Program: Victor Hugo, Visionary of Peace

Victor Hugo, Visionary for Peace, International Colloquium, Casa Victor Hugo, Havana, Cuba
November 13-14, 2019
(Victor Hugo, Visionnaire de la Paix, Colloque international à la Casa Victor Hugo, La Havane, Cuba)

The international colloquium took place in the context of Havana’s 500th anniversary, and eminent specialists came from the world’s five inhabited continents (Africa, Europe, Asia, America, and Oceania [or Australia]). Colloquium organizers:

  • Gérard Pouchain, agrégé de l’Université, docteur Ès Lettres
  • Co-President Florence Naugrette, agrégée de Lettres Modernes, docteur Ès Lettres, Professor of French Literature at the Sorbonne University Paris IV
  • Co-President Jean-Marc Hovasse, agrégé de Lettres Modernes, docteur Ès Lettres, Professor of French Literature at the Sorbonne University Paris IV, Biographer of Victor Hugo.

Wednesday 13 November 2019

Session 1: “Broadening What’s Meant by Peace,” Mme Florence Naugrette presiding

  • Jean-Marc Hovasse (Sorbonne University): “Victor Hugo and the Peace Congresses (1849, 1869…2019)”
  • Chantal Brière (Groupe Hugo, Paris): “Universal Exposition, or How to Declare Peace”
  • Afifa Marzouki (Manouba University, Tunis, Africa): “From Les Châtiments to Universal Peace, Hugo as Visionary”

Session 2: “Faces of Peace,” Mme Marva Barnett presiding

  • Jean-Marc Gomis, (Groupe Hugo Paris): “Views of Victor Hugo during his Fights for Peace, or Victor Hugo: The Eye of Conscience”
  • Gérard Pouchain (University of Rouen): “Victor Hugo, Man of Peace, as Seen by Caricaturists”

Thursday 14 november 2019

Session 1: “Works of Peace,” M. Jean-Marc Hovasse presiding

    • Agathe Giraud (Sorbonne University): “Les Burgraves and the Rhine Crisis”
    • Samir Marzouki (Manouba University, Tunis, Africa): “La Fin de Satan or the End of History: An Epic of Definitive, Universal Peace”
    • Florence Naugrette (Sorbonne University): “The ‘Goodby to Arms’ inLa Légende des Siècles
    • Marva Barnett (University of Virginia, USA): “Jean Valjean, Emissary of Peace Who Seeks Peace”

Session 2: “Victor Hugo beyond Borders,” M. Samir Marzouki presiding

  • Paul Gibbard (University of Western Australia): “The Perception of Victor Hugo on Australia in the Nineteenth Century”
  • Cheng Zenghou (Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China): “Victor Hugo, Defender of the Oppressed, Humiliated Chinese People”

The papers and exchanges they provoked will be published in a French/Spanish bilingual edition of the Colloquium Actes, planned for February 2020.

From the résumé by M. Roger Grévoul, Founding President of the Association Cuba Coopération France and Director of Website Publication and the Weekly Newsletter