Thanks for coming. I appreciate the foreign languages department,
coming, Foreign Language and Literatures department coming out
so nicely. I hope you locked your offices because clearly
there's no one there minding the store. Um,
so I've really been looking forward to this session.
Um, I would say with, with two parts
great excitement and one part dread. Um the first
part I think is because um the featured book and
the, and the, and the scholar um is
someone who works in a language other than English.
Um, and an awful lot of us do most
of you who are, who are present in attending
some of us in other departments. Um, and
I think it's a struggle. It's been a struggle
to get the library um, to acknowledge that and
get enough resources. I think things have gotten much
better. Um, but any chance we have or
I have in my capacity um, to highlight that
aspect of faculty research is when I really welcome and
I was really looking forward to this session. Um,
the second part is the dread. I don't
speak French. Um I've never spoken French. I
don't read French. I know that the first two
words up here are a name, ah beyond that, I'm
at a loss. Um, And this is,
this has troubled me a little bit. Um,
it actually goes back to 7th grade when I had
the choice between taking French, Spanish or art. Um,
and my mother told me to take art um,
out of which I have, I believe still
a small dish in which I keep my coins.
Um, but the issue with French is I was
thinking about this um up until a certain point to
be a humanity scholar in the United States meant to
be multi lingual, you know, you were not
only um obviously proficient in English, but probably in
French and probably in German also. Um and I
think they got lost. And I think it was
actually the generation of scholars right before me, that
was sort of the last ones who really it was
almost taken for granted that you could be conversant in
multiple languages, not only your research language, but
in the other kind of scholarly languages. And at
some point, like I said, that got lost.
Um and it's something I've regretted, you know,
professionally. Um and some moments like this remind
me of that of that failing um which I then
turned into a sociological analysis. Um the third part
which I'm very excited about um is particularly suited for
for this work of scholarship um which is the engagement
of humanity scholars with public audiences. Um and as
you're going to hear that this, this book came
out, I don't know if it came out over
it led to or there was some relationship with um
a cohabitational arrangement um with an exhibition. And so
I was really pleased to have this chance to not
only recognize Richard and his scholarship and the publication of
this book, but also to give him a chance
to talk to this audience about the work that went
into um all of these efforts and I hope kind
of what came out of it. So I'll turn it over to.
That's that's the introduction. Right? You haven't we
haven't heard anything about you. I'll turn it over
to Richard um and let him talk about this project.
Thank you. [Applause]
I guess I'll maybe do it in English then.
Is that up to me? Okay, well
thank you. Um So anyways, thank you all
for coming and I'd particularly like to thank the University
Libraries for inviting me to be part of the Visible
Scholarship Initiative and put the particular thanks in that too
Lesley Moyo and Tom Ewing. Um and the work
here in question Gustave Kahn: Un écrivain engagé, is an edited collection of articles.
Um the uh co edited with my collaborator Francois [inaudible].
Francois is a professor of art history at the University
of Laval in Quebec City Canada. And before that
actually, during the large part of this collaboration,
she was at the University, you may know in
in Lamont like the 24 hours of lemons, lemons
uh France and many of you, I'm sure asking
who is who is Gustav Kahn? Uh Well there
he is. Um you can move on. Um
that settles it. Um you stopped Kahn is not
someone who's well known in France today. Um During
his lifetime, it was actually quite well known in
literary and artistic circles. He was active uh publishing
from the 1880s through his death in 1936. And
he was an amazingly prolific writer at that. He
published more than 50 books and I've so far been
able to find over 1800 articles, short stories,
poems and so forth, that were published independently.
He's best known as being a simplest part of the
French symbolist movement in literature. And this is a
movement um whose aesthetic comes out of shot Butler Charles.
Butler's writings in in the mid 18 hundreds is
developed in the 18 sixties and 18 seventies through the
writings of Stephane, Mallarme and Paul Verlaine, who
you might have heard of, or after Rambo,
archer Rambo. Um um and this is a poetry
that seeks to depict the ideal nature of the world
, and it is the ideas behind the reality that
that we see. And also it's a poetry of
sensation. So in other words, instead of uh
painting or depicting a flower, they try to depict
the sensation of the flower. And it's often considered
to be some of the most ivory tower ish literature
in in french. And this is something we'll come
back to. Khan himself was very influential in the
development of the symbolist movement, Symbolism is aesthetic,
turned into a movement in 1886, to be very
precise and um con again played a big role in
that one of the new phenomena that we find in
in 18 eighties France, is the development of,
of, of what are called the small journals,
small reviews, the, and the simplest got right
into that right away and Khan was really among the
first people involved with that. And uh, in
his role as uh, an editorial work with several
of these uh, important journals for the simplest movement
. He was involved in the course making decisions as
to who gets published and who didn't. Um,
as well as these are venues for his own uh
, poetry and also venues for his own critical writings
and these critical writings, uh, included theoretical pieces
in some instances or book reviews of other writers.
And that also helped to define the contours of the
movement. And another very important piece of what was
being published in the small reviews for his art criticism
. And um, this will become a major dimension
of cons writings. Uh, he's still widely read
today in our credit art history and his art criticism
, our criticisms against spans this whole 50 year period
of, of publications. Um, the um,
also he was well known among artists and um,
particularly some of the uh, new impressionists or the
point orientalist paintings. Um, and he himself was
an art collector, supposedly at one point at least
we found a receipt for his buying from George sara
lee pozos, which you may have seen if you're
not familiar with this painting. Um, you should
be familiar with the island of the gunshot, which
was immortalized recently in the Washington Post's Little peep contest
if you know what I'm talking about. Good,
if not, don't worry. Um hmm. Um
, but so for example, um, was,
was the one of the witnesses at cons wedding and
mail. Maybe familiar also with maximilian loose. Also
part of the same uh, school others here.
This is, this is a, a letter from
Mattis to can with a little self portrait of Mattis
. Um, and so, um, anyway,
so again, Khan was very much involved with the
art world as well In the 1920s and 30s,
he then moved on and played an important role in
the Jewish Cultural Renaissance in France. And in that
he was the editor in chief of the journal called
Menorah, which was the largest, most influential francophone
uh publication devoted to the promotion of jewish art and
literature. I've been asked to talk a little bit
about the genesis of this project, which, which
goes way back once upon a time. I was
, I was actually working on a book on the
politics of the symbolist movement. And um, I
happen to meet someone pretty much by chance at,
at the National Library in paris where I spent my
summers and actually, there's a book by that person
here, Martha Martha Wort. Um, but she
mentioned to me that that she was um, had
the address of Khan's grandson and asked me if I'd
like to come along her french wasn't so good.
And I said, sure, because one of the
things I was trying to do is part of this
project on the politics, the symbolist movement was find
as many primary sources. I couldn't particularly things that
hadn't been found yet. We're not in the public
domain to try to get some fresh insights on what
was going on. And I had contacted descendants of
other poets as well. So this was great.
Um we uh Martha Ward and I met with the
grandson of Gustave Kahn and uh the grandson. And
I really hit it off and the the over the
years I kept going back. Uh and the family
was very, very, very generous with me,
gave me, they ended up having actually a quite
a large number of of um of Khan's papers in
terms of manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, and also
paintings, all kinds of things. And for a
period of about 20 years, the family gave me
unfettered access to this. And um and the the
grandson unfortunately passed away about two years ago and also
, and just before that, unfortunately, the family
uh sold at auction, the collection which dispersed it
. So I was very fortunate to be able to
have access to this uh complete, collected, fairly
complete collection of of this writer's papers for for for
as long as I did. Um I in the
1990s, met Francois Schlukebir uh collaborators. She is
very much interested in combat con is an art critic
and um she had a very good idea of organizing
a colloquium on Gustave Kahn, and maybe since she's
an art critic putting together an exhibition. So we
approached a number of venues and the the Museum of
jewish art and History in paris said yes, both
through the idea of a colloquium and to an exhibition
. And um the colloquium on the one hand was
like other colloquy a that that we as scholars have
all been too, and um and um people presenting
papers, but this is also one that was being
held at a public museum, State Museum and anyone
was invited, you didn't have to pay money,
there was no registration fee or anything like that.
And so, uh it also tends to attract them
a little bit broader audience than our scholarly conferences do
. And one of the things, many things I
like about France's again, you'll not only do you
have your your scholars that you would expect to see
at such a colloquium, but then you also have
this wonderful group of folks that, that uh,
I've come to know in France who are um they
don't have any scholarly affiliation, but they are involved
with scholarship in some cases are actually publishing things or
else they really know a whole lot about a given
movement. So we attracted a number of people like
that as well as descendants of some of the writers
of, of this movement. And that's always interesting
because you always get someone say, oh, I
don't think my grandfather would have agreed with you on
that and that's okay. Um But that's just one
of the challenges. Um so anyway, the we
had the colloquium again, was already in 2006 and
uh and then again there was an exhibition at the
same museum in 2006, that uh francois and I
co curated. And this was my fortunately, yeah
, we are, I had francois uh guiding me
on this because she had already curated many exhibitions in
in France and in china. And so she could
, she provided a lot of help, put things
mildly and um uh I was able to provide certain
things on on the con side and she, her
expertise with, with putting together an art exhibition was
was uh uh invaluable, and for me, this
was again, I'm a literature person, I'm used
to publishing articles and if there's an illustration in whoa
, that's pushing the limit there. Um so,
to move from that to actually an exhibition uh is
it's a whole different way of having to conceive of
of a topic. And um we uh and there
are multiple dimensions to of this. Uh because this
is something that's in a public museum, you can
have people who just wander in and don't know who
this used to have Kangai is and uh they're just
curious and they want to find something out about him
. So you want to have on the one hand
information that's accessible to people like that. You're also
some people actually do know who he is. And
he said, okay, stuff, can I want
to find out more about him? And so again
, you also have to be able to deal with
uh, provide something that will interest the specialists out
there. Um, so, um, we uh
francois and I spent a couple of years actually going
through literally thousands of items that the family owns And
coming up with about 120, items that we decided
to display. And um, not only is there
the question of the level that's a little bit difficult
. But then there's also the question of how do
you make this visually interesting. Uh, and also
because you can't just lay out a bunch of manuscripts
and let people read those because they're not going to
, its gets kind of boring and they're handwritten and
they're hard to read in some instances. So you
have to provide a variety of things. Fortunately Khan
was an art critic and an art collector. So
the family still had a certain number of paintings,
not things like cosas by, but there's still a
number of items and they were able to use and
as well as uh, some private effects. And
also I was able to get a record, uh
, a recording very rare recording of con reciting some
of his poetry, which is one of in 1913
, there were these uh wax recordings made of of
famous people and they included konnen in that. And
so it's uh um and the family had never heard
these before. And so we had those playing in
11 part of the exhibition for example. And um
so just just a quick couple of quick pictures of
that. This this is on the uh left,
there is the grandson of Con. This is when
you kind of go go into the music into the
exhibition and that's his, our wife and then just
a couple of quick shots of the exhibition here.
A couple of the rooms where things were displayed and
um 11 I was, I mentioned these challenges of
presenting this information visually and then organizing what you have
relative to uh some kind of coherent layout because you
can't just put these items in a random order.
And we were able to come up with something after
after some effort was very pleased on opening night involved
um unashamedly share this anecdote with you because we invited
, for example, are Sharon and I live in
paris in the summer. So we invited like our
neighbors, we crossed the hall, there's the taxi
driver invited, invited him to the opening night and
the museum has its guest list too, um which
included as I found, you know at the time
, um the a member of the french academie francaise
, the french uh french academy and as he was
also the former director of the and at during the
opening night, both of these individuals came up to
me and said, I really enjoyed your your your
your exhibition and it was really good. I really
got a lot out of it. Okay, so
we're hitting the taxi driver and the former director of
the Louver things are okay here. Um so,
um and again, this is a collective effort is
thanks to the great people at the museum collaborator in
particular as as well as others. So, um
but anyway, the uh this book came out of
actually the colloquium, we we we uh francois and
I did a selection of some of the best papers
and he went back to those people and said,
hey, we'd like you to turn these into articles
what this book is, not a conference proceedings,
it's it's a collection of articles on a variety of
topics now, in terms of the book here.
Um the and also a little bit more about Gustav
con um we we will compare him to an 18th
century philosophical uh the kind of person such as Voltaire
, thomas, Jefferson was was a bit of the
same, another individuals who are interested interests uh extended
to a wide variety of disciplines and they made actually
significant contributions into in each of those. These people
were also very much interested in social progress and political
progress. And again, many of Khan's actions,
his way of doing things reflected those that you would
find of of an 18th century philosopher. Uh and
so for example, in literary terms, he wrote
in pretty much every genre of poetry of course,
but short stories, theater novels, he wrote a
history of of the simplest movement. He also um
um well of course, what art criticism. Uh
he also wrote one of what I found out,
I didn't know this until we did the the colosseum
, you were one of the first treaties in french
on, on urban planning. Um Yeah, he
was involved with the Socialist Party as it emerged during
the early 20th century. He was part of the
French government during the First World War. I was
involved with the Dreyfus affair and then also during the
Dreyfus affair, he had a very unique um uh
direction that he pursued, which was actually with the
Freethinkers uh movement, Free Thought, which is uh
many people equate with with Atheism, but at least
people who are questioning religion. And Khan became very
involved with that wrote, wrote poetry uh that aligned
with with Free Thought and some of these these poems
were performed by major actors and actresses and confirm it
Audiences of 2000 people. He went around promoting this
. Um Khan also is considered to be um and
by some, the actually the inventor of free verse
in french literature in other words, if you've probably
written poetry, you've probably written free verse and his
poetry that doesn't necessarily rhyme or the length of the
verse can be whatever it is that that you choose
it to be. Um Other people also claim this
the same title in uh french literature. What is
for sure is that Khan is the first person to
use this new method in a sustained manner. He's
the first person to theorize uh come up with a
theory of free verse and he was also a major
uh proponent of free verse among other riders. Um
the um getting back also to the title of the
book, um because the about any uh is a
word that's difficult to translate into english. It's politically
committed, is one of the best ways to to
describe it. Sometimes people will say engaged in english
, but uh and sometimes they'll just use the french
word engaging in english. And um but it is
a writer who seeks to influence the world through his
or her literature. And um con was was very
much of this uh milk. And um and as
a um he politically saw that his poetry and that
other symbolist had the power to make this kind of
of transformation, which is odd for a lot of
people because again, it seems to be some of
the most a political literature that you can find they're
not references to to people suffering or you know,
cries out against injustice. Um and so but for
for khan, his poetry for one of the things
that he put forth was this notion of beauty of
the this sort of ideal notion of beauty as actually
being transformative, which to us might seem a little
bit, you know? Okay, so what um
at the time, um, that actually did have
some weight, um, and the notion with beauty
is that, you know, it sets some kind
of high standard that can be uh sought after in
all different realms, whether it was a personal realm
or in something such as, um, this notion
of urban planning, or his interest in social art
, uh, all manner of things. Um,
And, um, also this kind of notion of
beauty as being a possible element in transforming society was
also shared by several anarchists in France during the 1890s
, Khan was an anarchist himself, not the bomb
throwing kind, there are actually only a couple,
a few of those. Um, he he actually
wrote defenses of a couple of the anarchists who ended
up being guillotined for their acts and was trying to
persuade the government to change its mind and not execute
these men. He also during this time, used
some of his his position in the in the one
of the literary journals that he was um editing to
publish a lot of leading anarchists and to make them
better known to a to a wider public. And
, um, but this interest. Uh, and
so again, this this notion that beauty could could
actually bring about change wasn't just held by him.
It was also held by some, particularly in in
the anarchist movement at the time. And but later
on it would be more cons position as a writer
. And this is something that we find in a
lot of countries, this notion of of the intellectual
having a role in the country's affairs and beyond just
the narrow context of writing. Probably most countries other
than this one uh, favor that I have that
that kind of a role and consul himself very much
in that position. And the notion here is of
course that these people are people who that society should
listen to and that the leaders should listen to because
they have something to say, they have broader thoughts
. And this actually goes back into this connects with
this aesthetic notion. That aesthetic notion, notion of
beauty allows you to see further allows you to imagine
things that other people who are too concerned with.
Their sort of minute day to day concerns can't see
. So, um, that all this is again
part of this engaged, politically uh committed side of
Con, that we we find um going through all
manner of his uh involvement throughout his life. Um
, and so just to conclude, um, sort
of quickly here, uh, the one of things
I was also asked to to address the sort of
the next steps on this project, actually, my
next step is to kind of be a step back
. I've already, you know, I mentioned,
I was starting working on this book, on the
politics of symbolism and I've already gone back to that
um that project, I've been kind of actually going
back and forth between that and Khan khan has won
out over the years. Um and I've I've done
a number of projects, the exhibition, the colloquium
and this edited collection being three. Um and um
so I'm I'm actually looking forward to that. There
there is, I may actually do some more work
on him uh in the future here. Um there
was a an unpublished play that um I was going
to publish and then when the family sold its papers
um at auction, um whoever, I don't know
who bought this play and that, I have a
copy of it, but I have to get the
the authorization of the owner. So that's something I'm
working on with the collaborator in in in France right
now to see if we can get that cleared up
because we had something that was very ready too much
ready to go out to a publisher very close to
it. So, um, I may go back
to that, but uh I'll certainly keep working in
in this this late 19th century period and it's like
I said, this, this con has been a
wonderful adventure for me. I've had an opportunity to
uh have a number of very unique experiences and again
and meeting a lot of interesting people and I'm sure
that's going to continue. So I'd like to thank
you all for for coming. And um I guess
I don't know if they're there, there's a question
and answer period. Is that the way or it
works because so I was trying to stick to the
sort of the timeline that you laid out uh Leslie
. Are there any questions or answers? Because it's
a question and answer period or I'll ask you a
question. Oh, so what happened papers that are
so whoever buys right, um in in in France
, There are a couple to two sets of rights
that the law, there is different. Um There
is something called moral rights which which Last forever and
the family owns. So you can't go and take
like a work from victor Hugo and change it and
call it work by victor Hugo without the family's authorization
. At least according to law, the law says
that. Um So, but then there's also the
there's a legal rights of the person who owns the
document. If it's an unpublished peace and that and
that's the case here. If I were to publish
it, I'd still have to get I have the
Conn family signing off. It was actually a co
written play. I'd have to get the other family
to sign off on it. Um but but again
, whoever owns the physical document has rights too.
Um but if we can come up with another copy
of this play, then we're fine. Sorry?
Yeah. Um not for something that's unpublished. Something
that's published, I think, in the European Union
at 75 years now. Um but these these these
so called moral rights are forever. It's theoretically,
if you would find a letter by charlemagne, I've
never been published that. And the family said,
no, we don't want you to publish that theoretically
. They could they could take you to court,
uh had a chance of winning. And but and
uh but again, these other rights, as long
as things remains unpublished are indefinite to Yeah. Um
yeah, he he was the the the private secretary
of Marcel Samba who is a socialist, he's got
his own metro stop on the west side of paris
ah and also worked alongside uh leon blum, leon
blum would later become president of France. Yeah.
In that, in that respect, he worked for
two years uh table public. And how would you
translate that? The Ministry of Public Works, I
guess. Um So yes, more about have transformers
hold this is this is complicated. Um well,
not really relevant. Well, no, it's it's
, you know, it's like, okay, I
meant to say there was actually very relative relative event
. Um because the um One of the things that's
happening in the 1880s when the symbolism is emerging as
a movement. Um you have a essentially a new
government in France, the Third Republic, and it's
actually controlled finally by the republicans which is associated with
democracy, but also with bourgeois values and they're they're
promoting their own art forms which are um uh meant
to extend to everyone because they want their society to
be inclusive of everyone and not at all exclusive.
And so many artists such as Khan felt at this
time in the 1880s that there was this lowering of
of art and and that uh things were coming down
to sort of the lowest common denominator on a lot
of levels and not just in the world of art
. And one of the ideas of promoting this concept
of beauty um was that you were to try to
bring people up to it rather than coming down to
to the level of the people and holding up again
this ideal for them and um that seems very elitist
on one hand and so be it. Um but
um the um ah coming down to like this,
like the common denominator was um did not seem to
have worked in other revolutions in France and since the
revolution and was not moving the country forward and so
um holding the up something there that is closer to
the horizon is something that many felt as as as
an idea could or as a structure could move the
country towards the kinds of activities that would cause actual
progress in already. Mhm. Yeah, it's certainly
not limited. That was it. yes, it's
certainly not limited to France. Um but in at
least in in in this is the, you know
, I work in the french context and so this
this I know better than my sort of vague notions
about about the english context and um and in here
, like I said in the french context you had
, you know, again, this was a very
serious position to be taking. It's it's really kind
of hard for people today to be putting their their
heads around that, that that some some notion of
beauty because somehow transformed society, it just just just
, it just seems you too superficial and and uh
how could that ever ever be? But um this
was a position that was held by quite a few
very intelligent people at that at the time. And
so he was not alone in that, she europe
. Mhm. If you can speak up there for
so palkin here too. Yeah, so Beauty Will
Save the World. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So yeah, Elizabeth carrie. Um there are there
there's an Albert Kahn who is probably it's it's Khan
is a very common name and you'll find lots and
lots of cons and um there's actually Albert Kahn parc
in near France near paris to which is beautiful,
should go see. Um but it's it's probably an
homage to him rather than to Gustave Kahn. What
Gustave Kahn. Um no, very little because his
work was not translated into english, several of his
books were translated into german um And but he and
actually some french writers came over to the United States
and um uh did little tours, but he was
not one of those. And um there are actually
two members of the french symbolist movement who are americans
who wrote in french uh including a virginian called Francis
Francis griffin ah and ah so who are the same
generation as Khan in the same journals and same group
? It's as he, but that's but these are
americans who have gone to France and have really adopted
France and sir, He died in 1936. Yeah
, yeah France. Um No, he didn't have
to leave friends due to the nazis because he was
already dead. Um Mhm. Um but the but
the, the german Germans knew of him because even
Khan was also involved with the freemasons and one of
the, one of the documents that we showed at
the exhibition that we got into the archives of the
freemasons and they had the freemasons had gotten hold of
some of the former nazi archives and which listed Kansas
ah involvement with the freemasons. And um the like
I said that the nazis were very interested in in
, in that group for example. And also in
Khan just to find out what was going on ah
um in his family. And so where they came
to the house because the occupation occurs just four years
after Khan's death. So it's very fresh and again
, he was a big figure in the Zionist movement
in in France at the time. So Albert Albert
Barnes in front, I don't know. I think
there were a couple of people in in between,
but that is yet in the Barnes collection. And
um, so I forget you have to find an
art historian to find the providence in Chicago was phillips
. Okay. Are there other questions or for answers
we have. Mhm. Yes, sure. You
know how much is mm hmm. Also connect vs
Yes. Yes. I mean, it's also to
me that's all that, that that disconnect that you're
talking about there is related to the notion of the
intellectual, particularly again in this country where it's like
, we don't know what to do with that kind
of species. It's, it's, you know,
it's it's foreign to us here. Whereas we have
, we have people in this room from a wide
variety of countries and I would bet in probably in
each one of them. Um whether whether we're talking
about Senegal or or Russia or France, you name
it, that you've got this notion of against enlightened
people being involved as having their say in what happens
in society and these people are getting rolled Artists,
writers. So, um, for me it's that
, that's it's kind of actually linked in with that
and this um something sort of lacking here in the
United States. And um, the, but the
whole notion of, of political awareness, I think
in some ways is more developed, in least in
europe, at least in french context. I'd say
that's because that's what I know, I'm not saying
it's limited to that, It's trying to, like
I said, stick better with what I'm familiar with
and where you have had, of course, many
people theorizing the whole notion of of, you know
, with writers, you know, south for being
one of the best known of, of those.
And um whereas I have the impression that that's something
that just less examined again in this country. Um
, and there, but also like in french life
, at least, you know, if you have
dinner with somebody that's, you know, not unlikely
you might be talking about politics much more so than
here in the United States, or if you ask
, you know, in the United States were all
part of the middle class, right? Uh,
you know, everyone from the poorest person up to
Bill Gates were all middle class. Right? And
whereas in France, yeah, they know what class
they're in. It's it's and um there there's just
a much greater awareness of society where one is in
society and these kind of differences and inequalities and an
openness to talk about these kinds of things that gets
stifled, unfortunately in this country for a variety of
reasons. So, but that's, but it's interesting
that there's the same kind of problem that exists in
in in Arabic as well, that may exist in
other languages two. And is I wonder if there's
any connection actually between the french and the the one
? Yeah. Because, Oh, come on.
But since there are so many historical ties between the
the french and the Arabs, so longer present.
Okay. Yeah, Yeah. So, wow.
But it's anyways, it's a big part of what
I work on my literature and writing. Right,
Thank you. Thank you all.