The research actors

The scientific committee

It is the responsibility of the scientific committee to define the parameters of research, and to oversee the fulfilling of Ambronay's double mission of the conservation of a precious cultural heritage and the dissemination of knowledge pertaining to it.

It therefore comes down to the committee to reflect on the potential activities which might be undertaken by the Cultural Encounter Centre in relation to its theme of music and the sacred, and to bring together the historical and ontological aspects of the Abbey in an approach which is at once both historical and contemporary.

The board of experts

This group unites experts in the field of research, music and the arts on specific topics, and their regular meetings give rise to the publication of journals and the development of varied and fruitful discussion and thought.

The writers and the publications

Within the framework of the Cultural Encounter Centre project, Ambronay has initiated a publishing activity. Through already published works and those in production or at the planning stage, the research and discussion activity is dynamic and ongoing. The authors are often members of the scientific committee or the board of experts, but equally may have no formal links with the Cultural Encounter Centre.

Members of the scientific committee

- Bruno Gelas, former president of the university Lyon II, director of the doctoral school of 'Letters, languages, linguistics and arts', and also a member of the scientific advisory board of Cadir (Centre pour l'Analyse du Discours Religieux). A linguist, he co-directed the works Deleuze et les écrivains (Cécile Defaut, 2007) and Ecrire après Auschwitz. Mémoires croisées France-Allemagne (P.U. Lyon, 2006).

- Marianne Massin, graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, and a holder of a Doctorate in philosophy, is Maître de Conférences in aesthetics and philosophy of art at the university Lille 3. Her thesis, Les Figures du ravissement. Enjeux philosophiques et esthétiques, won the prize 'Le Monde de la recherche universitaire' and was published in 2001. She is particularly interested in the question of inspiration at the junction of philosophy and the arts, and in 2007 published La Pensée vive. Essai sur l'inspiration philosophique. Marianne Massin has been part of the Ambronay scientific committee since 2008.

- Sylvie Pébrier is a musicology graduate of the Paris Conservatoire, and also studied at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris. An inspector of music for the French ministry of culture, she is currently on secondment to run a project to construct a centre dedicated to early music. A member of Rémy Stricker's seminar on interpretation, she also teaches at the Paris Conservatoire and at Tours University.

- Aline Tauzin, ethnologist and researcher at the CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research) in the psychoanalysis and social practices laboratory. Specialising in Islamic societies, she has explored the concepts of the body and of musicality. Author of Figures du féminin dans la société maure, Aline Tauzin was scientific director of the symposium 'Musique, femme et interdits', which ran in conjunction with the 2008 Ambronay Festival. She produced for the publishers Karthala in 2008 Insultes, injures et vanne – En France et au Maghreb.

The honorary members

- Raymond Court, emeritus professor of the Jean Moulin philosophy faculty, he also taught musicology at the University Lyon-III. His published works include Le musical: essai sur les fondements anthropologiques de l'art, Adorno et la nouvelle musique, Sagesse de l'art, Force et dérive des principes and Le voir et la voix (essai sur les voies esthétiques).

- Jean-Yves Hameline, musicologist and Doctor of Theology, has taught in Western catholic institutions and at the Insitut catholique in Paris, his subjects being the anthropology and historical sociology of worship and rites and the musicology of the Christian religion. His published works include Une poétique du rituel.