Micheline Galley, a leading French ethnologist, will be giving a public online talk in English on ‘Researching Maltese and Mediterranean Oral Traditions: A French-Maltese Collaboration’ on Friday at 6pm.
Galley is an honorary senior researcher at the prestigious French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). She devoted decades of her professional life to the study of Maltese and Maghrebi oral traditions and worked closely with leading Maltese researchers like Joseph Cassar Pullicino and Joseph Aquilina.
As an ethnologist working on Arab culture, she was the author and editor of several publications dealing with the HiIali epic. She also worked on the Sibyl, her permanence through the ages and the artistic heritage she inspired.
Galley authored numerous academic articles and three books on Malta: Femmes de Malte dans Les Chants Traditionnels, with Joseph Cassar Pullicino (C.N.R.S., 1981); Maria Calleja’s Gozo. A Life History (Utah University Press, 1994), that was awarded the Prix International G. Pitrè – S. Marino, 1995 (Premio del Presidente), and, more recently, a booklet entitled Malte: Un Archipel au Destin Fabuleux (Paris Geuthner, 2019).
As a leading researcher and secretary general of the Association Internationale d’Étude des Civilisations Méditerranéennes (AIECM), she co-organised two international conferences on cultural contacts in the Mediterranean held in Malta in 1972 and 1975. She was also the editor of the proceedings that were printed in Malta in 1973 and 1978.
She produced two documentary films which dealt specifically with popular traditions in Malta: a 45-minute film on L’Imnarja. Fête des Lumières à Malte (C.N.R.S.) and a 15-minute film, Chants Sacrés et Jeux Poétiques, on sacred chants and popular poetry.
Galley’s talk is part of a series of lectures hosted by the Department of Maltese in its Maltese oral traditions project, which is now in its fifth year. It is also part of the Franco-Maltese summer festival Respire!, organised by the Embassy of France to celebrate French-Maltese relations.
The talk will be introduced by Adrian Grima and is being organised jointly by the Department of Maltese at the University of Malta, the Embassy of France in Malta, and the Embassy of Malta in France.
The event is open to the public and will be broadcast live on Zoom at https://universityofmalta.zoom.us/j/93599049058 and on the Facebook page of the Maltese oral traditions project, It-Tradizzjoni Orali.