Wherever you may be, and however you may be passing these festive days, the Paris Institute for Critical Thinking (PICT) sends you its warmest season’s greetings! This year, thanks to PICT Books, our non-profit publishing house, we have made the leap from the heart of Paris onto your bookshelves, and we can’t think of a better place to welcome the New Year!
We might say that the past year brought us its share of dark clouds, sometimes making us feel disoriented and lost. To this, we answer with Nazım Hikmet and “A Cloud in Love,” his tale for the whole family, lovingly translated by Evrim Emir-Sayers and illustrated by Ambar Velasco: “Good people, good animals, and good clouds are never lost. Those who love, live.”
As always, we leave you with our deepest gratitude for your support of our volunteer-run, non-profit institute and publishing house. It is thanks to the generous support of you, our members, that everything we do, from exhibitions to books and beyond, becomes possible. And we look forward to yet another precious PICT year at your side!
The latest PICT Book "Fixers: Reporters Without Bylines" featured on Franceinfo 🎈 Franceinfo
08/11/2025
"Turkish author Sabahattin Ali’s 1943 novel Madonna in a Fur Coat has rocketed this year, selling almost 30,000 copies in the UK and outstripping even Pride and Prejudice." Penguin Classics’ edition of Madonna in a Fur Coat features an introduction by PICT Books editor David Selim Sayers.🎈
Why did an obscure Dostoevsky novella sell 100,000 copies in the UK last year? And why are TikTokers raving about a 1943 Turkish novel? The way young people are discovering books is changing – and their literary tastes reflect our times
08/11/2025
The latest PICT Book "Fixers: Reporters Without Bylines" featured on Radio France Internationale 🎈RFI
L'atelier des médias reçoit le journaliste et documentariste franco-afghan Mortaza Behboudi, qui vient de publier Fixers: Reporters without Bylines, un livre qui raconte son quotidien de fixeur, ces…
02/10/2025
NEW PICT BOOK: Fixers: Reporters Without Bylines 🎈
by Mortaza Behboudi & Oksana Leuta
edited and introduced by
Evrim Emir-Sayers & David Selim Sayers
How can a reporter from London or Lyon write a story about Kabul or Kyiv without knowing the city, the language, or the people? The answer is Fixers—local guerilla journalists who provide foreign reporters with everything from hotels to vegan meals, drivers to interviewees, protagonists to entire storylines. Many media companies don’t offer fixers any contracts, insurance, or bylines, while many fixers put up with it because the story just needs to be told. Fixers is the very first book in which they tell their own tales of war and occupation, oppression and exploitation, from France to Afghanistan, from Ukraine to Iran.
A remarkable collection of primary sources on the Ottoman Empire was recently uncovered at La Source, the library of École des Ponts ParisTech. The significance of this discovery brought together a team of researchers and students from Istanbul Technical University (İTÜ), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, and École des Ponts ParisTech—members of the EELISA Alliance—who joined forces with the Paris Institute for Critical Thinking (PICT) to conduct an in-depth study of these materials. 🎈
28/09/2025
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03/09/2025
A new chapter begins at PICT — where ideas take shape, stories quietly unfold, and every page holds a promise. Stay tuned. 🎈 https://parisinstitute.org/
The Paris Institute for Critical Thinking (PICT) is thrilled to announce “May the World End Here,” an upcoming art exhibition curated by PICT contributor Salamis Ayşegül Şentuğ Tuğyan. Featuring the works of many prominent figures in Cypriot contemporary art, the exhibition will be open to the public at the Maison des Associations de Solidarité in Paris from 16 to 18 July 2025. 🎈
“May the World End Here” features works of video, painting, embroidery, photography, and mixed media works by artists Rahme Veziroğlu, Uygar Erdim, Kyriaki Costa, Danae Patsalou, Nurtane Karagil, İsmail Gökçe, Erdoğan Kavaz, and Sümer Erek. In an eco-poetic dialogue with Emel Kaya’s 2024 poetry collection of the same name, the artists offer a profound inquiry into humanity’s detachment from nature and the Anthropocene era. Invoking the “knowledge of butterflies exploding against windshields,” they invite the viewer to look at the world not only with a critical human eye, but also from the perspective of the non-human.
The exhibition’s curator, Salamis Ayşegül Şentuğ Tuğyan, is a writer, poet, and educator from Cyprus. She is the host and producer of the PICT podcast mini-series Let’s Get Bored and the Creative Director of the currently ongoing redesign of the PICT website.
Previously shown in Lefkoşa, Izmir, and Istanbul, “May the World End here” will travel to Berlin after its sojourn in Paris. Watch a short video of the exhibition here.
The exhibition is free and open to the public.
Date
Opening: Wednesday, 16 July 2025, 19:00
Exhibition: Thursday-Friday, 17-18 July 2025, 09:00-23:00
Venue
Maison des Associations de Solidarité
10/18 rue des terres au curé, 75013 Paris
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HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY is caught between democratization and corporatization. Initially designed to produce a select elite, the university has pivoted to embrace the goal of mass education. But the ensuing mass enrolment soon exposed the university’s potential to turn impressive profits—or incur serious losses. As a result, the university became straddled with the twin dilemmas we know all too well—the quality of education is dropping while its price is rising.
This trajectory has deeply affected teaching and learning alike. Throughout the 20th century, most university educators were on the tenure track—meaning their freedom of thought, research, and expression was safeguarded by stable employment and a comfortable middle-class existence. But rising enrolment and financial pressure have meant that in the 21st century, most university educators work as adjuncts—freelancers who get paid per course, have no job security, and must often piece together gigs on different campuses just to make ends meet.
Students are similarly affected. In-depth seminars with intensive participation are being replaced by undemanding survey courses. The pressure to pass more students is leading to grade inflation. Absent the stimulation and passion engendered by creative and critical thinking, it is little wonder that students increasingly view universities simply as gatekeepers to the job market or, even more crassly, as diploma factories. And learners with no need for a diploma—especially working adults—face a system that leaves them out in the cold.
PICT reimagines the academy as a venue of learning for its own sake rather than as a means to an end. We do not believe in standardized courses, grades, or diplomas: only self-motivated students with passionate interests should enrol in courses, and these courses should be tailor-made by equally passionate educators. We do not believe in education at the cost of exploitation: the majority of enrolment fees should be directly passed on to the instructor. We do not believe in a massive institutional infrastructure that mediates between teacher and student: after getting the two parties together, the institution should get out of the way. And we do not believe in mass courses: creative and critical thinking is only possible in a personal setting of intensive intellectual exchange.
PICT proudly boasts its location of Paris, France, as an exceptional setting of cultural, intellectual, and linguistic convergence. We take full advantage of this setting, combining our courses with the city’s best cultural offerings and locations. We also recognize that Paris has a deep need for more activities in the English language. We acknowledge that Paris is home to a large and growing Anglophone community, but equally importantly, we know that all Parisians with an advanced command of English lack sufficient opportunities to employ the language in contexts of sophisticated reading, intellectual reflection, and critical conversation. We aim to provide exactly this context: a space for English-speaking Parisians of all backgrounds to combine the best of the city with the best of critical thinking.
