Angers Bulletin, no. 3 (July 2003)

Dear colleagues, students, and friends,

This SUNDEF Bulletin is woefully overdue, but it has been a hectic spring. The War in Iraq caught us all in a tailspin, as did the rather tense relations between the US and France over the past months. But it is important to remember the warm and gracious hospitality we have all enjoyed here in France. Thanks to studies at Centre International d'études françaises, l'Ecole des Beaux Arts, the Conservatoire de musique, and the Université Catholique de l'Ouest, as well as their volunteer work in local schools and libraries, students met many people this year, and took full advantage of their time in Angers.

The strikes in the month of May and June did much to disrupt the functioning of the program, however. Although we tried to commiserate with the French functionaries' demands, their weeks-long work stoppages in key services such as la Poste, la SNCF, and Air France transformed some students' final days into quite a harrowing experience. Nevertheless, it has been a splendid year. Now that my tenure as SUNDEF director has dwindled to a question of days, I would like to bid you all adieu with a summary of key events that made Spring 2003 very special.

Pastoral Retreat
In March 2003, a Pastoral retreat at the Ile de Béhuard was organized by students with the special help of Fr. Patrick Gaffney, C.S.C. Father Gaffney came to us from the University of Notre Dame via Warsaw, Poland, where he was working on his Polish language skills. (He is already quite fluent in French, we discovered, and proficient in several other languages as well, including Arabic, German, Spanish, and several African languages.) Father Gaffney worked closely with student organizers to hold the retreat session, and celebrated mass for us in the Béhuard chapel afterwards. Drawing on his experience as an Anthropologist and specialist on the Middle East, Prof. Gaffney also presented a timely lecture on US-Iraq relations on the day before the retreat.

Carnavalet Visit, Paris
Later in March, Prof. Douthwaite's class "La Révolution française et la contre-révolution: la littérature et l'histoire" (ROFR 271/452 & HIS 271) travelled to Paris to delve into revolutionary history via the visual arts, with a tour and project at the Musée Carnavalet. The Musée Carnavalet holds the foremost collection of revolutionary objets d'art in the world, not only paintings, drawings, and medallions created in the years 1789-1799, but also furniture, toys, costumes, and monuments such as actual stones from the Bastille. After a guided tour, students were required to undertake their own detective work in the collection. Their assignment consisted of three parts: 1) to identify a key emblem, person, or icon from the period (e.g. la fleur de lis, le bonnet rouge, la guillotine, les droits de l'homme, Mirabeau, Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, la presse révolutionnaire, l'abeille, la pyramide, etc.); 2) to locate that emblem or person on three works of art, taking care to note the work's artist, provenance, dimensions, and medium; 3) to write up a paragraph on each object explaining the political and historical significance of the artist's interpretation. Students did some excellent interpretive work, exploring the diverse connotations of concepts such as la liberté de la presse, les droits de l'homme; objects such as la Bastille; and historical figures such as Marie-Antoinette and Camille Desmoulins.

Prof. Gengembre and La Vendée
In April we welcomed Prof. Gérard Gengembre (Univ. de Caen) for a day of discovery on la Vendée region south of Angers, and the Vendeen wars of the revolutionary period. In conjunction with Professor Douthwaite's class, Prof. Gengembre presented a thorough history of la Vendée militaire, including the social, religious, and military particularities of the civil war that devastated France in 1794-99. We then travelled to St Florent le vieil, to see where the Vendéens undertook their perilous crossing of the Loire, and to view the tomb of the great Vendeen hero, le marquis de Bonchamps (sculpted by David d'Angers). From there we proceeded to les Herbiers (just south of Cholet), where we visited les moulins de l'Alouette. These windmills suggest what the Vendée looked like during the wars, when there were hundreds of windmills functioning and communicating secret codes among the rebels. The day was made even more memorable by the fortuitous visit of Prof. Thomas Kselman, from Notre Dame's History department, who was in France doing research. Students will be happy to know that Prof. Gengembre will rejoin us at Notre Dame in spring 2004, when he will participate in a seminar taught by Prof. Douthwaite on "Les lumières et la terreur."

European Parliament visit, Brussels, Belgium
In May, the group undertook the second annual SUNDEF visit to the European Parliament in Brussels. The visit complemented Prof. Jardin's course on Les systèmes politiques européens" (POLS 322 & SOC 352). This year we had visits over two days: On May 19, 2003, we enjoyed a tour of Parliament and a lecture on European Union institutions (and the crucial issues of EU enlargement and multilingualism) by Mr. Francis Cole, Staff Interpreter at the European Parliament. We were able to sit in on two meetings of EP committees as well, on the status of women, and economic development. On May 20, we were welcomed to the official residence of Dr. James Foster, ND '71, Deputy Chief of Mission, US Mission to the European Union, who gave a marvelous lecture/discussion on the US role in the European Union--a topic of particular political importance at present. Both men have agreed to welcome students in the future.

Guérande weekend
May also saw the renewal of a cherished SUNDEF tradition, that is, the Weekend with French families in Guérande. Students were invited by Mme Anne Chailleux (friend of SUNDEF for over 20 years), to Guérande where they were welcomed by French families for the weekend of 23-25 May. Mme Chailleux used to organize this activity yearly, but had to quit a few years ago because of illness. It was a wonderful exchange opportunity for the 12 students who went. There were many other high points over the past months, such as a conference by Prof. Allan Pasco (Univ. of Kansas), the SUNDEF end-of-the-year picnic at the Lac de Maine, and our elegant Vin d'honneur with host families. Suffice it to be said that the program is going strong, and looks forward to more adventures in the good hands of the next SUNDEF directors, Profs. Patrick Martin and Blake Leyerle.

Bien amicalement,
Julia Douthwaite

Angers, 8 July 2003