The Ethnographic Optic in 1960s French Cinema

Laure Astourian will present (Indiana University Press, June 2024). The Ethnographic Optic explores the significant ties between colonial ethnography and innovative works of 1960s French cinema. Astourian probes the emergence of a self-aware urban French ethnography in both fictional and documentary films during the era of decolonization and offers fresh readings of canonical films including Moi, un Noir (Jean Rouch, 1958), La jetée (Chris Marker, 1962), and Muriel ou le Temps d’un retour (Alain Resnais, 1963). 

Laure Astourian is Associate Professor of French at Bentley University. She earned her Ph.D. from the Department of French at Columbia University in 2016. Astourian was a 2020 Fulbright Research Scholar at the École Normale Supérieure (Ulm) and a 2023 resident fellow at the Mucem and Institute for Advanced Study at Aix-Marseille University (Iméra). She is the author of (Indiana University Press, 2024).

Host or Publisher Columbia University Maison Française