Kenza Jernit

A former student of the École Normale Supérieure and an agrégée in English, Kenza Jernite is an associate professor in theater studies at Université Paris 3 Sorbonne-Nouvelle and a stage director. Her research focuses on contemporary dramaturgies, particularly the relationship between theater and visual arts, as well as the representation of old age and end-of-life on contemporary stages. She holds a SACRe practice-based research PhD in theater studies (PSL / Université Paris Nanterre) and has conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Strasbourg within the Lethica Interdisciplinary Thematic Institute. She recently published La Peinture sur scène ; dramaturgies plastiques contemporaines (Classiques Garnier, 2022). In November 2024, she created a performance at the Cité Internationale de la Langue Française in Villers-Cotterêts, titled Punis!, which explores disciplinary archives in nursing homes.

The project

Title: Aesthetic Moments in Healthcare – An Atlas

"Art and its practice within the realm of healthcare are often regarded as therapeutic tools. At a time when museums and medical practitioners widely promote this use for its generally undisputed benefits, this research and creative project seeks to explore an often-overlooked dimension: the aesthetics inherent in care itself—an aspect that art, as an auxiliary, can sometimes overshadow.

Emerging from a dialogue among researchers with diverse expertise—both theorists and practitioners, caregivers and/or creators—"Aesthetic Moments in Healthcare – An Atlas" aims to shed light on moments that are often difficult to express but that, through their intensity, belong to aesthetics in the Deweyan sense. Our hypothesis is that identifying, naming, and compiling these moments could renew our understanding and experience of healthcare, offering a novel contribution to debates in the humanities and social sciences.

The ambition of this project is to create an atlas, a sensitive and scientific mapping of these moments, anchored in space and time. To initiate this inventory, the project proposes the creation of four sound compositions, each accompanied by launch events bringing together the academic world, the artistic community, and healthcare spaces."

Institution: University of Paris 3 Sorbonne-Nouvelle

Selected Publications

MONOGRAPH
La Peinture sur scène - Dramaturgies plastiques contemporaines, Paris, Éditions Classiques Garnier, Collection “Études sur le théâtre et les arts de la scène,” 2022.

COLLECTIVE WORKS
Manuel des Études Théâtrales - Les arts de la scène et du spectacle, edited by Martial Poirson, Paris, Armand Colin, 2024.

PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLES

• From Romeo Castellucci to Angélica Liddell: A Reinvented Citational Regime, Théâtre/Public, No. 239 | April 2021: “Faire scène (Performing Arts and Visual Arts),” special issue edited by Laure Fernandez.
• Beginnings and Endings of Life on Romeo Castellucci’s Stages, Communications, Le Seuil - Laboratoire d’anthropologie critique interdisciplinaire (LACI), research group of IIAC (CNRS/EHESS).