Cerisy: An Experience of Life and Thought

In collaboration with IQSOG

Since 1952, the Château de Cerisy-la-Salle has hosted conferences unlike any others in the French and European intellectual landscape. Nearly 1,000 symposia, over 700 published works, and a list of participants spanning a century of thought: Sarraute, Queneau, Aron, Derrida, Deleuze, Latour, Stengers, Descola... Cerisy has become what Derrida called “the philosophical model of a counter-institution”: a place that generates thought by bringing together, over time, people whom ordinary institutional formats would never have united. It enables the realization of what Paul Desjardins had already termed: “thinking together.”

This event explores Cerisy through the unique perspective of Édith Heurgon: the three eras she has lived through, from her childhood at the château, the daily routines that make the place unique, the major figures who shaped its intellectual history, and the forward-looking and European vocation of an institution oriented toward the future.

Édith Heurgon holds a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the University of Paris VI. Since 2006, she has been the director of the International Cultural Center of Cerisy-la-Salle.

She notably co-hosted the series of symposia *Prospective d’un siècle à l’autre* with Josée Landrieu and co-edited the book *De Pontigny à Cerisy : des lieux pour « penser avec ensemble »* (Hermann, 2011).

Her work focuses on the foresight of the present, collective intelligence, and the role of places as catalysts for thought that cannot be reduced to conventional research formats.