Goldwin Smith Hall, Room 258
JACQUES COURSIL
Independant Scholar and Jazz Musician
The Caribbean island of Martinique is known for three major writers of the twentieth century: Aimée Césaire, poet and creator of Négritude; Frantz Fanon, known as one of the most authoritative voices on colonial and racial alienation; and Edouard Glissant, author of influential novels, essays, plays, and poetry. The main topic of Glissant’s oeuvre may be subsumed under the title The Poetics of Relation, for it covers, in various forms and manifestations, his writings in their entirety. This talk provides an in-depth discussion of Glissant’s notion of ‘relation’, by laying out how in his works, the term relation is to be understood neither as an idea nor as a concept, but rather as a division: Relation – written with a capitalized R – underpins the great narrative of the new representation of the earth (Galileo, Copernicus, and Columbus). By contrast, the main concern of relation – written with a small r –, which is also called creolization, pertains to how communities maintain themselves while coping with the current streams of migration world-wide, that is, the actual situation of communities in migration. My claim is that Glissant’s entire oeuvre may be understood based on this fundamental, diacritic division (R/r).
This event is co-sponsored by the Institute for Comparative Modernities, Africana Studies, Comparative Literature, the Society for the Humanities, and Romance Studies.
BIO
Jacques Coursil is a scholar of linguistics and philosophy, a literary critic, and a jazz trumpeter. Born in Paris to a Martinican family, he was active in the free jazz scene in New York in the late 1960s recording with artists such as Bill Dixon, Frank Wright and Sunny Murray. He then went on to earn two Doctorates, one in Mathematics and one in Linguistics at the University of Normandy where he was later a professor. He also taught at the University of the French West Indies in Martinique and at Cornell University, where he offered courses in Francophone literature and theory. He is the author of many articles on philosophy, linguistics, and Antillean literature and thought and has authored two books, La function muette du langage (2000) and Valeurs pures : le paradigme sémiotique de Ferdinand de Saussure (2015). While previously in Ithaca, he returned to music and has since recorded three critically acclaimed albums: Minimal Brass (2005), Clameurs (Universal, 2007), Trail of Tears (Universal 2010). He is currently at work on filmed dance opera based on the poetry of the great Haitian experimental poet Franketienne. He was awarded the Edouard Glissant prize in 2017. https://la1ere.francetvinfo.fr/prix-bourse-edouard-glissant-decernes-jacques-coursil-satoshi-hirota-541797.html
This event is free and open to the public. If you need accommodations to participate in this event, please contact cc729@cornell.edu as soon as possible.
