EDITORS: For more information, contact the International Institute at (734) 763-9200.

ANN ARBOR—”The Practice of Joy before Death: Re-reading Bataille in Times of AIDS” is the title of a talk to be given by Prof. Achille Mbembe, University of Paris-Pantheon Sorbonne and the Institute for Social and Economic Studies, University of Witwatersrand. The lecture, taking place at the International Institute in the School of Social Work Building on the University of Michigan campus, will begin at 4 p.m. on Nov. 29.

Mbembe is an invited guest in the Contested Childhood Lecture series, which is co-sponsored by the U-M International Institute and the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies. Georges Bataille (1897-1962), the subject of Mbembe’s presentation, was a French essayist, philosophical theorist and novelist who rejected traditional literature and philosophies.

Funded by the Sawyer Seminar Series of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Advanced Study Center within the International Institute, the Contested Childhood program investigates the topic of childhood in a changing global order. It is supported by a year-long faculty-student seminar involving public lectures, seminars, and a film series. Pamela Reynolds, the 2001-02 presidential visiting professor, developed the program.

International InstituteCenter for Afroamerican and African StudiesAndrew W. Mellon Foundation