“Theater Kids”: On Zola’s Nana (1880)

Our Final Summer Livestream Literature Salon, Tomorrow, Wednesday, July 29!

Please join us tomorrow, Wednesday, July 29, at 20:00 Paris / 19:00 London / 14:00 NY / 11:00 SF, for the final session of our five Hinternet Summer Livestream Literature salons.

We will be discussing Émile Zola’s remarkable 1880 novel, Nana, with special attention to its depiction of the Bohemian life, of thespians, courtesans, journalists, and other marginals, in Third Republic Paris; to the double duty played, as both qualitative social science and literature, by the 19th-century French novel, with Balzac and Zola as the most outstanding representatives of this dual function; and to the innovation of quasi-cinematic techniques, avant la lettre, in Zola’s prose style (as well as Flaubert’s).

Beneath the fold you will find, in French and in English, an excerpt from the novel that will hold our attention for a good part of the session. You are also invited to watch, in preparation, the podcast that Agnes Callard and JSR did in 2023 on Zola’s Au bonheur des dames (1882) — likewise below the fold.

Here is a complete schedule of our Livestream Literature Salons. Other than for the third session, which we lost due to a technical glitch, all the others are now archived here, available to paid subscribers.

• Wednesday 1 July — Introduction: Reflections on the Philosophy of Translation [DONE!] Recording here.

• Wednesday 8 July — The most beautiful short story ever written: Anton Chekhov’s “A Day in the Country” (1886) [DONE!] Recording here.

• Wednesday 15 July — Pan-Soviet Chekhovism: Amma Achchygyïa’s “Motuo” (1927) [DONE!]

• Wednesday 22 July — Before À la recherche: Madame de Sévigné, Saint-Simon, and the Non-Fiction Sources of Proust’s Masterpiece [DONE!] Recording here.

• Wednesday 29 July — “Theater Kids”: On Zola’s Nana (1880).

Upgrade your subscription now in order to join us for tomorrow’s session, or to join us for next month’s four-week course on the philosophy of Leibniz, beginning Monday, August 3. If you upgrade before the end of the month you will benefit from a 50% discount for one year. Do it now and join us!

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