The philosopher and writer Hélène Cixous, one of the leading French intellectuals, held this year's Hegel Lecture on May 11, 2016, at the Dahlem Humanities Center, Freie Universität Berlin.

Entitled "Ay yay! The Cry of Literature," the lecture was given in English, whereby Cixous changed readily between English, French, and German to illustrate a point.

Hélène Cixous was born in 1937 in Oran, Algeria, and grew up speaking French, Arabic, and German. When she was 18, she moved to France, where she studied and later taught at universities.

Following the student protests in France at the end of the 1960s, Hélène Cixous was a co-founder of an experimental academic center in Vincennes, a town in the metropolitan area of Paris. This center evolved into Université Paris 8, where Hélène Cixous teaches to this day.