This year marks the 60th anniversary of the gift of Reid Hall to Columbia University by Helen Rogers Reid.
Reid Hall is an 18th-century building located between 4 rue de Chevreuse and 5 rue de la Grande Chaumière, in the heart of the Montparnasse district of Paris. Neither quite American nor quite French, nor even the conjunction of the two, it has always been a third space that has facilitated journeys of self-discovery and intellectual transformations. This holds true even today.
Molded by many residents and students, and influenced by more than two centuries of exchange between the United States and France, Reid Hall was fashioned by the will and vision of a succession of pioneering individuals. It bears the name of Elisabeth Mills Reid, an American philanthropist who purchased the property in 1911. Her daughter-in-law Helen Rogers Reid, president of the International Herald Tribune and Barnard alumna and Trustee, gifted Reid Hall to Columbia University in 1964.
The year 2024 marks the 60th anniversary of this remarkable gift. Today, we celebrate this milestone as a symbol of cross-cultural diplomacy, the advancement of research and innovation, and the seamless fusion of Reid Hall’s rich history and promising future.
Today, Columbia’s initiatives at Reid Hall include: the longstanding undergraduate programs (est. 1972); the university’s only master’s program run entirely in Paris, the M.A. in History and Literature (est. 1993); a Global Center (est. 2010); and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination (est. 2018).
To learn more about Reid Hall’s history, keep reading on our website, or listen to a podcast episode with Reid Hall and Paris Center director Brune Biebuyck. On November 26, we will launch a new podcast series spotlighting the women of Reid Hall who shaped its history.
Discover the program
Tuesday, November 26, 2024 at 7 p.m.
Reid Hall | 4 rue de Chevreuse 75006 Paris
Discover the rich and often surprising history of Reid Hall by exploring the overlooked contributions of the female artists, radicals, and visionaries who forged parallel power structures and helped define and direct its future.
The Reid Hall History Project presentation will first highlight two women whose philanthropic contributions shaped 4 rue Chevreuse: Elisabeth Mills Reid and Helen Rogers Reid.
To begin, Brunhilde Biebuyck, Director of Reid Hall and the Paris Global Center, will trace the Reid family lineage back to Elisabeth Mills Reid, the namesake of Reid Hall, who purchased the property in 1911 and transformed it—both architecturally and intellectually—into the vibrant, socially engaged center for arts and scholarship that we know today.
Next, in celebration of the pioneering vision and achievements of Helen Rogers Reid, the woman who left a lasting mark on this historic space through her gift of Reid Hall to Columbia University in 1964, her granddaughter, Mary Louise Taylor, will share her grandmother’s inspiring legacy.
Lastly, a surprise guest will pay tribute to the numerous women artists who lived at 4 Rue de Chevreuse between 1893 and 1914, many of whom later achieved distinguished careers in the United States.
This evening of storytelling marks the launch of a new miniseries produced by Atelier, Reid Hall’s podcast, which will focus on the stories of specific women who both lived and created here.
These three 15-minute presentations will be followed by a 20-minute panel, moderated by Marie Doezema, Senior Special Projects Manager at the Paris Global Center, and finally an audience Q&A.
Register
Tuesday, November 5, 2024 at 7 p.m.
Reid Hall | 4 rue de Chevreuse 75006 Paris
The sweeping story of the American stadium-from the first wooden ballparks to today's glass and steel mega-arenas-revealing how it has made, and remade, American life.
Columbia Professor Frank Guridy presents his new book The Stadium, in conversation with Financial Times columnist Simon Kuper.
In The Stadium, Frank Guridy recounts the contested history of play, protest, and politics in American stadiums. From the beginning, stadiums were political, as elites turned games into celebrations of war, banned women from the press box, and enforced racial segregation. By the 1920s, they also became important sites of protest as activists increasingly occupied the stadium floor to challenge racism, sexism, homophobia, fascism, and more. Following the rise of the corporatized stadium in the 1990s, this complex history was largely forgotten. But today's athlete-activists, like Colin Kaepernick and Megan Rapinoe, belong to a powerful tradition in which the stadium is as much an arena of protest as a palace of pleasure.
Moving between the field, the press box, and the locker room, this book recovers the hidden history of the stadium and its important role in the struggle for justice in America.
Register
Wednesday, November 13, 2024 at 7 p.m.
Reid Hall | 4 rue de Chevreuse 75006 Paris
An international concert celebrating a new generation of Afrodiasporic composers is a unique collaboration between ICE and L'Itineraire.
The concert celebrates a new generation of Afrodiasporic composers from around the world. By presenting perspectives that have historically been missing from academic research, concert programs, and journalistic coverage, this program demonstrates the important role that Afrodiasporic new music is playing as an intercultural, multigenerational space of innovation that offers new subjects, histories, and identities.
Before the concert, join us for a conversation with composers Alyssa Regent and Corie Rose Soumah, moderated by Dr. Harald Kisiedu, co-editor of Composing While Black: Afrodiasporic New Music Today. Following the concert, there will be a reception and book-signing.
Program
Alyssa Regent: Émergence (2024), for bass flute, bass clarinet, trombone, and violin
Andile Khumalo: Schaufe[r]nster II (2014), for piano
Corie Rose Soumah: Limpidités IV (2022), for violin solo
Hannah Kendall: when flesh is pressed against the dark (2024), for baritone voice, bass clarinet, trumpet, and trombone
Levy Lorenzo and Fay Victor: MODIFIED (2024), for percussion, electronics, and voice
Jessie Cox: (Noisy) Black/blackness (Unbounded) (2024), for mezzo-soprano, baritone, bass clarinet, trumpet, violin, and percussion
Register
Sunday, November 17, 2024 at 7 p.m.
Reid Hall | 4 rue de Chevreuse 75006 Paris
The 1991 Project presents a concert of works by Nadia Boulanger, Debussy, Silvestrov, and Viktor Kosenko.
Cello/piano duo Askar Ishangaliyev and Anna Khmara
Program
Nadia Boulanger (1887–1979), Three Pieces for Cello and Piano, 1914 [8’]
I. Modéré
II. Sans vitesse et a l'aise
III. Vite et nerveusement rythmé
Viktor Kosenko (1896-1938), Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Minor, op. 10, 1923 [30’]
I. Moderato
II. Andante con motto
III. Allegro con fuoco
Valentyn Sylvestrov (b. 1937), Kitsch-Music, cycle of five pieces for piano, 1977 [12’]
Claude Debussy (1862–1918), Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Minor, L 135, 1915 [11’]
I. Prologue
II. Sérénade
III. Finale
Register
Tuesday, November 19 2024, at 7 p.m.
Reid Hall | 4 rue de Chevreuse 75006 Paris
A visual conversation about Haitian culture and its influence on the gens de couleur libres of Louisiana, a "forgotten people" of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Fabiola Jean-Louis and Andrew LaMar Hopkins are two distinguished artists whose works delve into the complex and interwoven narratives of Caribbean, Haitian and free people of color in 18th- and 19th-century Louisiana. This discussion, moderated by Claire Tancons, will explore the nuanced realities of a community that navigated an “in-between” status in a racially obsessed society.
Andrew LaMar Hopkins captures the “good life” that members of this community presented to the outside world, showcasing their elegance and cultural richness. In contrast, Fabiola Jean-Louis delves into the physical and emotional scars endured by many during this period, particularly Black women, as they strove to achieve and maintain their precarious status.
The talk will also highlight the influence of Haitian culture, the agency of women, and the significance of respectability in dress and etiquette. Through their combined bodies of work, Jean-Louis and Hopkins present a comprehensive narrative that encapsulates both the triumphs and tribulations of this community, ultimately representing “THE TOTALITY OF OUR GOOD LIFE.”
Register
Organizers
Nestled in the Montparnasse district, Reid Hall hosts several Columbia University initiatives: the Columbia Global Paris Center, the Institute for Ideas and Imagination, the Columbia Undergraduate Programs, the M.A. in History and Literature, and the GSAPP Shape of Two Cities Program. This unique combination of resources is enhanced by our global network whose mission is to expand the University's engagement with the world through educational programs, research initiatives, regional partnerships, and public events.
The Columbia Global Paris Center addresses pressing global issues that are at the forefront of international education and research: agency and gender; climate and the environment; critical dialogues for just societies; encounters in the arts; and health and medical science.
Each year the Institute for Ideas and Imagination brings together a cohort of 14-15 Fellows, half of them Columbia faculty and post-docs, the other half artists and writers from around the world, to spend a year together in work and conversation. The Institute fosters intellectual and creative diversity unconstrained by medium and discipline through the interaction of the arts and academia.
Columbia Global brings together Columbia World Projects, the Columbia Global Centers, the Institute for Ideas and Imagination, and the Committee on Global Thought.
