Les Nocturnes de l'Histoire at the Collège de France

OnMarch 26 2025, a reading of Roman d'Alexandre by Emilie Yili Kang & Séram Borgel from the Conservatoire national supérieur d'art dramatique - PSL as part of the Nocturnes de l'Histoire program.

Venue : Institute of Civilizations of the Collège de France
52, rue du Cardinal-Lemoine
75005 Paris

Timetable : 19 h-20 h ou 20 h 30-21 h   30
Free admission subject to availability

The Collège de France and the Conservatoire national supérieur d'art dramatique de Paris - PSL have joined forces to offer two sessions of readings from the Roman d'Alexandre, in the Syriac version translated and published by Muriel Debié in 2024 by Les Belles Lettres.

The Roman d'Alexandre, centered on the figure of King Alexander of Macedonia, is a collection of fabulous tales of imaginary encounters with unknown lands and beings. Composed around the ^1st century B.C., it enjoyed immense success throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, being translated into nearly thirty languages and published in eighty different versions.

The reading we are proposing is based on the Syriac translation, composed in the ^6th century AD in medieval Syria, which was plagued by wars and expectations about the end of the world and the end of time.

The Collège de France is organizing these readings in its new Institute of Civilizations, inaugurated in February 2024 to become a place for dialogue between cultures and researchers from the Mediterranean, African and Asian worlds. Le Roman d'Alexandre, which deals with the question of travel and encounters with the Other, perfectly reflects this project, and will be the subject of a few scientific and historical comments to put its literary purpose into perspective.