#ecole normale

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Eugénie Feytis Cotton – Scientist of the Day

Eugénie Feytis Cotton, born Oct. 13, 1881, enjoyed two incomparable advantages for a young woman aspiring to be a scientist in 19th-century France...

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Ecole Normale de Filles

Rue Jean-Baptiste Clément

Charleville

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Sartre and Nizan, named by their colleagues of the Ecole Normale Nitre and Sarzan for their friendship

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Claire Deloge - Pensionnat des Sœurs des Sacrés-Cœurs - Ecole Normale -1941

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It's the birthday of philosopher and writer Jean-Paul Sartre (books by this author), born in Paris (1905). This giant of existential thought was also a well-known prankster during his days at the École Normale. He and a friend dropped water balloons from the roof onto dinner guests in tuxedos, shouting, "Thus pissed Zarathustra!" He sometimes showed up naked to official functions, and he vomited on the feet of a school official. After Charles Lindbergh successfully flew across the Atlantic, Sartre and several of his friends announced to the media that Lindbergh would be receiving an honorary degree at the École Normale, then one of them impersonated Lindbergh and convinced the media that he was at the school. There was such an uproar when it turned out to be a hoax that the school's president was forced to resign. In 1964, Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, but he refused it. When he died in 1980, 50,000 people turned out on the streets of Paris to pay their respects. He wrote: "I was there, standing in front of a window whose panes had a definite refraction index. But what feeble barriers! I suppose it is out of laziness that the world is the same day after day. Today it seemed to want to change. And then, anything, anything could happen."

 Jean-Paul Sartre (books by this author)

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2013/06/21