Olivier Brossard is Professor of North American literature at Université Gustave Eiffel where he co-chairs the English Department, serves as Deputy Vice-President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and co-runs the Poets and Critics program: www.poetscritics.org. A translator of poetry, he is joca seria éditions North American poetry series editor. A Junior Member of Institut Universitaire de France (2015-20), he published a bibliography of US poetry in French translation (1786-2024) as part of his research on literary exchanges between the United States and France. His current projects include a collaboration with Jennifer Scappettone (UChicago) on a comparative geopoetics project about the rivers of Paris and Chicago (2024-2026). He has been collaborating with Chicago’s Poetry Foundation on French American poetry projects since 2015. He published his first volume of poems, Let, with P.O.L in May 2024.

Maëline Le Lay, is a CNRS research fellow and a scholar of African literatures, also a member of the ‘International Research Network on Postcolonial Print Cultures’. Her research focuses on literature and performance in Africa’s Great Lakes region, in conflict and post-conflict situations (DR-Congo, Burundi) as well as in a post-genocide society (Rwanda). Her other area of research is in the field of ecocriticism, mainly in French Polynesia. Some of her publications include two collections of texts from Africa’s Great Lakes region published in 2019 (Au-dessous du volcan. Rencontres littéraires de Goma, and Chroniques des Grands Lacs, co-edited with D. Ranaivoson) ; and Thinking Africa with VY Mudimbe (co-edited with M.-A. Fouéré & S. Abdelmadjid, forthcoming). Her visit to the IRL and UChicago in the fall 2024 is mainly motivated by her collaborations with Andrew Brandel, with whom she is organizing a workshop on “Ethnography of Literature”. This event will prepare the groundwork to apply for an IEA, International Emerging Action.

Nadine Roudil, Professor of Sociology at the National School of architecture of Paris Val de Seine, is also a researcher at the « Centre de Recherche sur l’Habitat » (UMR LAVUE CNRS), where she conducts research on urban conception and lifestyle in the context of energy transition. Her publications include Usages sociaux de la déviance. Habiter la Castellane sous le regard de l’institution (Paris, L’Harmattan, 2011), Villes, territoires et énergies : enjeux et défis actuels (Paris, Lavoisier, 2017) and the co-edited volumes Inégalité d’appropriation du logement et de l’habitat (Montréal, Lien social et Politiques, 2022), The Future of Cities and Energies in Western Europe. Scales, Actors and Social Experiments (Berlin/Boston, De Gruyter, forthcoming 2024). Her project at the IRLHumanitiesPlus on “The role of Masculinity in Urban-scale Responses to Energy Crisis: a Chicago-Paris Comparison”, will question, from a gendered perspective, the emergence of energy-sustainable cities focused on technological performance, producing inequalities because based on normative incentives for change.

Bertrand Van Ruymbeke, Professor of American history at Université Paris 8, works on Early America and the American Revolution. His first book was a study of the Huguenot migration to colonial South Carolina (University of South Carolina Press, 2006), his second was a survey of Early America (Flammarion, 2013), and his third a history of the United States (Tallandier, 2 vols., 2021). He is now working on two books on the American Revolution (forthcoming, Tallandier and CNRS Editions). Bertrand is PI of America2026, a consortium of scholars and institutions based in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere, financed by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (2024-27) and the American Philosophical Society, of which the University of Chicago and its Paris Center are also major partners. His collaborations with UChicago faculty include hosting an online corpus of European published sources on the American Revolution (EPSAR) on ARTFL, managed by Clovis Gladstone, the organization of an international graduate seminar on early and revolutionary America with Eric Slauter, to be held alternatively in Chicago and at the Paris Center. Bertrand also collaborates with the UChicago Paris Center for the final conference of the America2026 program (fall 2026).