Article

William Lejeune: a first step between two shores of the Atlantic

The result of the historic twinning between the cities of Namur and Lafayette, the collaboration between UNamur and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette has taken on a new academic dimension in recent years. Formalized in 2022 with the signing of a framework agreement, this partnership has given rise to a mobility program aimed at strengthening the use of French and Francophonie within both universities. In 2026, this cooperation took concrete form with the arrival in Namur of William Lejeune, a second-year speech therapy student and the first Cajun student to benefit from this program, supported in particular by a grant from the Lafayette Foundation. Between cultural discovery, linguistic challenges, and academic ambitions, he recounts his experience on the other side of the Atlantic.
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Article

Medicine and literature: when words can also heal

On February 21, the University of Namur hosted the symposium "Medicine and Literature," organized by the History of Medicine and Health Sciences Group, with the support of the Royal Academy of French Language and Literature of Belgium. Nearly 70 participants gathered at the Faculty of Medicine for a particularly open and stimulating day of reflection, devoted to the deep and ancient links between medical practices and literary creation.
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A prestigious FNRS prize in the social sciences for Professor Jean-Marie Baland

The FNRS has awarded the five-year Ernest-John Solvay Prize in the Social Sciences to Jean-Marie Baland, Professor in the Department of Economics at UNamur's EMCP Faculty and co-founder of the DeFiPP Institute's Centre de Recherche en Economie du Développement (CRED). A major accolade for a career devoted to the study of poverty, informal institutions and sustainable development..
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UNamur joins ERCIS, Europe's leading information systems network

The University of Namur takes another step forward in its commitment to supporting digital transformation. It is joining the prestigious European Research Center for Information Systems (ERCIS) network as a Partner Institution, via the MINDIT research center (Management de l'Information et Transformation Numérique).
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Article

Current affairs with Act’UNamur

On February 26, the Adam Smith amphitheater hosted the first major edition of Act'UNamur, a quiz on current events in 2025 organized by the Department of Social Sciences, Politics, and Communication at the EMCP Faculty. The goal? To spark students' interest in current events through a unique and fun format.
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When photography explores the (geo)political, economic, and environmental issues surrounding nuclear power

Between the risks of “globocide” and the long-term management of nuclear waste, nuclear power embodies the anxieties of our time while remaining largely invisible in public discourse. Based on FNRS research led by Danielle Leenaerts, a lecturer in the Department of Archaeology and Art Sciences, a three-part project comprising an exhibition, a book, and an interdisciplinary study day offers a unique insight into how Belgian and international artists depict nuclear power. 
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Is creativity an essential skill for the future? New programs are being added to the curriculum starting this fall!

Experts highlight creativity as an essential skill for tomorrow’s decision-makers in an era of widespread AI adoption. At the same time, the cultural and creative industries represent a rapidly growing sector. To keep pace with these developments, two new tracks will be introduced into the Information and Communication and Management Engineering programs starting next fall. Focus on the expected changes in the Faculty of Economics, Management, Communication, and Political Science (EMCP).
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Lucas Chancel: What kind of ecological transition for what kind of society?

Description Why is the history of energy so closely linked to that of social inequality? How can we frame debates on energy transition in light of conflicts over wealth distribution?For thousands of years, the use of energy has shaped human societies, structuring their hierarchies and power relations. Its control is a vehicle for emancipation as much as it is a tool of domination. Ownership of energy resources and infrastructure is a battleground for social, political, and geostrategic struggles. Depending on who owns energy, radically different societal choices can arise.But how has the link between energy and inequality developed since prehistoric times? By combining the results of research in economic history, archaeology, and climate science, Lucas Chancel seeks to show how, over the long term, the technical and political frameworks that determine energy use are linked to the distribution of wealth among individuals, social groups, and nations.The history of energy cannot be reduced to its technical dimension, nor to the sum of past political choices. It opens up a diversity of possible futures, where the decoupling of energy consumption, material resources, and prosperity is inseparable from the question of social justice.This book advocates for an ecological transition based on a collective reappropriation of energy. Drawing on experiences of wealth redistribution from the past century, it outlines an alternative to ecological disaster and extreme inequality through the development of new forms of public and participatory ownership in the 21st century. Biography Lucas Chancel is a professor at Sciences Po Paris, at the Center for Research on Social Inequality, and co-director of the Laboratory on Global Inequality at the Paris School of Economics. He has taught at Harvard University in the United States.
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FNRS Call for Proposals 2025: Analyzing life trajectories to better understand career extension

Nathalie Burnay, professor at the EMCP Faculty and researcher at the Transitions Institute, has just been awarded prestigious WELChange funding from the F.R.S-FNRS for her interdisciplinary research project dedicated to extending careers. This is a highly topical social issue, which she is tackling in collaboration with a team of demographers from UCLouvain.
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Event

Romain Gary: from humanism to ecology

As part of its seminar, Centre Arcadie will be pleased to welcome Igor Krtolica for a session devoted to his book Romain Gary. De l'humanisme à l'écologie, Gallimard, 2025.Maître de conférences en philosophie à l'Université de Picardie Jules-Verne, junior member of the Institut universitaire de France, Igor Krtolica is the author (in addition to the work to be discussed) of Gilles Deleuze (PUF, coll. "Que sais-je? ", 2015), of Gilles Deleuze et Félix Guattari : Une philosophie des devenirs-révolutionnaires(Éditions Amsterdam, 2024) and of a commentary on an extract from Romain Gary's Les Racines du ciel entitled Antifascism, humanism and ecology (PUF, coll. "Classiques de l'écologie", 2025).After a presentation of the work, Igor Krtolica will be interviewed by Jean-Baptiste Vuillerod and Thibault De Meyer.Free admission. All welcome.Book presentation 1956: the Prix Goncourt is awarded to Racines du ciel, a novel whose hero, Morel, fights against the extermination of elephants in an Africa struggling for independence. Romain Gary described it as the first ecological novel. Ecology enabled him to resolve the unbearable political contradiction in which the post-war West finds itself: the impossibility of believing in man, the impossibility of giving up believing in man. How can we continue to give meaning to the idea of civilization? If we are to maintain the humanist ideal, we need to wage a battle in which man is no longer at the center. Such is the paradox explored here. This literary and philosophical essay reveals the complexity of Romain Gary's thought, his constant irony and humor, his contradictions, his rejection of dogmatism. And its modernity: ahead of his time, the novelist anticipated the controversies driving contemporary ecological thinking, where the human being is only a part of nature, but where nature itself becomes inseparable from history, society and politics. This previously unpublished synthesis of Romain Gary's work is an original analysis of the tension between humanist commitment and ecological cause.. Toutes les activités du Centre Arcadie
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Zones: land, gender and science fiction

As part of its seminar, Centre Arcadie will be pleased to welcome Jeanne Etelain for a session devoted to her book Zones. Terre, sexes et science-fiction, Flammarion, 2025.Jeanne Etelain, PhD from New York University and Université Paris-Nanterre, teaches philosophy and contemporary theory at the École supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Montpellier.After a presentation of the book, Igor Krtolica will be interviewed by Jean-Baptiste Vuillerod and Thibault De Meyer.After a presentation of the book, Jeanne Etelain will be interviewed by Ludovic Dubois, Nathalie Grandjean and Sébastien Laoureux.Free admission. Welcome to all.Book presentation Zone: this ubiquitous term nevertheless remains elusive. In a stunning conceptual investigation at the crossroads of geography, psychoanalysis and science fiction, Jeanne Etelain explores how "zone" has become central to understanding space, in the contemporary context of a crisis in the planet's conditions of habitability. The zone thus emerges as a spatial modality that defies habitual categories, confronting us with space's power to act, whether it's nature, the Earth or the body. All Centre Arcadie activities
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Hollywood vs Trump 2.0: The empire strikes back?

Conference organized by Centre Arcadie and the Department of Philosophy as part of the "Philosophie du cinéma" course and the "Cultures et pensées cinématographiques" Specialization Master's degree.Dork Zabunyan is Professor of Film Studies at Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis. His publications include Les Cinémas de Gilles Deleuze (Bayard, 2011), L'Insistance des luttes - Images, soulèvements, contre-révolutions (De l'incidence éditeur, 2016), Foucault va au cinéma (Bayard, 2011) with Patrice Maniglier, Jacques Rancière et le monde des images(Mimesis, 2023).In 2020 he published Fictions of Trump. Puissances des images et exercices du pouvoir(Le point du jour). In this conference, the aim will be to take up this work in the context of Trump's second term.Presentation of the workDonald Trump's body is almost everywhere, outside us, on our screens, caught up in information channels that disseminate still and moving images of him. He is also present within us, more or less floating, in the minds of his detractors and supporters alike. The 45th President of the United States of America is not, however, the book's only subject. Based on his countless audiovisual representations, both before and after his election, the aim here is to explore the function of images in the exercise of power today, the stories they tell and the discourses they condition. Two questions run through this essay: what is this strange love of power, conveyed by images of an authoritarian leader, to which individuals who have no interest in voting for him adhere? What filmic counter-fires, real or imagined, are likely to mobilize the powers of images to evade this power, or even to thwart it? All Centre Arcadie activities
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