Dispatch from Paris: Sparking Creativity Through Art and Scholarship

In Paris, the rentrée from the summer is now a fading memory. The leaves on the trees are yellowing, and fallen chestnuts strew the pathways in the Luxembourg gardens. At the Institute for Ideas and Imagination, our 2021-22 Fellows are at work, joined by a stream of short-term visitors.

We recently announced the opening of the competition for the 2022-23 Fellowships. They give an opportunity for Columbia faculty and researchers to spend a semester or a year in Paris, pursuing their own work alongside journalists, filmmakers, composers, and artists from around the world.

The Institute’s program of events is underway, many of them in partnership with  Columbia Global Centers | Paris, with whom we share a home at Reid Hall in Montparnasse. The graduate work-in-progress mentoring workshops, which we began last year to create an intellectual community for Columbia ABDs abroad, will continue in the coming months, bringing together students, faculty, and our Fellows.

The Institute provides a beautiful setting for Columbia faculty and graduate students to meet and organize workshops, conferences, and other events. More information on our activities is available on our website.

Mark Mazower is the director of the Institute for Ideas and Imagination and the Ira D. Wallach Professor of History at Columbia University.

Upcoming Events

(New York Events are only open to members of the Columbia community)

November 4, 2021, Paris, Mila Turajlić, The Labudović Reels: Cinematic Solidarity Across the Non-Aligned World

November 4, 2021, New York, Adam, Mauvais Genres: French Cinema Takes on Gender

November 9, 2021, New York, Ladies of the Wood, Mauvais Genres: French Cinema Takes on Gender

November 11, 2021, New York, Hyenas, Mauvais Genres: French Cinema Takes on Gender

November 15, 2021, Virtual Event, Robert G. O’Meally and Anto Neosoul in Conversation

November 17, 2021, Hybrid Event, Lauren Elkin and Lauren Collins in Conversation

November 18, 2021, Paris, Lamia Joreige, Uncertain Times

November 22, 2021, Paris, Performances of Race and Historical Representation with Ana Paulina Lee

December 2, 2021, Paris, Feeling Black Lives Matter: The Psycho-Social Dynamics of Sentiment with Colin Wayne Leach

December 9, 2021, Paris, Between Words & Worlds with Xiaolu Guo

Inside the Institute

The Institute hosts between 14 and 16 residential fellows annually. Asserting the ongoing power of the imagination in the formation and communication of ideas, it aims to foster new synergies between scholars and creative artists to their mutual benefit. The Institute also welcomes visiting scholars and faculty who wish to come for shorter stays in order to carry out their research, organize workshops and conferences, or curate performances and exhibitions.

Learn more and apply for the 2022-2023 fellowships.