriving. They’re both posted under the FPSA & DSC tab. Before we approve the agenda, anyone can motion to add, remove or edit items–so please feel free to suggest important ideas that might require some decision making or discussion by the group.

See you there!

DISAPPEARANCE: Spatial and Temporal Horizons

a two-day interdisciplinary conference

November 7th & 8th, 2013

The Department of Comparative Literature

The Graduate Center, CUNY

New York, New York

The Graduate Students in The Department of Comparative Literature at The Graduate Center, CUNY invite you to a conference investigating the question of disappearance through various disciplines.  Disappearance is first used as a noun in English in a 1712 edition of the Spectator.  Founder Joseph Addison writes that if we “look into the Bulk of our Species, they are such as are not likely to be remembered a Moment after their Disappearance.  They leave behind them no Traces of Their Existence, but are forgotten as tho’ they had never been” (No. 317).

If disappearance is broadly considered as a transition from being there to no longer being there, then what is it that happens in the instance of vanishing? What disappears? What causes disappearance?  How does disappearance function?  How are questions of memory, existence and trace exacerbated when the term is directly applied in a political context, as it has commonly been used since the 1950s.  In what ways do academic disciplines perpetuate and protect against disappearances?  If the moment of disappearance is a horizon, how can we mobilize our understanding of space and time to open new perspectives within the question of disappearance?

We welcome examples and explorations from a variety of disciplines and intersections including: literature, languages, film, philosophy, political science, linguistics, psychology, education, human rights, theory, cultural studies, American studies, women’s studies, queer studies, journalism, medieval studies, art, art history, digital media studies, theater, music, sociology, history, science, Judaic studies, Latin American studies, fine arts and cognitive science.

Possible conference papers might take up the inquiries below, but additional investigations are welcome.  We invite papers exploring and theorizing:

what disappears in a disappearance
what marks the moment of disappearance
what gets revealed in a disappearance
what’s left behind in a disappearance
where the disappeared goes
who/what names something as a disappearance
how literature deals with disappearance
power and disappearance
ghosts and disappearance
death and disappearance
disappearance and erasure
distortion and disappearance
disappearance and deception
disappearance and identity
disappearance and the body
transformation and disappearance
disappearance and/in Magical Realism, Romanticism, post-modernity, etc
disappearance and translation
disappearance and history, oral traditions and artifacts
disappearance and religion
the space of disappearance
the temporal capacity of disappearance
the mobility of disappearance
disappearance in the contemporary world
disappearance and globalization
privacy, security and disappearance

We welcome submissions of individual papers and proposals for panels of 3-4 papers in English.  Please submit a 250-300 word abstract for a 15-20 minute paper by September 25th, 2013 to disappearanceconference2013@gmail.com.  Proposals should include the title of the paper, presenter’s name, institutional and departmental affiliation, and any technology requests.