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Siya Mthimkulu (Aug 04 2025 at 08:25):Does anyone have Benabou’s Lecture notes from Louvain-la-neuve 1983
Notification Bot (Aug 04 2025 at 08:34):This topic was moved here from #theory: category theory > 2-categories and fibred categories by Matteo Capucci (he/him).
Nathanael Arkor (Aug 04 2025 at 17:53):I would ask on the [[categories mailing list]]: most of the people who are likely to have attended the lecture series are not on Zulip, but many of them still check the mailing list. Francis Borceux in particular seems likely to have notes, if anyone does.
Jonas Frey (Aug 04 2025 at 18:21):A few years ago, Thomas Streicher put scans of unpublished works on fibrations by Moens, Celeyrette and Bénabou on his website here. I wonder if this is what you're looking for? The filename jb_lln_80.pdf seems to suggest that it's from Bénabou in Louvain-la-Neuve, but in 1980, not in 1983.
Siya Mthimkulu (Aug 04 2025 at 18:23):@Jonas Frey No, I am looking for his handwritten notes from the lectures I have mentioned.
Jonas Frey (Aug 04 2025 at 18:23):Well, they're definitely hand-written :-)
Jonas Frey (Aug 04 2025 at 18:31):But I think the when I've seen seen Bénabou's "Louvain-la-Neuve notes" referenced, they were were usually described as written by Roisin, following lectures of Bénabou.
Jonas Frey (Aug 04 2025 at 18:34):On the CT list, Thomas Streicher also proposed typing up some of these notes and publishing them as TAC-reprints; @Jonathan Weinberger copied this message here.
Siya Mthimkulu (Aug 04 2025 at 18:39):Thanks. I have the published ones written by Thomas (in 2019). It’s my understanding (as Thomas has also mentioned) that it’s not easy to access Bénabou’s work and I’d take @Nathanael Arkor’s advice on writing to Francis.
Jonas Frey (Aug 04 2025 at 18:40):@Siya Mthimkulu Have you clicked the link I sent and read the message shared by Jonathan? I would assume that it's actually what you're looking for.
Jonas Frey (Aug 04 2025 at 18:42):The notes were not available "publicly" in Bénabou's lifetime because B. insisted (in messages to the CT mailing list) that people ask him personally for a copy, but after Bénabous death (and unfortunately not long before his own), Thomas made a scan of his personal copy public, with the help of Jonathan.
Jonas Frey (Aug 04 2025 at 18:43):(But I don't want to discourage you from writing to Borceux, if he has any further notes that would be very valuable of course!)
Siya Mthimkulu (Aug 04 2025 at 18:44):@Jonas Frey They just finished loading, and yes it's what I was looking for, many thanks again.
Jonas Frey (Aug 04 2025 at 18:45):Great!
Jonas Frey (Aug 04 2025 at 18:45):If you want to read them, maybe it would really make sense to start a typesetting project! I'd be happy to type a few pages.
Siya Mthimkulu (Aug 04 2025 at 18:50):I agree and I would be happy to be involved. Perhaps we would need a few more peope as well.
Nathanael Arkor (Aug 04 2025 at 18:51):It would be even more valuable to provide a typeset translation, since the original notes are in French.
Nathanael Arkor (Aug 04 2025 at 18:51):(Though of course this requires some specialist expertise.)
Valeria de Paiva (Aug 04 2025 at 18:52):@Jonas Frey I suggested the same thing to Jonathan Weinberger. I would be happy to put the TAC reprint suggestion to the TAC editorial board if someone wanted to do it and wouldn't mind typing a few pages, as I did for Jon Beck's thesis.
Jonas Frey (Aug 04 2025 at 18:52):Is there some nice latex document class to make original and translation side-by-side?
Jonas Frey (Aug 04 2025 at 18:56):@Valeria de Paiva Great! I would say let's get started with the typing and/or translation first, once we have that we'll get back to you :-)
Valeria de Paiva (Aug 04 2025 at 18:57):Splendid! good luck with the project.
Siya Mthimkulu (Aug 04 2025 at 19:00):I have not tested it out but I am confident that babel as a package can do the job.
Jonas Frey (Aug 04 2025 at 19:04):I think babel can be used to switch languages back and forth in the same document to have correct conventions for indents, hyphenation, and punctuation spacing, but I was envisaging a layout with maybe french on the left and English on the right with nicely aligned paragraphs side-by-side. I don't think babel can do that?
Jonas Frey (Aug 04 2025 at 19:11):Anyway that's probably overkill, two separate documents would be fine.
Siya Mthimkulu (Aug 04 2025 at 19:14):Alright, I will see what I can find.