Society for Francophone Postcolonial Studies
In association with Liverpool University Press
Francophone Postcolonial Studies in the 21st Century
Friday 18–Saturday 19 November 2016
Institute of Modern Languages Research, University of London,
Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU
Confirmed keynote speakers:
Professor Nicholas Harrison (KCL) and Dr Louise Hardwick (University of Birmingham)
The first fifteen years of the twenty-first century in the francophone world have been turbulent, marked by natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the Haitian earthquake, uprisings and conflicts including the 2005 French riots, the Arab Spring of 2010, the 2013 French intervention in Mali, and the Charlie Hebdo and Paris terrorist attacks in 2015. This conference aims to consider how such events have been negotiated by authors and producers of francophone postcolonial cultural responses. Through discussion of very recent cultural production from the postcolonial francophone world, we hope to begin to identify what sets the cultural products of the twenty-first century apart from those that came before. Whose are the new francophone voices to have emerged, and why? What are the specific challenges facing producers of francophone postcolonial culture in the twenty-first century? And what are the implications for the future of Francophone Postcolonial Studies as a discipline?
We welcome proposals for papers and panels on topics including:
• Defining moments of the 21st-century in France and the francophone world
• The role of history in defining 21st-century francophone postcolonial studies
• Contemporary challenges for francophone postcolonial studies
• New francophone postcolonial voices of the 21st century
• Readership and audiences in the 21st century
• Form and experimentation in 21st -century francophone texts
• The publication and circulation of postcolonial francophone texts in the 21st century
• Digital literatures and cultures in the postcolonial francophone world
• New and future directions for francophone postcolonial studies
• Teaching Francophone Postcolonial Studies in the 21st century
• Francophone Postcolonial Studies and the Academy
Please send abstracts of 200-250 words plus 50-100 words of biography in a Word document to Conference Secretary, Catherine Gilbert (sfpsconference2016@gmail.com). Papers can be in English or French.
