Professor Olga Anna Duhl Organizes International Conference in Dijon, France

In October, Olga Anna Duhl, associate professor of foreign languages and literatures, brought together scholars specializing in numerous academic disciplines from across the globe for “Love and Medicine in the Renaissance,” an international conference held at the University of Bourgogne in Dijon, France.

The conference came about through Duhl’s involvement with a team of international researchers at the University of Bourgogne Research Center, “Interactions Culturelles Europeennes” (European Cultural Interactions).

Duhl explains that one of the most important cultural factors that helped bring about the Renaissance was the rediscovery of the philosophy of Plato in the fifteenth century, which allowed people to begin to look at old ideas about culture and morality in new ways.

The conference focused on the changing views on love which emerged as a result of the widespread impact of Neo-Platonism across Europe, and on how these were reflected in medical treatises. Special attention was also paid to howthese issues conflicted with the established doctrine of the Catholic Church and the royal court.

“[During the Renaissance] there was a proliferation of all kinds of texts that refer to love,” says Duhl. “All disciplines had something to say about love in one way or another.”

Duhl says that Neo-Platonism also brought about the idea that spiritual love, although considered the highest form of human experience, originated in the senses.

“This was an attempt to reconcile two extremes, pagan and Christianity,” she says.

This new view, which went against the medieval tradition of the senses being the sources of evil, gave medicine a socially acceptable way to deal with love, including its pathological forms, through the invention of all kinds of therapeutic devices.

“Members of the clergy also began publishing works against these ideas. There were very strong reactions. Many people were condemned and some accused of witchcraft.”

The conference papers were presented by leading specialists in the fields of fifteenth and sixteenth-century French language, literature, and culture, and comparative literature, from prominent institutions, such as the University McGill, the University Laval (Canada), the University of Amsterdam (Holland), the University Jagellone (Poland), The Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium), the University of Burgundy (France), and the University of Geneva (Switzerland). Some of the issues discussed were: theories of love as reflected by the discourses of philosophy, medicine and alchemy, love and medicine in linguistics and literature, love and medicine in religious and political propaganda, and love and medicine as seen through the eyes of women writers.

Duhl is in the process of editing all the articles, which she will submit for publication to the Editions Universitaires de Dijon (University Editions of Dijon).

She stresses the interdisciplinary nature of the conference, as she believes it fits in well with the direction Lafayette has been taking toward a higher level of cooperation among academic departments. The multidisciplinary work has contributed to her teaching in the classroom and one-on-one research projects with students.

This is the third conference Duhl has organized since she started working with the Center in 1998.

“Le Théâtre Français des Années 1450-1550: État Actuel des Recherches” (French Theater between 1450-1550: the Current State of Research) was held in November 1999. Leading specialists in the fields of French medieval and Renaissance history, literature, text edition, and culture participated in the colloquium and the proceedings were published into a collection of essays under the same name in 2002.

In 2004, she put together “Quêtes spirituelleset acutalités contemporaines dans le theatre de Marguerite de Navarre” (Spiritual Quests and Contemporary Issues in the Theater of Marguerite, Queen of Navarre), which was published as a special issue of the scholarly journal, Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Reforme. This was based on the conference, “The Theater of Marguerite de Navarre” that she organized at the Center in 2003.

Her latest work with the Center has come about due to her long term research on La Grant nef des folles, a French version of TheShip of Foolish Maidens. The allegorical poem written in 1494 by Sebastian Brant satirizes the follies and vices of late medieval society. Originally written in German, Ship of Fools was so popular that it was soon translated into Latin, French, Dutch, English, and Low German. Ship of Fools stimulated both the development of vernacular cultures and the rise of humanism and the Reformation, according to Duhl. She received a grant from the Renaissance Society of America to produce a critical edition.

Duhl has worked and continues to work with numerous students on this project through the EXCEL research program. The students include Gabriela Martins ’03, who graduated with a B.S. neuroscience and an A.B. with a major in French;Richard Lear ’06, who graduated with an A.B. with majors in French and government & law; Daria Szkwarko ’06, who graduated with a B.S. neuroscience;Meredith Terlecki ’03, who graduated with a B.S. neuroscience and an A.B. with a major in French; Ihssane Loudiyi ’07 (Rabat, Morocco), a double major in computer science and economics & business; and Marquis Scholar Julia Kumpan ’07 (Danville, Calif.), an interdisciplinary studies major in classical civilization.

Most recently, one of the world’s leading publishers of French literature from the Middle Ages and Renaissance released her groundbreaking critical-edition book about a late medieval “fools’ play, Sotise A Huit Personnaiges [Le Nouveau Monde] (Sotis Played by Eight Characters [The New World]). Duhl spent six years on the project and worked with Martins and Lear as EXCEL scholars.

She is currently advising Kiira ElisabethBenzing ’07 (Ridgewood, N.J.), a double major in French and performance studies, along with Michael O’Neill, associate professor of English and director of theater, in an honors thesis project. Benzing is translating the Sotise A Huit Personnaiges into English and producing a staged reading of the translation.

Duhl’s other recent scholarship includes a contribution to the landmark Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. She authored an article on influential 16th century scholar and court jester John Pace.

Duhl joined the Lafayette faculty in 1992. She is the author of Folie et rhetorique dans la sottie, published in 1994, also by Droz, Geneva. She has written numerous book chapters, book reviews, articles, and translations, including publications in Fifteenth-Century Studies, Sixteenth-Century Studies, Le Moyen Francais, Romance Quarterly, Studi francesi, Reforme Humanisme Renaissance, and Bibliotheque d’Humanisme et Renaissance. She is on the editorial board of Revue d’etudes francaises.

Duhl has given papers and lectures at International Conferences of Middle French Studies, Montreal, Canada and the Center for Advanced Medieval Studies, Universite de Poitiers, France; Renaissance Society of America Conferences; the International Conference on French Women Writers during the Ancien Regime, St. Louis, Mo.; the Sixteenth-Century Studies Conference, St. Louis, Mo.; the Thirteenth Annual Medieval and Renaissance Conference, New York City; The Annual International Conference on Neo-Latin Studies, Budapest, Hungary; and other events.

Her awards include a Pro-Cultura Grant for the Humanities, 1998; research grants in 1993, 1994, and 1997; Thomas Roy and Lura Forrest Jones Faculty Lecture Award, Lafayette, 2000, and Thomas Roy and Lura Forrest Jones Faculty Award, Lafayette, 2004; Mellon Foundation Grants in 1996 and 1998; a Marandon Fellowship for Research in France, 1990; a University Fellowship, Rutgers University, 1990-91; and a Marion Johnson Fellowship, Rutgers University, 1989.

Duhl holds a master’s degree in French from the University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and a doctoral degree in French from Rutgers University.