THE CEIMSA DOSSIER
UNIVERSITE STEHDHAL-GRENOBLE 3
(2006)
DOCUMENT #72
LETTER TO Ms. JOAN BAEZ:
AN
INVITATION TO AN AMERICAN PACIFIST CONFERENCE AT THE UNIVERSITY DE
SAVOIE IN CHAMBERY,
FRANCE
ON 6 APRIL 2006.
Dear Joan
Baez,
Since my early student years, during the anti-war movement in Austin, Texas,
I have been an admirer of yours.
Later, in San Diego, California,
in the early 1980s, I worked with the United Domestic Workers of
America,
an affiliate of the United Farm Workers, and your music
continued to
inspire my work. I became a university professor, after getting my
Ph.D. in
history from the University
of Wisconsin
at Madison,
and I have taught abroad for many years now. I was teaching at the University of Grenoble
back in 1995-96, when you gave a concert, just
weeks before our daughter was born. In fact, my wife
first felt
her move during your performance. Naturally, when we learned that your were coming to Grenoble
again this spring, we bought tickets so that we can experience your
beautiful
voice with our two daughters, Fiona (9) and Michelle (7). (My wife,
Tanya Baklanova-Feeley,
is a Russian
concert pianist, and our children play cello and violin, as well as
piano.)
I have been politically active all of my life, since growing up in the
south Texas
town of Weslaco,
where I joined in resistance
against
racism and authoritarianism at the local high school, and where I
worked with
the small Presbyterian church, where my family attended, against
violence to
Mexican migrant farm-laborers on the
border, near my
home.
I am writing you this letter to let you know how much you have
influenced by
life, and also to make a special request. As professor of American
Studies here
at The University of Grenoble, in southern
France,
I am also the Director of a Research
Center,
called CEIMSA (Center
for the Advanced Study of American
Institutions and Social Movements).
[Our web site is temporarily
located at The University of California-San Diego.]
Since the creation of our Research
Center,
in 2000, we have organized several conferences, including three very
large International Colliquiums : In January 2002, more than 1,200 people
attended our two-day conference on "The Impact of American
Multinational
Corporations of Societies and the Environment". Many American
intellectuals and activists, including the group associated with Noam Chomsky (Ed Herman, Michael Albert, Susan
George, Jean
Bricmont, Diana
Johnstone), and
Michael Parenti
of Berkeley, Doug Dowd of
San Francisco, Fred Lonidier
of UCSD, Bertell
Ollman of NYU,
came to Grenoble to meet with their French
counterparts to discuss
and analyze the impact of U.S. multinational corporations.
This first big event was followed by another equally large conference
on 5-6
May 2003, when my good friends Howard and Roz
Zinn joined
John Gerassi
of Queens College-NYC,
and a dozen French activists scholars to discuss "The Other Side of
America: United States Foreign Policy and Domestic Policy".
The following year, in April 2004, Jim Hightower and Susan DeMarco came from Austin, Texas
to join Diana Johnstone,
Philip Golub,
graphic
artist, Joanna Learner, and several others for two days of discussions
on
"The Contemporary State Of
American Political Culture". We enjoyed a very large turnout again
April
2004.
I mention this brief history of our activities simply to let you know
that we
are doing our best to bring to students and citizens of this region alternative views
of America,
which are not readily available to them. But, as you can easily
imagine, there
has been a conservative backlash at my University, and despite the
success of
my research center's activities over the
years (we published
two books since 2002), the Center has been
suppressed, the web site removed from the university server, and my 8
Ph. D.
students have been obliged to enroll at
the nearby
University of Savoy, in Chambery, in order
to
complete their studies under my direction, despite the fact that I
continue to
teach at Grenoble.
Recently, the University
of Savoy
invited me to organize an international conference, and I have agreed
once
again to bring American and European scholars and activists together,
this time
for three days (5-7 April) to discuss
:
"The History of American Pacifist Movements". Although our
budget is small, I have invited American pacifists Father Daniel Berrigan, Professor
Harriet
Alonso of City College of NY, to join San Francisco Attorney Robert Rivkin, and
representatives from The
Iraq Veterans against War and The Vietnam Veterans against War
for a
three-day discussion with war resisters in Europe, from the time of
World War
II and the Algerian War to the present.
When I learned that you would be in Grenoble
on 17 March 2006, I looked at your web site [http://www.joanbaez.com/contacts.html] and discovered,
much to my delight, that you plan to remain in the area of southern
Europe --Italy
and Germany--
through mid-April, and that you seem not to have an engagement on the
day of 6
April.
I would like to invite you to the University
of Savoy
in Chambéry
on this day,
and ask if you could give a performance, pro bono, for students
attending our American Pacifist conference.
I wish I could offer you a fee with this request, but the
constraints on
our budget make this impossible. In the past, the generosity of
participants
like Howard Zinn,
Jim
Hightower, Susan George and others have made these International
Conferences
possible. I receive nothing, of course, for this work, except a
considerable
degree of negative attention from conservative and parochial forces in
the
area. Nevertheless, I am committed to continue my educational
activities, and I
would be very grateful if you were able to accept my invitation for a rendez-vous at Chambery
on 6 April.
If you are interested in participating at this international event (on
the Chambéry
campus, about 30 minutes
north of Grenoble,
France),
please feel free to suggest any conditions which you might require for
this to
happen.
in solidarity,
Francis Feeley