'Not in Search of Messages': A Primo Levi Study Day

This workshop brings together a group of scholars from various fields of inquiry for a sPlease join us for a study day marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of Primo Levi. On Monday, October 28th, at 5 p.m., Philippe Mesnard, Professor of Comparative Literature at the CELIS (Centre de Recherches sur les Littératures et la Sociopoétique), Université Blaise Pascal, will deliver a keynote lecture titled, 'The Truth of the Witness According to Primo Levi.' We will then spend the day on Tuesday, October 29th, in a series of seminars with literary scholars, historians, and anthropologists from the US, Europe, and Israel. Primary readings (recommended but not required for participation in the seminar) along with more information are available at: ccjs.uchicago.edu/primolevi. This event is sponsored by the Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies and the Jean and Harold Gossett Fund in Memory of Holocaust Victims Martha and Paul Feivel Korngold, the France Chicago Center, the Franke Institute for the Humanities, and the Department of Romance Literatures and Languages.tudy day to commemorate Primo Levi’s 100th birthday, which takes place in the summer of 2019. Rather than inviting a group of Levi specialists for an academic conference, we have chosen to invite scholars from a wide range of fields, including Anthropology, Black Studies, Genocide Studies, Jewish History, and Comparative Literature, for a conversation about the enduring relevance of Levi’s writing. The keynote lecture by Philippe Mesnard (Professor of Comparative Literature in the Department of Modern Languages, Université Clermont Auvergne) will set the stage for the conversation through a broad discussion of questions of testimony in literature. On the following day, participants have been invited to choose a primary text by Levi (if they wish, it can be paired with a brief text by another author), which will be pre-circulated to everyone interested in the workshop. Participants will then lead seminars of 75 minutes each on their chosen texts. This event is sponsored by the Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies and the Jean and Harold Gossett Fund in Memory of Holocaust Victims Martha and Paul Feivel Korngold, the Chicago France Center, the Franke Institute for the Humanities, and the Department of Romance Literatures and Languages.