Lectures, audio, & video by Mary Ann Caws

Selected Audio/Video Appearances

Interview for CUNY Radio: Newsmakers, September 30, 2009
Manifesto You podcast for the Poetry Foundation, March 3, 2009
Guest on Cross Cultural Poetics, a radio show hosted by Leonard Schwartz, (broadcast on KAOS 89.3FM, Olympia Community Radio, soon to be available as a podcast). She discussed her translations of Capital of Pain by Eluard and Approximate Man by Tzara, both published by Black Widow Press. December 7, 2007
Interview on CUNY-TV's CANAPE about the Yale Anthology of Twentieth Century French Poetry, June 2005
Guest on Wisconsin Public Radio's To The Best of Our Knowledge, segment on Surrealism, February 13, 2005
Video of comments made during the question and answer sessions at "Writing a Feminist's Life: Academics and Their Memoirs," a conference in honor of Carolyn G. Heilbrun, held on February 11, 2005 at Columbia University
Appears in two films by Fabrize Maze about Jacqueline Lamba: L’Amour Fou d’André Breton et La peinture jusqu’au bout du ciel, which premiered on February 10, 2005 at the SCAM
Guest on the BBC's Nightwaves, speaking on Surrealism, November 18, 2004
Interviewed in Lizzie Thynne's documentary about Claude Cahun, Playing a Part, 2004
Guest on "The Legacy of Surrealism," hosted by Dick Gordon, on The Connection (WBUR radio program), February 27, 2002
Guest on What's the Word? "Writers and Painters" (episode 125), Modern Language Association radio show, 2002
Guest on "Imagination without chains - Surrealism on 3," host Richard Coles, Tate video webcast, September 25, 2001
"Picasso's Weeping Woman," interview by Frances Degen Horowitz on Women to Women (CUNY radio program), January 11, 2001
Interview about Marcel Proust to accompany the audiobook of Swann's Way, Recorded Books, 1999

Visiting lectureships

Missouri Southern State University: September 27-29, 2006
Indiana University: two weeks of lectures, etc. spring, 2004
Washington University in St. Louis: five lectures, 2002

Lectures (selection since 1988 only)

"Writing and Painting in Bloomsbury," Smith College, April 14, 2010
"Picasso’s Prints and Dora Maar,", Museum of Modern Art, April 10, 2010
Moderator of Psychoanalytic Aspects of Biography Panel Discussion at the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute, New York, March 9, 2010
"Writers in Bloomsbury," Northwestern University Art Museum, February 17, 2010
"Ins and Outs: Surrealism, Bloomsbury, and the Sense of Drama," College Art Association Annual Conference, Chicago, February 13, 2010
"Literary Bloomsbury, Northwestern University, February 3, 2010
"Some Varieties of Religious Representation, from the Pieta of Avignon to Dali and Warhol," St. James lecture series, Wilmington, North Carolina, January 29, 2010
talk on translation as part of a reading by poets Wang Jiaxin and Moikom Zeqo, at Housing Works Used Book Café, New York, December 4, 2009
Theory of "Relation and Difference"/Roots & Imaginary Offshoots: Ecstatic Difference panelist as part of Édouard Glissant: One World in Relation , New York University Cantor Film Center, November 18, 2009

"Salvador Dali," Le Cocktail Français, National Arts Club, November 12, 2009
Conversation on food for "Eat Your Words! when writers speak of food," Cultural Services of the French Embassy, New York, November 11, 2009
Panel on "Catalan Poetry", Salmagundi Club, New York, November 6, 2009
Presentation on Provencal Cooking: Savoring the Simple Life in France, Harvard Club, October 28, 2009
"René Char and His Painters," at The Book Beautiful (annual conference American Printing History Assocation), October 17, 2009
"Whistler, James, Proust, and the Venice Biennale," University of Quebec in Montreal, September 16, 2009
"Fitting in the Pen: Writing Around Your Regular Life," and "Psst: Your Research is Showing," for the James River Writers, Richmond VA, September 9, 2009
"James and Proust: Reimagining Venice," City Images conference, Canadian Centre for Architecture, August 29, 2009
"Manifeste du monde: Tradition, Translation, and Trip," at the Littérature-monde: New Wave or New Hype? International Conference, February 12-14, 2009
Interviewed John Richardson for the Ryerson Lecture and Reception, Yale University Art Gallery, 5:30pm, January 29, 2009
Book launch party: "Writing the Memoir/Cookbook Provençal Cooking," presented by Le Cocktail Français, National Arts Club, December 11, 2008
"Manifesto of Littérature-monde — in the manifesto tradition," Graudate School, CUNY, November 14, 2008
"How to Get Published," Graduate School, CUNY, October 31, 2008
Keynote address at the Katherine Mansfield Centenary Conference, Birkbeck, University of London, "K.M.: the Jump Experience," September 4, 2008
Opening speaker at The Norwegian Critics' Association seminar on Manifestos, at the The Norwegian Festival of Literature in Lillehammer, Norway, May 29th, 2008. The NCA used MANIFESTO: A century of Isms, Modernist Manifestos and Statements, by Professor Caws, in planning and researching the seminar.
"Celebrating: Spring for us all," keynote address for "Why Study Women’s Poetry?" conference at St. Francis College, Brooklyn, NY, April 5, 2008
Participant in a "talkback" session for the play The Blue Flower, produced at the Prospect Theater, Febrary 24, 2008
"What to Wear in a Vampire Movie," at Fashion and Film - A Seminar in Honor of E. Ann Kaplan, the Humanities Institute at Stony Brook Manhattan, February 23, 2008
"Experimental Wanderings in the Drawings of Robert Desnos," College Art Association Annual Conference, Dallas, February 21, 2008
"French Contractions in the Aphoristic Mode," in the The Theory and Practice of Literary Translation University Professor Programs series at Boston University, January 8, 2008
Reading of new translations of poems by René Char as part of the Off the Rail: Selections from Brooklyn Rail series, Brooklyn Public Library, December 13, 2007
"Eugene Guillevic et la poésie newyorkaise," University College Dublin, September 21, 2007
keynote speech, "Translating and Trans-Posing: the Crossroads of Power," University of Swansea, Wales, September 17, 2007
"René Char et la poésie anglo-saxonne,", Centre européen de poésie d'Avignon, July 14, 2007
Poets Reading In Honor Of The Demoiselles D'Avignon, MoMA, May 23, 2007
"Surrealism and Love," Israel Museum, Jerusalem, May 1, 2007
"Make It New: Retranslating Great Literature," PEN panel discussion, April 26, 2007
"The Art of Trans-posing," Translations/Transpositions conference (in honor of Rosemary Lloyd), Cambridge University, March 29, 2007
"Yves Bonnefoy en Communication," Bordeaux, February 7, 2007
Chair of 4th DC International Poetry Festival panels, including Panel on Translation, at Chapters: A Literary Bookstore and National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC, November 11, 2007
"The Object of Dada," "The Subject of Surrealism," and "Picasso's Problem," University of Buffalo, October 24-26, 2006
"Traveling and Translating with Jacques Derrida," Winnipeg, Derrida conference, October 4-7, 2006
"Looking Anew: Surrealism Today," University of Kansas, October 5, 2006
"What is(are) Dada/Surrealism?" and "Picasso's Problem", Missouri Southern State University - Joplin, September 28-29, 2007
panelist on "Connecting the Dadaists: An interdisciplinary afterword to MoMa’s Dada exhibit", sponsored by the Center for the Humanities, Graduate Center CUNY, September 18, 2006
"Proust's Hawthorn Experience," Bellagio, Italy, September 9, 2006
Translation and Passion ("Passion pour Traduire"), Aix, France, July 2006
"The Object of Dada," University of Wales, Swansea, July 7, 2006
Surrealist Gaming, College Art Association annual conference, Boston, February 24, 2006
Robert Desnos, Amiens, France, March 9 2006

Dali and Duchamp--Possible Impossibles: Oh, Those Surrealist Objects!, Modernist Studies Association conference, Chicago, November 5, 2005
Picasso et ses amis (in French), National Arts Club, November 17, 2005
Keynote address Art and Text, Southern Central Modern Language Association, Houston, October 28, 2005
The Socratic Method and Virginia Woolf, (sponsored by the NEH) Villanova University, October 21, 2005
Eccentric Women Writing and Painting, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, October 17, 2005
Moderation of panel France and the US, National Arts Club, September 19, 2005
Participant in The Dream and the Painted Image: Roundtable on Surrealism at the National Academy Museum, Wednesday, May 4th, 2005
Reading of the memoir To the Boathouse, New Hanover County Public Library, Wilmington NC, April 30, 2005
Readings by poets, from the Yale Anthology of 20th Century French Poetry, Poetry Society of America, March 31, 2005
"Surrealizing Photography," The National Portrait Gallery, London, March 17, 2005
On the Poetry of Art by Jean Tardieu, Lyon, March 10-11, 2005
"Surrealism Still," Vanderbilt University, February 17, 2005
"A Double Valentine Celebration", including the Yale Anthology of 20th Century French Poetry, CUNY Skylight Room, 365 5th Ave NY NY, February 14, 2005, 6pm
Academic Women and Their Memoirs, Columbia University, February 11, 2005
Celebrating Jacques Derrida, NYU, January 21, 2005

seminar on Proust and Mallarme, and what lasts and the Cummings Lecture (public lectures on Surrealism), McGill University, Nov. 17 and 18, 2004
Reading and discussion of the memoir To the Boathouse, at Chapters bookstore, Washington, November 6, 2004; Chicago Humanities Festival, November 14, 2004; National Arts Club, December 8, 2004
Interview with Nicole Brossard (French Canadian poet), Poets House, November 9, 2004
"On Claude Cahun," University of Sussex, video taping, June, 2004
"Re-Visiting Bloomsbury," Virginia Woolf International Conference, London, June 24, 2004
Poetry reading (from the Yale Anthology of French Twentieth Century Poetry) for "World in Translation Month," Pete's Candy Store, Brooklyn, May, 2004
"Nathalie Sarraute: Reading Others," Barnard College, April 2, 2004
"Proust's World," Beaux-Arts Alliance, March, 2004
"Seeing Proust Seeing," Colony Club, March 2, 2004
"Seeing Proust Seeing," and "Some Extraordinary Women: Claude Cahun, Emily Carr, Suzanne Valadon," Indiana University, February 23 & 24, 2004

"Anthology-making" and "Seeing Poetry" MLA, San Diego, December, 2003
"Robert Motherwell: a Painter's World, Cameron Museum, Wilmington, N.C., November 21, 2003
"Joseph Cornell," Chicago Humanities Festival (Poetry Society of America lecture, with Mark Strand, Lydia Davis), November, 2003
"Le Monde de Proust", National Arts Club, November 17, 2003
"Proust, Saving Time" Chicago Humanities Festival, November 8, 2003
"Robert Motherwell and Pontigny," Mt. Holyoke College, November 7, 2003
"Personal Training in Translation," Williams College, November 1, 2003
"Boxing with Joseph Cornell," Graduate School, CUNY, October 31, 2003
"Seeing Proust Seeing," Cooper Union, October 24, 2003
"Proust's Influence on Virginia Woolf," Mercantile Library, New York, September 24, 2003
"Que peut nous dire la poésie aujourd'hui?t?" (conference on modern French poetry), University College, Dublin, September 5, 2003
"Henri Peyre's Yale," for Yale Alumni, April 4, 2003
"Teaching, Text, Translation," Graduate Center, CUNY, March 21, 2003
"Surrealism in the Books," Toledo Art Museum, March 1, 2003
"Not Just the Weeping Woman: photography as autobiography," February 21, Graduate Center, CUNY
"Ellipsis in Symbolist Translation: Whistler and Mallarmé," College Art Association, Feb. 2003

"Surrealist Love," Chicago Humanities Festival, Oct. 9, 2002
"The Fashion of Modernism," International Fashion Conference, October, 2002
"DADA!" Works in Process Guggenheim Museum (New York), October 21-22, 2002
"Modernism and the Visual Arts," Modernism Conference, October 31, 2002
"Modernism and the Visual Arts," University of Florida, September 21, 2002

"Textus Interruptus," : Comparative Literature: 19th century, Modern Language Association, 2001
Chair of panel on Art and Autobiography, Modern Language Association, 2001
"Dora Maar With and Without Picasso," September 4, The Mount, Lenox, Massachusetts, 2001
"Whistler, Wharton, and my Grandmother: Where it All Was," Mona Bismarck Foundation, Paris, July 23, 2001
"Virginia Woolf: l'intergenre," Cerisy-la-Salle, France, July 8, 2001
"Ezra Pound: Writer as Translator," Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, July 6, 2001
"Biography Writing: Dora Maar," Charleston Festival, Sussex, England, May 28, 2001
"Forget Picasso: Writing Dora Maar," Women Writing Women's Lives celebration, March, 2001
"Already Hyping: the Object of Surrealism," College Art Association, Chicago, February, 2001
"Mallarmé in Bloomsbury," British Academy, January 29, 2000
"Self-Picturing and Authenticity: the Woman Photographer," Winnipeg Art Museum, February 6, 2000
"Surrealism and Scandal," for The Art of Scandal, CUNY Graduate School, March 24, 2000

"Scandalizing Surrealism and Ourselves," Washington, Modern Language Association, Dec. 19, 2000
"Dora Maar: Life and Layout for the Minotaur," Women Writing Women's Lives 10th Anniversary Celebration, December 8, 2000
" Dora Maar," National Arts Club, New York, December 5, 2000
"Singularité de René Crevel," Université de Bordeaux, November 21, 2000
"The Destiny of Robert Desnos," Institute of Romance Studies, London, University of London, November 17, 2000
"Not just the Weeping Woman: Dora Maar," Tate Modern Museum, London, November 17, 2000
"Yves Bonnefoy et Stéphane Mallarme," Universite de Tours, November 14, 2000
"The Modernist Art of Sarah Austin," Cosmopolitan Club, New York, November 7, 2000
"Vita Sackville-West: Her Tower and Travels," Graduate Center, CUNY, Sept.15, 2000
"Le Regard de Robert Desnos," Cerisy-la-Salle, July, 2000
"Slip-Ups: Translating Surrealism," West Dean, England, keynote lecture for Surrealism Laid Bare Too May 20, 2000
"Bloomsbury and France," Appalachian State, April 14, 2000
"Modern and Contemporary French Painting," French Institute, March 4, 2000

"The Voice of the Other," Modern Language Association, December, 1999
"Bloomsbury et la France," National Arts Club, December 17, 1999
"Mallarmé in Bloomsbury," University of Montreal, November 12, 1999
"Suzanne Valadon: Not Just His Mummy," Bloomington, Indiana, September 8, 1999
"On Yves Bonnefoy," Dalhousie University, September, 1999
University of St. Louis, April, 1999, series of lectures: "From Mallarmé to Modernism," "The Surrealist Look," "Proust and his Painters," "Bloomsbury and France"
"Expressionism and Modernism," St Louis Art Museum, April 6, 1999
"Triangular Translation," Philadelphia, April 1, 1999
"Mallarmé's Modes," "Graduate School, City University of New York, February, 1999
"Virginia's Things: Object Lessons," Virginia Woolf Conference, Bordeaux, France, January, 1999

"Beckett Translating," Modern Language Association, December, 1998
"Bloomsbury's Mallarmé," keynote lecture, Mallarmé conference, Melbourne, Australia, October, 1998
"Surrealism Now," University of Monash, Melbourne, Australia, October, 1998
"When is Looking Finding? Translating Surrealism," Colloquium on Translation, Manchester, England, October, 1998
"Proust's Painters," annual Proust lecture, Mercantile Library, October, 1998
"Garder le silence ou parler?" colloquium on "La France sous l'occupation," Cassis, Camargo Foundation, June, 1998
"Conversation in Biography," Women's Biography Seminar, May, 1998
"Unfolding Mallarmé," University of Pennsylvania, May, 1998
"Mallarmé's Coup de Dés," Cedarcrest University, April, 1998
"Looking at Surrealist Woman," first Modern Languages and Literature Pennimann Lecture Trinity College, March, 1998
"Surrealism in a Woman's View," keynote lecture, NYU Student Conference, March, 1998
"Looking at Surrealist Woman," Humanities Institute, State University at Stony Brook, February, 1998

"Bloomsbury and France, Illustrated," Columbia University, 1997
"The English Fold: From the Pre-Raphaelites to Bloomsbury," Atlanta, SAMLA, November, 1997
"Bloombury Friends," Colony Club, New York, November, 1997
"The Surrealist Look: An Erotics of Encounter," SUNY Purchase, Humanities Lecture, April, 1997
"What's the Indifference?" Graduate School, 20th Century Seminar, February, 1997 (reply to Wayne Koestenbaum)
"Problematics of the Pleat," College Art Association, 1997, New York

"Carrington and Vanessa: Painting the Bloomsbury Landscape," The Mount, Massachusetts, 1996
"Mallarmé and his Artistic Progeny," Stanford, 1996
"Where do we go from here? A Book, A Garden, An Installation," Panel at Modern Language Association, 1996

"Edith Wharton and John Ruskin: Autobiographical Lies," Yale University, April 28, 1995
"The Ethics of Translation," keynote address for "Translation in Film and Literature," Manchester, University of Salford, April, 1995
"Seeing in Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse and The Waves," Manchester, University of Salford, March, 1995
"Yves Bonnefoy, Sostenuto," Bonnefoy conference, Graduate School, March 24, 1995
"Translation and the Art of Friendship, Signed Mallarmé and Whistler," Graduate School, Distinguished Professors Series, March 22, 1995
"Sujet bref, poème long," Université de Bordeaux, March 16, 1995
Chair, French Dance and Text, Graduate School, March 14, 1995
"Bloomsbury and the Art of Modernism," Washington College, February 21, 1995
"Reading Women, Writing Women," Washington College, February 21, 1995
"On Pointing," College Art Association, San Antonio, January 25, 1995

"The Ethics of Translation," Modern Language Association, December, 1994
"Sight Lines," keynote address, Southeastern Modern Language Association, November, 1994
"Virginia Woolf, Roger Fry, and France," Women's Studies, Graduate School, November, 1994
"What Was Modern French Poetry, and Why Did It Matter?" Indiana University, October 1994
"Max Jacob Now," NYU, October, 1994
"Elevenses with Whistler and Mallarmé," Indiana University, September, 1994
"Roger Fry, Modernism, and the Bloomsbury Group," Mercantile Library, New York, April 6, 1994
"Imitation," for the Université d'Amiens, January, 1994
"Symbolisme/Impressionisme," for the Université d'Amiens, January, 1994
"Lire texte et image: du Baroque jusqu'au présent" - course for the DEA, December-February, 1993-4, Université de Paris VII

Chair, "Poets Reading New York City," Modern Language Association, December, 1992
"How Did We Get Here (and where are we?): Surrealism, Feminism, and Some Other Arts," University of Connecticut, November 12, 1992
"What Happened to the Twentieth Century?" Graduate School, November 6, 1992
"The Pleasures of Marcel Proust," Mercantile Library, November 4, 1992
Chair, panel for conference "Out of the Academy and Into the World, with Carolyn G. Heilbrun," October 30, 1992
"Supports/Surface, and Contemporary Art Criticism," Halifax, Nova Scotia, September, 1992
"How to See," keynote address, Canadian Comparative Literature Association, Ottowa, June 1, 1992
"Music and Poetry," Round Table with Pierre Boulez, UCLA, May 11, 1992
"The Open and the Closed," American Comparative Literature Association, April, 1992
Chair, "Art in New York" section for conference on French Exiles in New York, Columbia University, April, 1992
"Remembering Motherwell Remembering: The Surrealists in New York," Twentieth Century Conference, Colorado, April, 1992
Chair, Conference on "Windows," Graduate School, CUNY, March, 1992
"What She Means to Us," Keynote address, conference on "Virginia Woolf and After," Institute for Contemporary Art, London, February 22, 1992 ( Massachusetts Review, September 1992)

Chair, "Poems: Do We Still Talk about Them?" Modern Language Association, December, 1991
"Criticism Personal and Interpersonal," Modern Language Association, December, 1991
chair, "Fashion," in Nineteenth Century French Studies Colloquium, New Orleans, 1991
"Reading the New World: Baroque, Romantic, and Surrealist Literature and Art," De Menil Collection, Houston, November, 1991
"Remembering Robert Motherwell," Metropolitan Museum of Art, Memorial Service, October, 1991
"Parole de peintre: Joseph Cornell et Robert Motherwell," Chateau de la Bretesche, Brittany, June, 1991
"Rage Begins at Home," opening address for conference on Feminism and Rage, CUNY Graduate Center, May, 1991 (Massachusetts Review, 1993)
"Making Space," response to keynote address at International Conference on Philosophy and Literature, Universite de Montreal, May, 1991
"L'oeil fixe, les yeux croisés," Lecture at Beaubourg Center, May 25, 1991
"Open Art, Open Texts," Fordham University, April, 1991
"Sideways," for panel on marginalization of contemporary poetry, American Comparative Literature Association, San Diego, March, 1991
chair, "Translations and their Work," American Comparative Literature Association, San Diego, March, 1991
"Taking some Roads: French Painters and their Poets," Twentieth-Century French Conference, Austin, Texas, March, 1991
chair, "French Poetry in the Twentieth Century," Austin, Texas, March, 1991
chair, panel discussion on André Malraux, CUNY Graduate Center, February, 1991
"Talking about Art," Bryn Mawr college symposium, February, 1991
Presidential address, American Comparative Literature Association, San Diego, 1991

"Joseph Cornell and the City," Santa Cruz, 1990
"Joseph Cornell and Robert Motherwell: Two American Lyrics," Getty Center for the History of Art, 1990
"René Char," Palais des Papes, Avignon, July, 1990
"Traduire et vivre avec René Char," Jardin de poésie, Avignon, 1990
"Joseph Cornell," History of Art lecture series, CUNY Graduate School, December, 1990
chair, "Gender, Politics, and Comparative Literature," Modern Language Association, 1990
Presidential address, American Comparative Literature Association, Penn State, 1990
"Stressed Readings and Interference," Los Angeles Artists Association, 1989
"Women, Art, and Pain," Dartmouth College, July, 1988
"Against Felling: on Ruskin and Hopkins," Dartmouth College, July, 1988
"Shifty Eyes: On Change in Contemporary French Poetry and Art," Twentieth Century French
"Revoir Reverdy," Colloque Reverdy, Paris, June, 1989
Studies conference on "Revolution," Columbia University, March, 1989
"Revolutionary Styles," University of Manchester, January, 1989
"Translating: Rape to Rectitude, and On,"; "Bloomsbury Grouping," and "Women, Art, and Pain," all at the University of Salford, January, 1989

"Showing and Telling: Criticism in Visual Crisis," Princeton Graduate School of Architecture, December 7, 1988
"Working, Worrying, Waging," City University : Academy of Humanities and Sciences, December 2, 1988
"Women of Bloomsbury," University of Texas, November, 1988
"Stressed Readings," University of Southern California, February, 1988
"Moral Passion and the Art of Seeing," University of Southern California, February, 1988
"Knowing and Seeing," Conference on Cognitive Science, Northeastern and MIT, January, 1988

Last updated April 18, 2010.
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