Atelier Podcast

Atelier highlights some of the unique discussions that take place at Reid Hall, a third space at the threshold of academia and beyond.

With Atelier, we open our doors to listeners anywhere. Engaging across borders and disciplines, these conversations feature some of the people who inspire us most and explore a vast range of topics, from art and science to social justice and climate.

Atelier is produced by the Columbia Global Paris Center, a Columbia University initiative housed at Reid Hall.

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Discover the untold stories of remarkable women who shaped Reid Hall. Each episode highlights the lives and accomplishments of artists, scientists, philanthropists, or scholars, from 1893 to 1939. Providing rich historical context, “Women of Reid Hall” ensures that these women's contributions are not forgotten.

Coming soon! Women of Reid: Hall Artists and Scholars in Montparnasse (1893 – 1939) is a history special series of Atelier.

Tomas van Houtryve
Past and Present Visions of Notre Dame

After a fire devastated Notre-Dame in 2019, only three photographers were chosen to document its reconstruction. Among them was Tomas van Houtryve, a 2024-2025 Fellow of the Institute for Ideas and Imagination. Over four years, van Houtryve captured the cathedral’s revival using a range of techniques—from the historic collodion process to drone photography—highlighting the moment's historical depth and significance. In this episode, he reflects on how the present and the past intersected throughout the project, his collaborations with fellow photographers and craftspeople, and the journey that led to 36 Views of Notre-Dame, a book and an exhibition now on view at Galerie Miranda in Paris through December 23, 2024.

Tomas van Houtryve is a Paris based artist, photographer and filmmaker whose major works interweave investigative journalism, philosophy and metaphor. Learn more about his work, and the book, 36 Views of Notre Dame.

Access to the work site was organized in partnership with Rebatir Notre-Dame de Paris and National Geographic.

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Play, Protest, and Politics in American Stadiums
Play, Protest, and Politics in American Stadiums

Columbia Professor Frank Guridy's latest book, The Stadium, traces the history of the American stadium as a battleground for social justice since its inception. In this episode, he discusses his origins as a sports fan growing up in the Bronx and the experience of combing through vast digital archives to assemble a narrative filled with anti-fascist rallies, Black Power demonstrations, feminist protests, and more.

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Assa Traoré (in English)
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3SntUaJE3Htzi8nI6U5U5V
Assa Traoré on Solidarity, Racial Justice, and Leadership

Launched in 2022, Génération Leaders is a training program dedicated to mentoring a new generation of leaders committed to justice, equality, and the fight against all forms of discrimination. It was founded by Assa Traoré, an activist whose brother, Adama Traoré, died in police custody in 2016, on the day of his 24th birthday. The program highlights the power of collective decision-making, a strength Traoré draws from her model of collaborative leadership. In this episode, she reflects on her journey as an activist and shares how the Comité Adama has fostered intersectional solidarity in the pursuit of justice.

Since its second year, Génération Leaders has been hosted at Reid Hall. Learn more about its partnership with Columbia and how to apply for the third cohort here: https://globalcenters.columbia.edu/news/shaping-future-justice-and-equality-generation-leaders 

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Elvire
Translating Le Monde, France's Leading Newspaper with Elvire Camus

In 2022, Le Monde expanded its reach to English-speaking audiences, adapting its award-winning journalism for a global readership. In this episode, Elvire Camus, Editor-in-Chief and founder of Le Monde in English, shares insights on the translation process—from selecting key stories to preserving nuance and cultural context, to the unique challenges of multimedia reporting. She also reflects on building trust and transparency with readers through accessible, high-quality journalism, fostering an informed and connected global community.

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On the Frontlines of the Free Press with Forbidden Stories’ Laurent Richard
On the Frontlines of the Free Press

Since its founding in 2017, Forbidden Stories has delivered a powerful message: killing the journalist won’t kill the story. This Emmy-winning global network of journalists is committed to continuing the work of their colleagues who face threats, imprisonment, or have been murdered. In this episode, Laurent Richard, founder and executive director of Forbidden Stories, shares the origins of this groundbreaking initiative, inspired by his own investigative work and the urgent need to protect press freedom.

We also discuss Forbidden Stories’ partnership with the Columbia Global Paris Center, including public panel discussions with journalists focused on their latest investigations, The Gaza Project and The Baku Connection.

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Assa Traoré (episode cover art)
Assa Traoré sur la solidarité, la justice et le leadership

Après six ans de lutte, Assa Traoré a créé en 2022 Génération Leaders, un programme visant à former une nouvelle génération de leaders engagés pour l'égalité et la justice, et à combattre les discriminations sous toutes leurs formes. Elle y souligne l'importance de la prise de décision collective et la force qu'elle puise dans ce modèle de leadership collaboratif. Dans cet épisode, Assa Traoré revient sur son parcours d'activiste et explique comment le Comité Adama a tissé des liens de solidarité intersectionnelle dans la lutte pour la justice.

La formation Génération Leaders se déroule à Reid Hall depuis sa deuxième année. Découvrez plus d'informations sur le programme, ses liens avec Columbia, et comment postuler pour la troisième promotion.

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Arts Education, Failure, and Moments of Oxygen with Delphine Grouès
Arts Education, Failure, and Moments of Oxygen

The creative process offers a liberating counterpoint to other work, encouraging diverse thinking through varied mediums and perspectives, reframing failure as a first step toward innovation, and balancing professional and academic efforts. In this episode, Delphine Grouès discusses the role of creativity in education at Sciences Po and its influence on her career as an academic, teacher, and artist.

Delphine Grouès is the Dean of the Maison des Arts et de la Création at Sciences Po. A passionate scholar and writer, she authored a thesis titled Cris et écrits de l'opprimé, which explores Chilean popular protests, and the play La Lueur de l'ombre, which delves into the theme of collective memory and silence. Delphine's love for Chile is reflected in her work and her adventurous spirit, as she annually travels through the Andes on horseback, exploring some of the most remote and wild areas. She has also written a novel, Cordillera, inspired by her personal journeys and connection with the Chilean landscape.

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Driftscape: An Immersive Exploration of Boredom
Driftscape: An Immersive Exploration of Boredom

Ursula Kwong-Brown and Daniel Erdberg performed Driftscape on May 13, 2024, at the second annual Nuit de l’Imagination, exploring the theme of boredom. After discussing how boredom influences their creativity, we invited them to share a version of the performance with Atelier listeners.

Ursula Kwong-Brown is an LA-based pianist/composer/arts technologist. Described as “atmospheric and accomplished” by The New York Times, her work has been performed in diverse venues across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Ursula received her PhD in Music and New Media from UC Berkeley, and her BA in Music and Biology from Columbia University.

Daniel Erdberg is a New York and Los Angeles based sound artist, director, writer and composer chiefly interested in the intersection of technology and presentational aesthetics. His work has been seen (and heard!) in New York on Broadway and at theaters and concert halls around the world.

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How Universities Are Responding to Climate Change
How Universities Are Responding to Climate Change

What should be the role of academic institutions to lead the fight against climate change? Regrouping the expertise of Columbia faculty and researchers across the university, the Climate School aims to create and inspire solutions and educate future leaders for just, prosperous societies on a healthy planet. In this episode, Alex Halliday discusses why Columbia created a Climate School in the first place.

Professor Alex Halliday is Founding Dean Emeritus of the Columbia Climate School and a former director of the Earth Institute.

Learn more about the Columbia Climate School: climate.columbia.edu

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Wandering Scholars: From 20th-century Travelers to Study Abroad
Wandering Scholars: From 20th-century Travelers to Study Abroad

How can combining historical exploration and travel memoir reveal the poignant histories of diverse African Americans who left the United States over the past century? In this episode, Tamara Walker discusses her recent book Beyond the Shores: A History of African Americans Abroad (Crown, 2023). Her own travel experiences inform not only her written work, but also impelled her to co-create non-profit organization The Wandering Scholar, which makes international travel more accessible to high schoolers from underrepresented backgrounds.

Tamara J. Walker is an historian and Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Barnard College. Her scholarship focuses on the history of slavery in Latin America and its legacies in the modern era.

Learn more about The Wandering Scholar: thewanderingscholar.org

Listen to the “Why We Wander” podcast: thewanderingscholar.org/podcast 

Read Beyond the Shores: penguinrandomhouse.com/books/635185/beyond-the-shores-by-tamara-j-walker/ 

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Anne Atheling's Advice to Travelers: "Go young, go often, and go long"
Anne Atheling's Advice to Travelers: "Go young, go often, and go long"

Anne Atheling’s advice to other travelers can best be summed up as follows: “Go young, go often, and go long.” A Barnard graduate of the class of 1950, she studied abroad at Reid Hall in the Summer of 1949 with the Smith Junior Year Abroad program, one of the first post-WWII and in the same year as future First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier. As she puts it, this “kicked off a life-long love of everything French.” From May to October 1950 she hosteled alone throughout Europe. It then took her 50 years to return to France. On one of her now-regular trips to Paris since 2000, she tells us about the impact of study abroad on her life, her love of solo travel, and the importance of independent thinking.

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Merging Healthcare and Personal Narrative
Merging Healthcare and Personal Narrative

Narrative medicine is a medical approach that emphasizes the importance of understanding and integrating patients' narratives into their healthcare. In this episode, Delphine Taylor and Nellie Hermann discuss this innovative field at the intersection of humanities, the arts, clinical practice, and health care justice. They were at Reid Hall in Paris for a conference with French and European colleagues, and shared anecdotes with us about the cross-cultural application of this approach.

Dr. Delphine Taylor, M.D., is Associate Professor of Medicine at the Columbia University Medical Center and practices at NewYork-Presbyterian and Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

Nellie Hermann is Creative Director of the Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University. She has published two novels, The Cure for Grief and The Season of Migration.

Learn about Narrative Medicine at Columbia: https://www.mhe.cuimc.columbia.edu/division-narrative-medicine 

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Trauma Reporting: Protections and Practices for Journalists
Trauma Reporting: Protections and Practices for Journalists

How can journalists report on traumatic events, protect sources, and ensure a safe newsroom? In this episode, Juliana Ruhfus, director of Dart Centre Europe, a Columbia Journalism School project, explores their cross-cultural work through online resources, in-person retreats, workshops, and events at the Paris Center.

Juliana Ruhfus took over as director of Dart Centre Europe (DCE) in 2022, a relationship that started in 2010 with her attendance of one of Dart’s first UK retreats. Juliana is an award-winning, internationally known broadcaster and journalist. Find out more about her work.

The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma is a resource center and global network of journalists, journalism educators and health professionals dedicated to improving media coverage of trauma, conflict and tragedy. It is a project of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City, with international satellite offices in London and Melbourne.

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Boredom, Chaos, and the Creative Process with Ursula Kwong-Brown and Daniel Erdberg
Boredom, Chaos, and the Creative Process

What does it mean to be bored, and what is the impact of boredom on creativity, connection, and inspiration? Ursula Kwong-Brown and Daniel Erdberg, in Paris for Reid Hall's annual "Nuit de l'Imagination," discuss their relationships with boredom and introduce listeners to their new composition, Driftscape, an immersive musical performance that attempts to create a space, both personal and collective, where listeners can rest their attention for sixty minutes, be present, and allow their minds to gently wander.

Ursula Kwong-Brown is an LA-based pianist/composer/arts technologist. Described as “atmospheric and accomplished” by The New York Times, her work has been performed in diverse venues across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Ursula received her PhD in Music and New Media from UC Berkeley, and her BA in Music and Biology from Columbia University.

Daniel Erdberg is a New York and Los Angeles based sound artist, director, writer and composer chiefly interested in the intersection of technology and presentational aesthetics. His work has been seen (and heard!) in New York on Broadway and at theaters and concert halls around the world.

Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and more.

Storytelling Between Worlds: “Curating” Cities and Memory with Mohamed Elshahed
Storytelling Between Worlds: “Curating” Cities and Memory

Throughout his multi-disciplinary, international career, Mohamed Elshahed has found that the most apt description of his work is storytelling. In this episode, he guides us through Cairo, London, Mexico City, and Paris, intertwining histories and personal anecdotes to provide context for the book project he's currently undertaking as an Institute Fellow.

Mohamed Elshahed is a writer, curator, and critic of architecture. In 2011 he founded Cairobserver, a fluid project with six printed magazines distributed for free to stimulate public debates around issues of architecture, heritage, and urbanism. He is the curator of the British Museum’s Modern Egypt Project and of Modernist Indignation, Egypt’s winning pavilion at the 2018 London Design Biennale. As a 2023-2024 Fellow of the Institute for Ideas and Imagination, he has worked on a book about this project, envisioned as a companion to his previous book, Cairo Since 1900: An Architectural Guide (AUC Press, 2020).

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Franco-American Journalism in the 1960s with Lois Grjebine
Franco-American Journalism in the 1960s

Lois Grjebine, Smith class of 1952, first came to Reid Hall as a study-abroad student over seven decades ago. In this episode, she talks about how the experience changed the course of her life, launching a pioneering career in journalism and women’s rights.

In the 1960s, she worked first as editor-in-chief of the French monthly, Réalités, then as editor-in-chief of the weekly English-language edition of Le Monde. She also served on the executive board of the French feminist organization, Choisir, where she was named delegate to the UN International Women’s Year meeting in Paris. An activist in American politics overseas, she was also elected committee woman to the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C.

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From Activism to Political Leadership: Paving the Way with Alice Barbe
From Activism to Political Leadership: Paving the Way

What does it take to train tomorrow's leaders? What does it mean to be politically engaged? Alice Barbe, founder of the Académie Des Futurs Leaders and former Obama Scholar, talks to us about community organizing, civic engagement, and empowering people to effect change.

Alice Barbe is an activist and a co-founder of SINGA, a French association which creates interactions that accelerates the inclusion of newcomers in civil society. She was part of the first cohort of Obama Scholars from 2018-2019, and she is a co-founder of the Académie des Futurs Leaders.

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Human Rights for Pragmatists with Jack Snyder
Human Rights for Pragmatists

How to make people respond to human rights abuses in a way that actually has impact? Jack Snyder explores these questions in his book, Human Rights for Pragmatists (Princeton University Press, 2022).

Jack Snyder is the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Relations in the political science department and the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University.

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Ukrainian Music as Political Resistance with Anna Stavychenko
Ukrainian Music as Political Resistance

In the face of a war aiming to erase Ukrainian national identity, preserving Ukrainian music becomes a pillar of resilience and resistance. In this episode, Anna Stavychenko, a tireless advocate, describes her efforts to safeguard Ukrainian musical legacy and provide refuge for displaced talents.

Anna Stavychenko is a musicologist, music critic, and classical music manager. Last year Anna was a Harriman Resident at Reid Hall, and this year her visionary organization, the 1991 project, is one of the Displaced Artists Initiatives at Reid Hall. 

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Funding Climate Reparations through ‘Loss and Damage’ with Saleemul Huq
Funding Climate Reparations through ‘Loss and Damage’

On the first day of COP28, delegates agreed to formally establish a 'Loss and Damage Fund' to support vulnerable countries dealing with the effects of climate change. Saleemul Huq spent the better part of his career advocating for such a fund. In this episode, he discusses the evolution of this initiative with Mélody Braun, Climate Response Lead at CGC | Paris.

Saleemul Huq OBE was a Bangladeshi-British scientist and had been the Director of the International Centre for Climate Change & Development based in Bangladesh, also Professor at Independent University, Bangladesh.

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Saleem died unexpectedly in October 2023. As you’ll hear from this interview, recorded in June 2023 in Paris, he approached his work in the field of climate, particularly in Loss and Damage, with incredible brilliance, vision, and integrity.

On June 19, 2023 we held a panel discussion on Loss and Damage at Reid Hall with Saleem. Watch the event recording here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHRGqWawHDk&t=1505s

The History of Reid Hall with Brune Biebuyck
The History of Reid Hall

Reid Hall—once a porcelain factory, then an orthopedic center; a Protestant boy’s school, then a girls’ art club—is home today to the Columbia Global Paris Center and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination. The history of this place was either unknown or largely forgotten until Brune Biebuyck reconstructed the story.

Brune Biebuyck is director of Reid Hall and of the Columbia Global Paris Center.

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Reid Hall is also home to three Columbia academic programs: the Columbia in Paris undergraduate programs, the M.A. in History and Literature, and the GSAPP Shape of Two Cities program. This year, we celebrate the 60th anniversary of its bequeathal to Columbia University in 1964. Its history as a study abroad center goes back even further, and it continues to host many other universities' study abroad programs.

Visit this website for a comprehensive look into the many chapters of Reid Hall's history: https://reidhall.globalcenters.columbia.edu/