The Fresno State French Program kicks off their Spring 2022 lecture series with “ROMANCE AIN’T DEAD, 2FIK! An artistic project about dating apps, performing and curating our online selves” at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 16 at the Peters Business Building Room 194 and on Zoom.
In the lecture, 2Fik discusses his six-year creative process to build and present a performative installation about the vagaries of romance in the digital age. He uses photography, video and performance as his playgrounds while questioning the concept of identities. The humor and self-deprecation he brings in his gender-bending work are used to bring sensitive topics to the table such as identities, genders, perceptions and prejudice. 2Fik believes even though dating apps are designed to make people feel less isolated, they tend to discard differences, refusing bodily diversity, and formatting human beings, leaving them as lonely as ever. He wants to question love in the age of profile pics.
2Fik was born in Paris in a Moroccan Muslim family and has lived in France for most of his life. In 2003, on the spur-of-the-moment, he decided to move to Montreal, a destination chosen for its apparent tranquility. Following his emigration experiences, 2Fik rapidly found himself amidst a world that inspires him about identity, political and social problems.
Spring 2022 French Lecture Series
2 p.m. Wednesday, March 9
“French Style through the Ages — and across Oceans”
Dr. Joan DeJean, trustee professor of romance languages at the University of Pennsylvania has been awarded 2003 MLA Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for French and Francophone Studies for her book “The Reinvention Of Obscenity: Sex, Lies, and Tabloids in Early Modern France.”
2 p.m. Wednesday, March 16
“Mapping cinéma-monde: cities, airports, and borderlines”
Dr. Michael Gott, associate professor of French at the University of Texas-Austin teaches global screen media, travel and identity in cinema and comic books, French culture and cultural studies, migration and identity, cinéma-monde, and global screen industry networks undergraduate courses on French and Francophone road movies.
2 p.m. Wednesday, April 27
“Queer Maghrebi French: Approaches to Language and Sexuality for Transnational French and Francophone Studies”
Dr. Denis Provencher, professor of French and Francophone studies at the University of Arizona. He teaches in the Department of French and Italian and is an affiliated faculty in Anthropology, Gender and Women’s Studies, Second Language Acquisition, Linguistics and the Institute for LGBT Studies.
The College of Arts and Humanities at Fresno State 