Seniors Madeline C. Hone (French and Anthropology, class of 2019) and Liam Y. North (Romance Languages, Psychology and CAMS, class of 2020) have been awarded a DURF this month to complete their honor thesis.

Ms Hone, who works under the supervision of Prof. Denis Hollier, is investigating the relationship between the May 1968 student protests and Jean-Paul Sartre. “I want to illuminate how a movement of young people grew into a more widespread movement with the aid of a well-renowned public figure of the time” she explains. “Though Sartre himself represented different beliefs than the students, his two newspaper articles, published in Le Monde, a world newspaper, in June 1968­­ – and immortalized in Sartre’s anthology of his most important writings, Situations – after the riots in May, gave the movement recognition from a respected figure in French politics and society, and brought the movement attention from both the French government and on an international scale.”

Mr North works under the supervision of Prof. Cécile Bishop. His project aims to dig into the realization of Frantz Fanon’s philosophical ideas concerning decolonization by comparing two of his major texts – Peau noire, masques blancs and Les Damnés de la terre – to his clinical practice. “According to the psychiatrist and philosopher, decolonization is an inherently violent process, so how would one go about this nefarious task in clinical terms?” he asks. “My goals for this project are as follows: make a modest yet significant contribution to already rich existing literature on Fanon, and focus on the doctor’s clinical actions as a shaping force of his philosophical ideologies.”