Faculty Focus

JUNE 5, 2023 | Conversations on Consciousness: What is attention?

What is consciousness? What is attention? Can we pay attention and be conscious while we sleep? If you are interested in the answers to these questions, join us for Conversations on Consciousness, a series of discussions hosted by Columbia University Professor Alfredo Spagna and Columbia Global Centers | Paris. Professor Spagna will speak with internationally recognized scientists from the Paris Brain Institute on the most recent discoveries in neuroscience, detailing how the brain makes us who we are.

Alfredo Spagna is a faculty member of the Psychology Department at Columbia University and the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Neuroscience and Behavior Major. He is an award-winning cognitive neuroscientist, studying the intersection between attention, consciousness, and imagination. He received his Ph.D. from La Sapienza University in Rome in 2014.

MAY 30, 2023 | Anselm Kiefer: The Monument and the Ruin

Anselm Kiefer in conversation with architectural historian and Columbia professor Barry Bergdoll, exploring the role of architecture and space in the artist’s work. The exchange, among other things, addresses Kiefer’s permanent art installations in the Paris Panthéon, a building which Bergdoll has written extensively about, including in the exhibition catalog Le Panthéon, symbole des révolutions (1989). Barry Bergdoll is a contributor to the forthcoming catalog published on the occasion of Anselm Kiefer's bicoastal exhibition Exodus, at Gagosian. Anselm Kiefer’s monumental body of work represents a microcosm of collective memory, visually encapsulating a broad range of cultural, literary, and philosophical allusions—from the Old and New Testaments, Kabbalah mysticism, Norse mythology and Wagner’s Ring Cycle to the poetry of Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan.

Barry Bergdoll was a Fellow (2022-23) at the Institute for Ideas and Imagination, and Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University. Professor Bergdoll's broad interests center on modern architectural history, with a particular emphasis on France and Germany since 1750.

MAY 15, 2023 | Translation launch, Le code du capital

A compelling explanation of how the law shapes the distribution of wealth from Columbia Professor Katharina Pistor. The French translation, Le Code du capital, was published by Seuil in March 2023. Capital is the defining feature of modern economies, yet most people have no idea where it actually comes from. What is it, exactly, that transforms mere wealth into an asset that automatically creates more wealth? The Code of Capital explains how capital is created behind closed doors in the offices of private attorneys, and why this little-known fact is one of the biggest reasons for the widening wealth gap between the holders of capital and everybody else.

Katharina Pistor is a leading scholar and writer on corporate governance, money and finance, property rights, and comparative law and legal institutions. She is the Columbia Law School Edwin B. Parker Professor of Comparative Law and a 2022-23 Fellow of the Institute for Ideas & Imagination.

APRIL 18, 2023 | Lancement de traduction, Sur les fronts de la paix

Dans Sur les fronts de la paix, Séverine Autesserre, chercheuse primée et activiste, examine l'industrie de la paix, si bien intentionnée et pourtant si défectueuse. En s’appuyant sur des cas du monde entier, elle montre que la paix peut se développer dans les circonstances les plus improbables. Contrairement à ce que prêchent la plupart des politiques, sa construction ne nécessite pas des milliards d'aide ou des interventions internationales massives; en réalité, une paix durable exige de donner le pouvoir aux citoyens locaux.

Séverine Autesserre is Professor and Chair of Political Science, specializing in international relations and African studies, at Barnard College, Columbia University. She works on civil wars, peacebuilding, peacekeeping, and humanitarian aid, and she chairs the political science department.

MARCH 16, 2023 | Vulgar Experiments

What happens to a purely spoken language, when it begins to be used as a vehicle for written literary expression? Literary languages are not born ready to use, and most vernacular literary traditions were preceded for centuries with literary experiences in other languages. This project examines experimentation with the “vulgar language” as an illustration of how a purely oral language was transformed into a new medium for written literary expression.

John Phan is an assistant professor in the Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures. His research focuses on the linguistic history of Vietnam and China, as well as the development of Vietnamese vernacular literature over the early modern period. He is particularly interested in the effects of multilingualism in single societies, especially the coincidence of non-spoken literary languages alongside a variety of vernacular spoken languages with oral literary traditions.

Part of the SNF Rendez-Vous de l'Institut

NOVEMBER 17, 2022 | Avian Erotic Entanglements in Medieval French & Occitan Literature

The central claim of Lovebirds: Avian Erotic Entanglements in Medieval French and Occitan Literature is that birds, rather than being mere “symbols” of love (as they are often read), performed actual work with respect to the erotic experience.

Eliza Zingesser is Associated Professor of French and a specialist of medieval French and Occitan literature, with a particular focus on animal studies, cultural and linguistic contact, and gender and sexuality. Her first book, Stolen Song: How the Troubadours Became French (Cornell University Press, 2020), argues for the creation of an alternative point of origin for French literary history—a body of faux-archaic Occitanizing songs.

Part of the SNF Rendez-Vous de l'Institut

OCTOBER 6, 2022 | Coded Power

Coded power helps unearth the mechanisms that empower public and private data monopolists and allows us to imagine how information technology and law can be turned into tools for decentering control over data—with potentially transformative effects for how societies govern themselves.

Katharina Pistor is a leading scholar and writer on corporate governance, money and finance, property rights, and comparative law and legal institutions. She is the Columbia Law School Edwin B. Parker Professor of Comparative Law and a 2022-23 Fellow of the Institute for Ideas & Imagination.

Part of the SNF Rendez-Vous de l'Institut