The dictatorship of feelings, the virtues of intoxication, lessons from Swiss history... From March 6 to 10, our editor-in-chief Jonas Follonier invites you to Geneva's Centre Palexpo for five meetings dedicated to intellectual conversation.
Wednesday 6.3.2024, 2:00-3:00 pm
Is wokism endangering culture and life in society?
What is the «woke» movement, encompassing statue debunking, positive discrimination or inclusive writing? What does it deconstruct? Pierre Valentin, the first to write on the subject in French, provides an analysis in Understanding the woke revolution. Nora Bussigny infiltrated these circles for a year, as she recounts in The new inquisitors. Samuel Fitoussi shows in Woke fiction how this ideology is changing our films and TV shows.
Thursday 7.3.2024, 2:00-3:00 pm
Wine philosophy: the benefits of inebriation
Pierre-Yves Quiviger, author of Wine philosophy and Valentin Husson, who published in the last literary season The art of food: a philosopher of taste, know each other well. Both philosophers are equally familiar with wine, its history, its current situation, its risks... and its benefits. It's this aspect of this mythical beverage that will be the focus of this meeting, held under the authority of the god Bacchus, who is currently a little disputed.
Thursday 7.3.2024, 4.00 pm - 5.00 pm
Cancel culture, civil disobedience... What lessons can we learn from Swiss history?
What characterizes Swiss history? How should we read it today, and what lessons can we draw from it for the challenges of the present, between censorship of the past, questioning of political institutions and passionate debates on neutrality and Switzerland's place in Europe and the world? Waldensian historians Dominique Dirlewanger and Olivier Meuwly, are both specialists in Switzerland, and make no secret of their contrasting sensibilities.
Saturday 9.3.2024, 2.00-3.00 pm
«La dictature des ressentis»: a dialogue with prominent journalist Eugénie Bastié
Relativism in the name of subjectivity, limiting freedom of expression so as not to offend certain audiences... According to the French essayist Eugénie Bastié, We live in the «dictatorship of feelings». This is the title of her new book. The star journalist of Figaro, who works for the French daily's «Ideas» section, will give us his analysis of the current state of the debate on ideas and life in society, and how to give it new meaning.
Sunday 10.3.2024, 2.00-3.00 pm
Is Switzerland a fantasy?
What does Blick's Paris correspondent have in common? Richard Werly, director of the «L'âme des peuples» collection and author of France against itself, and Deputy Director of the Institut libéral de Genève Nicolas Jutzet, author of Switzerland no longer exists? Their interest in how the French capital, which they know well, sees Switzerland, and the gap between what the latter thinks of itself and what it really is. Their exchange may well upset some preconceived ideas.
To register (free of charge): Tickets
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