Author Archives: Lauren Elkin

Final exam review

Posted on December 11, 2010 by Lauren Elkin

Thank you all so much for coming to Julie’s talk the other night. I hope you found it illuminating, and we’ll integrate her observations and arguments into our discussion on Tuesday. As I mentioned, the final exam will be cumulative– … Continue reading →

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Balzac’s House

Posted on December 10, 2010 by Lauren Elkin

By Kathleen Harvey Balzac lived in many houses but one of his only remaining ones is situated not far from our New York University Campus. While walking there I felt that it was necessary to imagine the neighborhood as it … Continue reading →

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Rue Mouffetard

Posted on December 10, 2010 by Lauren Elkin

by Ellen Frankman Like crooked teeth, the cobblestones of Rue Mouffetard wedge themselves haphazardly against one another, struggling for space in the narrow passageway where overcrowding yields snaggles of rock and the occasional gap.  Over time the street has been … Continue reading →

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La Haine

Posted on December 8, 2010 by Lauren Elkin

Camille White-Stern In Mathieu Kassovitz’s 1995 film La Haine, we follow three kids, Vinz, Hubert and Said, from the banlieu of Paris, but La Haine is about more than following the lives of three suburban kids for 24 hours. La … Continue reading →

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A couple of reminders

Posted on December 6, 2010 by Lauren Elkin

Don’t forget this Thursday night we have an event– Julie Kleinman will be giving a talk entitled “Inclusion and Exclusion in Urban Public Space: Narratives From the Gare du Nord,” and this will greatly enhance our discussion of “La Haine” … Continue reading →

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Just Like Tomorrow: Fate, a pile of shit

Posted on December 6, 2010 by Lauren Elkin

Jeff Jackson Doria, the female protagonist in Faïza Guène’s Just Like Tomorrow, is a first generation French-Moroccan living in an Arab immigrant compound called Paradise. Though her parents immigrated to France in hopes of financial and social improvement, and established … Continue reading →

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revised reading schedule

Posted on November 30, 2010 by Lauren Elkin

So sorry to have missed class this morning. The medicine has kicked in and I’m up and about, though still a bit wobbly. Let’s push all of the readings forward by one session– so we’ll talk about Debord on Thursday … Continue reading →

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class cancelled (Tues 30/11)

Posted on November 30, 2010 by Lauren Elkin

as I’m laid out with a migraine, self-medicating but not better yet. Apologies.

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Society of the Spectacle: the film

Posted on November 29, 2010 by Lauren Elkin

In case the irony of watching Debord’s “The Society of the Spectacle” as a film isn’t too overwhelming for you, you might be interested in seeing how Debord adapted his work for a more, um, specular medium than that of … Continue reading →

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Spectatorship of the Spectacular

Posted on November 29, 2010 by Lauren Elkin

Susan Pelletier In his Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord presents the lived experience as existing completely within the realm of the spectacle, in which representation supersedes reality, and through which society and the world are seen only through the … Continue reading →

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