Jacques Berchtold presents a study of Rousseau’s self-identification with exile, in dialogue with Chake Matossian (Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, Brussels). He situates Rousseau’s gestures within artistic and textual traditions.

The lecture examines Rousseau’s abrupt adoption of Armenian dress and its representation by painters, linking classical (Ovid at Tomis) and Christian (John Chrysostom) models. Berchtold investigates the Enlightenment re-reading of Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat and argues this purification of origin frames Rousseau as a new Noah confronting modern degeneration.

In French.

Michele Poretti, sociologist and economist at the Haute école pédagogique du canton de Vaud, works on policies for children and youth with a focus on inclusion and citizenship. Martin Rueff, poet, translator and philosopher at the University of Geneva, is a Rousseau specialist.

Drawing on Rousseau and social sciences, the discussion examines how schools both welcome difference and reproduce socioeconomic and cultural inequalities. Speakers investigate tensions between inclusion ideals and performance-based assessment, explore consequences for disadvantaged pupils, and outline conceptual avenues to rethink educational aims and citizenship in schooling.

In English.

Mélanie Plouviez, philosopher and professor at Université Côte d’Azur, coordinates the PHILHERIT project and is author of L’injustice en héritage (2025). Gabrielle Radica, professor at Université de Lille, specializes in Rousseau.

This lecture examines Rousseau’s account of the family as both source and amplifier of social inequalities and of patrimony as a mechanism that reproduces disadvantage. The speakers explore whether family structures and inheritance can also serve as levers for reducing inequality, mobilizing classical and contemporary texts to illuminate the debate.

In English.

Thomas Flahaut, novelist and dramatist trained at the Swiss Literary Institute of Biel, has published several novels with Éditions de l’Olivier and poetry at Castor Astral.

This workshop builds a collective “Geneva Directory of Monsters”, mapping strange, dreamlike and horrific urban phenomena and imagining monsters that inhabit spaces of social violence. Participants will examine the hybrid zone between reality and the fantastic to explore how fiction can reveal urban tensions and make visible hidden forms of violence.

In French.