Presented on April 1st, during the 2022 American Weil Society’s annual colloquy at Notre Dame University in Indiana.
- View video here.
Keywords
A Eucharistic Pedagogy: Gospel Parables and Teachings in Simone Weil’s “On the Right Use of School Studies”
This article examines biblical allusions in Simone Weil’s “On the Right Use of School Studies,” in which she argues that study can train our attention to God and neighbor. Focusing on Weil’s use of Jesus’ teachings that mention bread, meals, and table service, this article reveals an underlying theme of Eucharist (communion) in Weil’s essay on studying. Together with Weil’s comment that school studies are “like a sacrament,” this analysis suggests that Weil offers a “eucharistic pedagogy” shaped by her mystical theology of Eucharist, a theology itself shaped by George Herbert’s English-language poem “Love.” Throughout, the article compares Weil’s original French with its English translation, noting where the translation obscures her use of the Bible or her theology, and it also examines the Greek biblical text, since Weil read the New Testament in its Greek original. The article concludes with a critique of Weil’s educational vision, which relies on a dyadic vision of the eucharist, and suggests that a communal vision of the eucharist can support a social vision of education.
Horizons, vol. 49, no. 1 (May 30, 2022)
Christy Lang Hearlson is a professor in the Theology and Religious Studies department at Villanova University.
Inside Issue 6: New and Forthcoming 
The French Historical Narrative and the Fall of France: Simone Weil and her Contemporaries Face the Debacle
On Simone Weil and Giotto
Keynote Lecture delivered at the 2022 American Weil Society’s Friday Web Series, April 9, 2022.
Alexander Nemerov Carl and Marilynn Thoma Provostial Professor in the Arts and Humanities at Stanford University. His publications include Summoning Pearl Harbor (2017); Soulmaker: The Times of Lewis Hine (2016); Icons of Grief: Val Lewton’s Home Front Pictures (2005); and The Body of Raphaelle Peale: Still Life and Selfhood, 1812-1824 (2001). His most recent publication is Fierce Poise: Helen Frankenthaler and 1950s New York (2021).
Co-sponsored by the American Weil Society and the Snite Museum of Art as part of “Translations of Beauty: Simone Weil and Literature,” XL Colloquy of the American Weil Society
Ukraine: Apparent War Crimes in Russia-Controlled Areas
Excerpt: “(Warsaw) – Human Rights Watch has documented several cases of Russianmilitary forces committing laws-of-war violations against civilians in occupied areas of the Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Kyiv regions of Ukraine. These include a case of repeated rape; two cases of summary execution, one of six men, the other of one man; and other cases of unlawful violence and threats against civilians between February 27 and March 14, 2022. Soldiers were also implicated in looting civilian property, including food, clothing, and firewood. Those who carried out these abuses are responsible for war crimes. . . .”
Human Rights Watch (April 2, 2022)
2022 Ukrainian refugee crisis
Except: “An ongoing refugee crisis began in Europe in late February 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. More than 4.3 million refugees have since left Ukraine (as of 5 April 2022), while an estimated 6.5 million people have been displaced within the country (as of 18 March 2022). In total, more than ten million people – approximately one-quarter of the country’s total population – had left their homes in Ukraine by 20 March. By March 24, 2022, according to UNICEF, more than half of all children in Ukraine had been forced to leave their homes. The invasion has caused Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II and its aftermath,[6] the first of its kind in Europe since the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s, and one of the largest refugee crises in the world in the 21st century, with the highest refugee flight rate in the world . . . .” {notes ommitted}
Date visited: 5 April 2022
The Pleasures and Pitfalls of Translating Simone Weil
Translating is a formidable task. Three translators of Simone Weil’s works: Ros Schwartz, translator of Weil’s L’Enracinement (forthcoming from Penguin UK) and Philip Wilson and Sylvia Panizza, translators of Weil’s Venise Sauvée and poems (Bloomsbury Press) discussed some of the challenges.
Tess Lewis, an internationally recognized translator, moderated the discussion.
For Simone Weil, philosophy was not merely academic
Excerpt: “It’s commonplace to note the contradictions in Simone Weil’s life. She was an anarchist and a conservative, a pacifist and a warfighter, a French patriot and a critic of France, a Jew who was buried in the Catholic section of an English cemetery. Robert Zaretsky believes that these contradictions reflect “inevitable tensions” that arose as Weil inhabited her philosophical convictions. For her, philosophy could not be merely an academic discipline; it had to be a “way of life.” You had to accept the consequences of the truth you told, had to live them out, and that was complicated. . . .”
The Christian Century (April 11, 2022) (reviewing Robert Zaretsky, The Subversive Simone Weil)
Charles Scriven is the author of The Transformation of Culture: Christian Social Ethics after H. Richard Niebuhr (Herald Press).
Book Review: “The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas”
In The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas, Robert Zaretsky offers a new biography of the influential French thinker through exploring five key concepts within her body of work. Zaretsky’s thematic study will inspire readers to find resistance in the power of paying deep attention, just as Weil passionately and convincingly argued, writes Fouad Mami.
LSE* Review of Books (April 2022)
*London School of Economics
