Journée d’étude de l’APELA 2020. Université Paris-Nanterre, 25 septembre 2020. Organisée en collaboration avec l’Observatoire des Écritures françaises et francophones contemporaines (CSLF, Paris-Nanterre)

Si les relations commerciales entre la Chine et l’Afrique remontent au moins aux expéditions de l’amiral Zheng He (1371-1433), c’est véritablement dans les années 2000 que la présence chinoise sur le continent africain s’est développée de manière exponentielle. L’entrée remarquée de la Chine dans l’Organisation Mondiale du Commerce en 2001 est ainsi précédée par la tenue à Pékin de la première édition du forum sur la coopération sino-africaine (octobre 2000). Qu’il soit perçu comme une forme d’entraide entre les pays du « Sud » ou au contraire comme un nouvel avatar de l’impérialisme, ce phénomène, souvent considéré comme l’indice d’une nouvelle phase de la mondialisation, a suscité une abondante couverture médiatique et une riche littérature spécialisée. Nombreux sont les travaux qui se sont attachés à mettre en lumière les termes d’un échange censé se révéler mutuellement bénéfique, puisque le drainage des matières premières africaines et l’investissement de nouveaux marchés serait consenti en échange de la construction d’infrastructures ou d’aides ciblées. Le néologisme « Chinafrique », construit sur le modèle de la « Françafrique », résume bien les enjeux de ces recherches contemporaines qui conjuguent perspectives économiques et géopolitiques.

Selon ces travaux récents, le recul des puissances européennes et l’estompement de la logique bipolaire qui prévalait durant la Guerre Froide auraient laissé place à l’avènement d’un véritable « Far West chinois ». Recouvrant l’Afrique anglophone autant que francophone, celui-ci contribue au gommage des frontières coloniales tout en renouant avec des dynamiques impérialistes anciennes. L’intervention chinoise en Afrique suppose en effet à la fois l’entretien d’échanges asymétriques et la projection à plus ou moins long terme dans un destin commun, dont la représentation devient un sujet récurrent des romans de science-fiction. Pour Ibrahima Soumah, ancien membre du gouvernement guinéen, la « chinisation » de l’Afrique est ainsi prétexte à l’écriture d’un « roman d’économie-fiction » qui met en scène l’exploitation économique et militaire du continent avant d’envisager l’issue heureuse qu’autorise la formation d’un couple mixte. L’hypothèse littéraire d’un métissage sino-africain n’a à ce titre rien d’un hapax : elle intervient déjà dans Le Lys et le flamboyant d’Henri Lopes ou, sous la forme travestie d’une hantise de la reproduction, dans l’évocation que livre Dai Sijie des frasques chirurgicales de l’empereur Zheng De.

Au-delà de ces formes somme toute classiques de « branchement », l’une des caractéristiques remarquables de la relation sino-africaine réside dans sa triangulation : non contente d’impliquer les deux partenaires de l’échange, elle met également en jeu les anciennes puissances coloniales, au premier rang desquelles se situe la France. Elle nourrit à ce titre un discours diplomatique et scientifique, qui n’est exempt ni de jugements de valeur ni d’investissements affectifs face à l’inquiétante perspective d’un impérialisme d’un nouveau genre, volontiers présenté comme dépourvu de « limites mentales ». Là où l’Occident humanitaire serait demeuré prisonnier d’histoires « dérivées du Cœur des ténèbres », le soft power chinois ouvrirait ainsi en Afrique une brèche de liberté, dont la matrice littéraire demeure en construction.

Il peut à ce titre paraître surprenant que les études publiées à ce jour n’aient accordé qu’une place congrue aux effets de la relation sino-africaine sur les imaginaires. En concentrant l’attention sur des productions littéraires, plastiques et cinématographiques, la présente journée se fixe comme objectif de pallier cette lacune. Les textes commentés pourront émaner aussi bien du champ de la littérature institutionnellement reconnue que de ce que Bernard Mouralis appelait dès 1975 les « contre-littératures ».

Dans le souci de mettre en évidence des « regards croisés » sur la Chinafrique, seront en priorité retenues des propositions relatives à la vision de l’Afrique en Chine et à la vision de la Chine et des Chinois en Afrique. La prise en compte de la triangulation de la relation sino-africaine, perçue depuis l’Europe ou l’Amérique, pourra également justifier le détour par des textes et des œuvres d’auteurs ou d’artistes européens et américains.

Trois axes de réflexion majeurs peuvent être dégagés :

Néocolonialisme et « littératures de l’extraction ». Comment la Chinafrique participe-t-elle d’une littérature mondiale, voire mondialisée ? Les textes récents consacrés à la relation sino-africaine, à l’exemple de Congo Inc. d’In Koli Jean Bofane, font volontiers de la présence chinoise l’indice narratif et formel d’une circulation accrue des matériaux, des informations et des hommes. L’espace mondialisé de la Chinafrique peut cependant aussi se concentrer et se réduire au gouffre mortifère de la mine, photographiée, entre autres, par Sammy Baloji. Tidiane N’Diaye dans le domaine de l’essai, Fabrice Loi et Mukaka Chipanta dans le champ de la fiction, Hubert Sauper au cinéma, dénoncent ainsi une colonisation nouvelle. Celle-ci semble d’autant plus insoutenable qu’elle serait insidieuse et prédatrice pour l’environnement soumis à un extractivisme sans limite. Quel commentaire critique la littérature et les arts sont-ils en mesure d’offrir sur le nouvel ordre économique et écologique du monde ?

Imaginaires culturels : stéréotypes et empowerment. Dans quelle mesure la relation sino-africaine permet-elle l’émergence de nouvelles figures littéraires et artistiques ? En quoi la Chinafrique nourrit-elle le dépassement ou au contraire le renforcement des stéréotypes ? La relation sino-africaine pose indubitablement à nouveaux frais la question de la représentation de l’Autre : tandis qu’une publicité chinoise pour de la lessive reprenait fidèlement il y a peu des antiennes racistes bien connues en Europe, l’artiste Hua Jiming se livrait en 2010 à une performance remarquée, destinée à dénoncer les représentations récurrentes des Chinois en Afrique. L’une des figures les plus remarquables dans cet imaginaire est sans doute celle du maître en arts martiaux, exemplairement incarné par Bruce Lee : portée à l’écran par un sosie dans un film du Camerounais Alphonse Beni, cette figure est évoquée entre autres par Dieudonné Niangouna et Alain Mabanckou dans leurs souvenirs d’enfance. Il ne fait aucun doute qu’une telle prédilection pour des héros non occidentaux contribue à la densification des circulations culturelles, voire à l’émergence de nouvelles formes plastiques et littéraires. Quel rôle assigner à ces figures aussi héroïques qu’exotiques ?

Du tiers-mondisme au futurisme : diachronie de la relation sino-africaine. Avant qu’elle ne se décline sous la forme capitaliste de la « Chinafrique », voire de la dystopie extractiviste, la relation sino-africaine a d’abord été conçue dans le cadre d’une solidarité tiers-mondiste. Si elle est aujourd’hui économique et volontiers tournée vers l’anticipation d’un futur plus ou moins lointain, cette relation a d’abord été diplomatique, inscrite dans le contexte historique de la conférence de Bandung et de l’émergence du Tiers-Monde. Son évocation littéraire revêt à ce titre une dimension mémorialiste et engagée, dont on trouve l’écho dans les textes contemporains. Comment la littérature et les arts contribuent-ils à inscrire la relation sino-africaine dans une temporalité longue, qui court de l’époque maoïste aux domaines plus ou moins lointains de la science-fiction ?

Les propositions de communication (300 mots maximum) accompagnées d’une brève bio-bibliographie sont à adresser avant le 1er mars 2020 aux trois adresses suivantes : ninon.chavoz@gmail.com ; pierr.leroux@gmail.com et fparavy@yahoo.fr

Bibliographie indicative

Fiction

Aanza (Sinzo), Généalogie d’une banalité, La Roque d’Anthéron, Vents d’Ailleurs, coll. Fragments, 2015.

Bofane (In Koli Jean), Congo Inc. Le testament de Bismarck, Arles, Actes Sud, 2016.

Bulawayo (NoViolet), We need new names, London, Vintage Books, 2013.

Chipanta (Mukaka), A Casualty of Power, Harare, Weaver Press, 2016.

Gauz, Camarade Papa, Paris, Le Nouvel Attila, 2018.

Grand (Emmanuel), Kisanga, Paris, Liana Levi, 2018.

Hartmann Ivor, AfroSF : science fiction by African writers, [SL], Story Time, 2012 (t. 1), 2015 (t. 3), 2018 (t. 3).

Kwahulé (Koffi), Nouvel an chinois, Paris, Zulma, 2015.

Loi (Fabrice), Le Bois des Hommes, Clermont-Ferrand, Éditions Yago, coll. Ciel ouvert, 2011.

Lopes (Henri), Le Lys et le flamboyant, Paris, Le Seuil, 1997.

Mankell (Henning), Le Chinois, Paris, Seuil, 2011.

Niangouna (Dieudonné), Le Kung Fu, Besançon, Les Solitaires intempestifs, 2014.

Robin-Gazsity (Vincent), Enfermé à Libreville. Sept jours en Chinafrique, Paris, L’Harmattan, coll. Écrire l’Afrique, 2017.

Sijie (Dai), L’Acrobatie aérienne de Confucius, Paris, Flammarion, 2009.

Soumah (Ibrahima), L’Afrique un continent en voie de « chinisation ». Roman d’économie-fiction, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2018.

Récits autobiographiques

Diakité (Mory Mandiana), De la savane africaine en Chine populaire : l’étrange parcours d’un Peuhl du Wassolon, Dakar, L’Harmattan Sénégal, 2018.

Joris (Lieve), Sur les ailes du dragon : voyages entre l’Afrique et la Chine, Arles, Actes Sud, 2014.

Kitoko (Ghislain Gaston), Les Mémoires d’un Africain en Chine : depuis 1985, Paris, La Pensée Universelle, 1994.

Lopes (Henri), Il est déjà demain, Paris, Jean-Claude Lattès, 2018.

Mabanckou (Alain), Lumières de Pointe Noire, Paris, Le Seuil, 2013.

Sanmao, Diarios del Sàhara, [1976], traduit du chinois (Taiwan) par Irene Tor Carroggio, Barcelona, Rata, 2016.

Essais et articles

Banham (Martin), Gibbs (James) & Osofisa (Femi), China, India and the Eastern World, Woodbridge, James Currey, 2016.

Batchelor (Kathryn ) & Zhang (Xiaoling ), eds.,China-Africa Relations. Building Images through Cultural Cooperation, Media representation, and Communication, Londres, Routledge, 2017.

Beuret (Michel ) & Michel (Serge), La Chinafrique : Pékin à la conquête du continent noir [2008], nouvelle édition augmentée, Paris, Hachette Littératures, 2009.

Brautigam (Deborah), The Dragon’s Gift: the Real Story of China in Africa, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009.

Buchalet (Jean-Luc) & Prat (Christopher), Le futur de l’Europe se joue en Afrique, Paris, Eyrolles, 2019.

Courmont(Barthélémy), Chine, la grande séduction. Essai sur le soft power chinois, Paris, Choiseul, 2009.

Desai (Gaurav), dir., « Asian African Literatures: Genealogies in the Making », Research in African Literatures, Vol. 42, n°3, 2011, p. v-xxx.

Gilbert (Catherine), « Chinese literature in Africa: meaningful or simply ceremonial? », The Conversation, 17 novembre 2016 [en ligne]. URL : http://theconversation.com/chineseliterature-in-africa-meaningful-or-simply-ceremonial-63416

Malaquais (Dominique) & Khouri (Nicole), dir., Afrique-Asie : arts, espaces, pratiques, Mont-Saint-Aignan, Presses universitaires de Rouen et du Havre, 2016.

N’Diaye (Tidiane), Le jaune et le noir : enquête historique, Paris, Gallimard, coll. Continents Noirs, 2013.

Richer (Philippe), L’Afrique des Chinois [L’offensive chinoise en Afrique, 2008], préface de Jean-Luc Domenach, nouvelle édition revue et enrichie, Paris, Karthala, coll. Les terrains du siècle, 2012.

Van Reybrouk (David), Congo : une histoire, Arles, Actes Sud, 2014.

Filmographie 

Beni (Alphonse), Cameroon Connection (1984)

Bing (Tan), China Salesman (2017)

Ho (Godfrey), Black Ninja / Ninja Silent Assassin (1987)

Jing (Wu), Wolf Warrior 2 (2017)

Michel (Thierry), Katanga Business (2009)

Sauper (Hubert), Nous venons en amis (2015)

Védrine (Laurent), Kinshasa Beijing Story (2010)

1.2 CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS (doctoral/postdoctoral): Oceanic Origins of the Atlantic Revolutions (ca. 1760-1850). Summer Seminar.

Los Angeles, May 7-9, 2020, University of Southern California/École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.

Organizers :

Nathan Perl-Rosenthal (USC)

Clément Thibaud (EHESS-Mondes Américains)

Seminar Description

What did the revolutions that surged through the Atlantic world from circa 1760 to 1850 have in common? Scholarship on the revolutionary era over the past two decades has enriched our knowledge of its geographic extent and ideological range. Yet this long-overdue widening of the revolutionary picture has also exacerbated longstanding and fundamental problems in our understanding of the era. Why and how did revolution and revolt become generalized in the Atlantic world during this period? How can we account not only for what these revolutions had in common, but for the ways in which they were diverse or even dissimilar? What makes it possible to see this period as analytically and historiographically coherent?

This three day Summer Seminar, which brings together specialists working on both the North and South Atlantic and the Old and New Worlds, proposes a collaborative and extended reflection on these questions. The seminar takes as its starting point a broad hypothesis: that shared political and cultural practices in the Euro-American world were critical in generating and shaping the Atlantic revolutions. The seminar aims to contribute to the ongoing reconceptualization of the Atlantic revolutionary period as a polycentric phenomenon, rooted in the Atlantic and global longue durée, while questioning notions of the “diffusion” or “contagion” of revolution from the Atlantic North to its South.

The seminar will meet for three full days, May 7, 8 and 9 (Thursday-Saturday). The format of the first day will be panel discussions led by senior scholars in revolutionary studies. Confirmed participants include:

David Bell (Princeton University)

Manuel Covo (University of California, Santa Barbara)

Lynn Hunt (University of California, Los Angeles)

Sara Johnson (University of California, San Diego)

Sarah Knott (Indiana University)

Nathan Perl-Rosenthal (University of Southern California)

José María Portillo Valdés (Universidad del País Vasco)

Silvia Sebastiani (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris)

Clément Thibaud (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris)

Geneviève Verdo (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Johanna von Grafenstein (Instituto Mora, México)

Charles Walker (University of California, Davis)

The latter two days will be primarily devoted to discussion of precirculated papers by advanced doctoral and recent post-doctoral scholars, with comments and discussion by senior scholars. Seminar members are expected to attend all sessions. The languages of the meeting will be English and Spanish.

The 2020 Seminar continues discussions that began at the 2018 Oceanic Origins Summer Seminar in Paris. The full program of the earlier meeting can be viewed here: https://www.ehess.fr/en/node/14013.

Call for Proposals

We seek applications from advanced doctoral candidatesand postdoctoral researchers(whose first book is not yet published), working on the age of revolutions in any region, who would like to present a precirculated paper to the 2020 Oceanic Origins Seminar. Applications are welcomed from researchers based in any discipline, including but not limited to history, art history, area or regional studies, literature, politics or political theory, and historical anthropology. There are no a priori limitations as to topic or theme.

The Seminar seeks up to fivegraduate or postdoctoral students to present at the seminar. Applicants are required to seek financial assistance from their home institutions, if available, to cover travel costs. However, the Seminar will make funds available as needed to cover expenses for travel, hotel, and most meals during the seminar. There are no tuition or other fees associated with participation.

Application and evaluation process

The application should be in the form of a single PDF file to oceanicrootsproject@gmail.comand must include all of the following:

A cover letter describing a) the candidate’s overall research interests, b) the specific work in progress being submitted

A short CV (three pages maximum), indicating language skills and any publications

The current text of a work in progress, MAXIMUM 30 pages, which will form the basis for their contribution to the seminar. This need not be a final version. This may be in English, French, Spanish, or Portuguese.

Abrief statement outlining potential funding sources, a travel budget, and total amount requested from the seminar

In addition to these materials, applicants must have a letter of recommendation sent by an advisor or senior colleague to oceanicrootsproject@gmail.com, due by February 15,2020.

The deadline for full consideration is noon Pacific Time on February15, 2020.

Candidates will be selected based on the quality of the work they submit, its fit with other senior and junior participants, and the overall balance of the seminar. Notifications to all candidates will be sent by February 25, 2020. Successful candidates will then be expected to submit a final text of the work in progress for discussion at the seminar by April 10, 2020.

1.3 Call for papers: Black Camera close-up: Paulin S. Vieyra, a Post-Colonial figure

Deadline for article proposals: February 29, 2020. Issue editors: Vincent Bouchard (Indiana University), Amadou Ouédraogo (University of Louisiana at Lafayette)

Paulin S. Vieyra, one of the first African filmmakers, was a key driving figure behind all the early cinematographic activities in West Africa. He was a multifaceted pioneer: a prominent filmmaker, producer, and scholar. He served as mentor and production manager for several renowned filmmakers including Ousmane Sembène and was appointed by President Léopold Sédar Senghor to be the first director of the Senegalese National News Service. His expertise and prolific contribution as a film specialist came together with his insights as an intellectual who was deeply sensitive to the predicament of the continent and dedicated to the social and cultural rehabilitation and emancipation of his people. His film criticism is constantly infused with his reflections on how to provide a better future for Africa. Consequently, his work and intellectual reflections are in line with the vision laid out by key historical figures who contributed to the emancipation of the continent in various ways. More than thirty years after his passing, his work remains strikingly relevant in its visions, especially in its perception of cinema as a powerful instrument for social, political, economic and cultural changes and as a tool to build awareness and self-reliance. He viewed film as part of the process through which people could break away from the ideology of dependence and self-denial promoted throughout the colonial experience. Ultimately, his vision is encapsulated in his statement that “cinema should help with the creation of a new African humanism.”

There is, however, a lack of general understanding of this outstanding figure’s legacy and thus a need to elevate knowledge about this African cinema pioneer through scholarship and other forms that can be made accessible to the general public. This issue of the journal Black

Camera will bring together texts on the various aspects of Paulin S. Vieyra, a Post-Colonial figure. This close-up will fully assess Vieyra’s intellectual legacy through a variety of academic approaches (historical, political, feminist, film, literary, cultural, etc.) and serve to

illuminate avenues for future research surrounding this key figure of early West African film.

We welcome proposals that focus on (but are not limited to) the following themes:

– Vieyra’s intellectual legacy in his writings;

– Vieyra’s contributions to a new aesthetic he contributed to create at a preliminary stage of

African cinemas (1955-1980);

– Vieyra’s diverse audio-visual production (news, educative films, documentaries, and

fiction);

– Vieyra’s commentary on cinema as critic, historian, and theorist;

– Vieyra’s contribution to the organization, patterning, and administration of the cinematographic institutions in West Africa.

– Vieyra’s help, as a producer or mentor, in supporting other African filmmakers at the beginning of their careers.

– Vieyra’s contribution to the promotion of African cinemas during Art Festivals, in his writing, etc.

Proposals (150-250 words) in English should be sent to the following email: clafouch@iu.edu

Deadline for submitting a proposal: February 29, 2020

Announcement of proposal selection results: March 2020

Submission of completed texts for peer review: August 15, 2020

Final submissions should be no longer than 8,000 words and can incorporate illustrations

(audio, visual, still or animated) whose publication rights should be secured by the authors.

Authors are requested to follow the submission guidelines available at:

http://www.indiana.edu/~blackcam/call/#guidelines

1.4 Appel à communications/Call for Papers: Journée des doctorants de l’ADEFFI 2020/ADEFFI Postgraduate Symposium 2020

samedi 18 avril 2020 / Saturday 18th April 2020, University College Dublin

L’Association des études françaises et francophones d’Irlande (ADEFFI) invite les jeunes chercheurs en études françaises et francophones à venir participer à la Journée des doctorants qui se tiendra à University College Dublin (Irlande), le 18 avril 2020. La Journée se veut l’occasion pour les doctorants à la fois de présenter leurs recherches et d’en faire l’état des lieux dans un contexte universitaire. Elle sera également une opportunité pour eux de rencontrer leurs pairs ainsi que des chercheurs en poste dans le domaine des études françaises et francophones venus de l’Irlande, du Royaume-Uni et de plus loin. Afin que cet échange soit aussi ouvert et varié que possible, aucun thème n’a été retenu. De plus, cette année la Journée des doctorants sera ouverte aussi bien aux étudiants de master qu’aux doctorants. L’événement offrira donc des séances « travail en cours » et « présentation d’affiches » afin que les jeunes chercheurs de tout niveau puissent y participer. La séance « travail en cours » prendra la forme d’une série d’interventions d’environ cinq minutes de longueur, qui auront pour objectif de résumer la recherche actuelle des participants (de façon semblable au concours « Ma thèse en 180 secondes ») ou de présenter un aspect de la recherche du participant sur lequel il/elle désire du feedback de ses pairs. Les propositions de communication d’une longueur de 200 mots (correspondant à une présentation de vingt minutes environ) peuvent être rédigées soit en français, soit en anglais, et doivent être envoyées à adeffipostgrad@gmail.com avant le 24 février 2020, dernier délai. Ceux qui souhaitent participer aux séances « travail en cours » ou « présentation d’affiche » peuvent aussi exprimer leur intérêt en envoyant un mail à l’adresse ci-dessus avant la date limite du 24 février 2020. Merci de bien vouloir joindre cinq mots clés ainsi que votre rattachement universitaire à toute proposition.

The Association for French and Francophone Studies in Ireland (ADEFFI) invites contributions from postgraduate students in all areas of French and Francophone studies for a postgraduate symposium to be held at University College Dublin, on Saturday 18th April 2020. This event will provide a supportive scholarly forum for postgraduates to present both work in progress and new research and will allow participants to meet established researchers and fellow postgraduates in French and Francophone Studies from Ireland, the UK and beyond. In order to ensure that this forum for exchange is as open and diverse as possible, no central theme has been specified. Moreover, this year, the Journée des doctorants will also be open to MA students. The event will therefore offer a wider range of presentation formats, to include a work-in-progress session and poster presentations. The work-in-progress session will take the form of a series of short, five-minute presentations which will aim either to summarise the current research of the participant (similar to the “Three Minute Thesis” competition) or to present an aspect of ongoing research on which the participant would like feedback from their peers. Abstracts of 200 words, for twenty-minute presentations, in French or English, should be sent to adeffipostgrad@gmail.com by 24^th February 2020. Those wishing to participate in the work-in-progress and poster presentation sessions can express their interest by sending an email to be above email address by the deadline of 24^th February 2020. Students are asked to provide five keywords, alongside their submission, and to give details of their institutional affiliation.

1.5 Call for Papers: Archipelagic Memory: Intersecting Geographies, Histories, and Disciplines/Appel à contribution: Mémoire-Archipélagique : Géographies, Histoires et Disciplines Entrecroisées

University of Mauritius, 4 – 6 August 2020/ Université de Maurice, 4-6 août 2020

http://www.archipelagicmemory.wordpress.com

Confirmed keynote speakers

Ananya Jahanara Kabir, King’s College London

Isabel Hofmeyr, University of the Witwatersrand/NYU

George Abungu, Archaeologist and International Heritage Consultant

Anwar Janoo, University of Mauritius

The concept of the “archipelago” has been discussed and deployed by historians, social scientists, literary and cultural studies scholars since the 1950s to dismantle linear narratives of historical, national and cultural development; to resist the taxonomy of centre-periphery; to emphasise shared human experiences premised on relation, creolisation and cultural diversity; and to inspire research and creative projects tracing discontinuous yet interlinked geographies over a planetary scale.

Taking the Indian Ocean as a principal site for investigating new meanings and experiences of the archipelagic, the conference will marshal and build upon the different strands of archipelagic thinking already engendered by the Caribbean world to explore connected histories across oceans and seas, and to instigate a theoretical dialogue on memory-production encompassing the Indian, Atlantic, Pacific and Southern Oceans and their articulated spatiality. What has been enabled and what has been precluded by thinking primarily through the model of the Caribbean archipelago and its anti-mimetic patterns of repetition and difference? What has not yet been thought of archipelagically? What if ethnic, national and geological borders are in conflict with each other, resulting in fractured archipelagic identities? How does the sea function as an imagined space that reduces or entrenches geographical and affective distance? How, indeed, does the sea enable archipelagic relations?

Simultaneously, the conference explores what it means to remember the past in the present and how to consider future trajectories in individual, collective, as well as national identities, addressing the possibilities offered by an archipelagic approach to memory, one that is mobile and dynamic as much as entangled, even surpassing island and archipelagic spaces. What, in effect, is an archipelagic memory project, and how might it contribute to memory studies? If the past is memorialised as archipelagic, as a series of fragmentary geographies, cultures and histories converging in a fluid space that might also act as a symbol for other, larger connections, how can archipelagic memory enhance continental practices of articulating the past, de-centre or contribute to traditional approaches to memory? How can archipelagic mnemonic projects be multidirectional, reparative and committed to justice, instead of competitive, suppressive or destructive?

We welcome papers and poster presentations from scholars at any point of their academic career addressing the theme of archipelagic memory. Suggested topics for papers include, but are not limited to:

Archipelagic epistemologies

– The memorialisation of transoceanic connections, transnational movements and displacement, and cosmopolitan cultural entanglements in the archipelagic mode

– Critical archipelagic methodologies for memory studies

– Postcolonial studies, multidirectional memory, and the archipelago

Archipelagic memory practices

– The thematic and symbolic dimension of archipelagic memory in literature and the arts

– Performative memory-making in and across archipelagos

– Non-canonical and disobedient archival practices: orality, musicality, embodied knowledge and the senses

– Textual and symbolical translation, cultural borrowing and divergence

Archipelagic memory spaces

– Ships, shorelines, port towns and other places where archipelagic memory is inscribed

– Isthmuses, canals, peninsulas, and their role in increasing the sense of the archipelagic

– National, ancestral, and imaginary homelands as archipelagic memory palimpsests

– Trans-oceanic identification across islands and archipelagos; archipelagos as continents, continents as archipelagic

History, traumas, and archipelagic memory

– Human and natural catastrophes in archipelagic spaces

– Ways of remembering and moving beyond past conflicts and collective traumas across oceans and continents

– Vestiges of the colonial past in the postcolonial archipelagic present

Memory and politics in the archipelago

– Bilateral relations between archipelagic states, small island nations, and established or emerging continental powers

– Maritime and territorial claims and their impact on regional stability and peace-keeping

– Activism and its implications in the building of an archipelagic future

We invite contributions in English and French for 20-minute papers. We also invite research posters (e.g. work in progress; research findings) and creative posters (e.g. photography/poetry projects) for display, particularly from postgraduate students. Please send a 300-word abstract for papers and poster proposals, accompanied by a short bio-note (100 words) and 3-4 keywords, to: archipelagicmemory@gmail.com

Deadline for paper and poster proposals: 20 March 2020

Notification of acceptance by 31 March 2020

For more information and regular updates, please visit the conference website, http://www.archipelagicmemory.wordpress.com or contact us at archipelagicmemory@gmail.com

Conference Organisers: Sraddha Shivani Rajkomar (University of Mauritius); Luca Raimondi (CISA, University of the Witwatersrand); Linganaden Murday (University of Mauritius)

Conference Administrator: Rosa Beunel (King’s College London)

Intervenants clés confirmés

Ananya Jahanara Kabir, King’s College London

Isabel Hofmeyr, University of the Witwatersrand/NYU

George Abungu, Archéologue, Consultant en patrimoine culturel international

Anwar Janoo, University of Mauritius

Depuis les années 1950, le concept de l’Archipel a été de plus en plus déployé par les chercheurs en histoire, en sciences, en littérature et ainsi que dans les études des phénomènes culturels ou cultural studies, afin de démanteler la conceptualisation linéaire des développements historiques, nationaux et culturels ; de résister à la taxonomie polarisante du binaire centre et périphérie ; de mettre l’accent sur l’importance des expériences humaines partagées ainsi que la Relation, la créolisation et la diversité culturelle les postulent ; enfin, le concept d’archipel a aussi été utilisé par des projets de recherches et des projets d’ordre créatifs qui tracent des géographies discontinues et interconnectées à l’échelle de la planète.

Prenant l’océan Indien comme le lieu principal de recherche pour définir de nouvelles expériences et significations archipélagiques, la conférence rassemblera et s’appuiera sur les différents éléments de la pensée archipélagique déjà engendrés par le monde Caribéen pour explorer des histoires liées et reliées à travers les mers et les océans, et pour établir un dialogue théorique sur la production de la mémoire comprenant les océans Indien, Atlantique, Pacifique, et Suds et leur spatialité. Qu’est-ce que la primauté de la pensée archipélagique des Caraïbes, définie par sa structure de répétition anti-mimétique et différenciée, a permis de développer, qu’a-t-elle écartée ou exclue ? Qu’est-ce qui ne peut pas être, ou n’a pas encore été pensé à travers l’archipel ? Que dire si les frontières ethniques, nationales et géographiques étaient en conflit les unes avec les autres, produisant des identités archipélagiques fracturées ? Comment la mer fonctionne-t-elle comme un espace imaginaire qui réduit ou fige les distances géographiques et affectives ? Comment la mer rend possible les relations archipélagiques ?

La conférence explore simultanément ce que se souvenir du passé dans le présent signifie, et comment considérer les futures trajectoires identitaires individuelles, collectives mais aussi nationales en adressant les possibilités que l’approche archipélagique de la mémoire offre, une approche qui est mobile et dynamique autant qu’elle est enchevêtrée et qui peut même surpassée les espaces insulaires et archipélagiques. Que signifie ou à quoi ressemble, réellement, un projet de mémoire-archipélagique ? Comment peut -il contribuer aux études de la mémoire ? Si le passé est pensé de façon archipélagique comme une série de géographies, cultures et histoires fragmentaires qui convergent dans un espace fluide et qui peut agir comme un symbole pour d’autres connexions plus larges, comment la mémoire archipélagique peut améliorer la manière dont le passé est appréhendé dans la pratique continentale ? Comment peut-elle contribuer ou compliquer l’approche traditionnelle de la mémoire ? Comment les projets de mémoire-archipélagique peuvent-ils être multidirectionnels, réparateurs ainsi que dévoué à la justice, au lieu d’être rivaux, répressifs ou destructeurs ?

Nous acceptons les communications et les posters de chercheurs à tout moment de leur carrière sur le thème de la mémoire-archipélagique. La liste non-exhaustive des suggestions des thèmes et sujets que les communications peuvent couvrir se trouve ci-dessous:

 Epistémologies archipélagiques

Le processus de formation de la mémoire des connexions transocéaniques, des mouvements et déplacements transnationaux, et des entrecroisements des cultures cosmopolites à travers la pensée archipélagique
Les méthodes critiques de l’archipel pour les études de la mémoire
Etudes postcoloniales, mémoire multidirectionnelle et l’archipel

 Les pratiques de la mémoire-archipélagique

– Les dimensions thématiques et symboliques de la mémoire-archipélagique dans les arts et la littérature

– Les formations performatives de la mémoire dans les archipels

– Les pratiques d’archivages non-canoniques et insubordonnées : oralité, musicalité, savoir-incarné et les sens

– Traduction textuelle et symbolique, emprunt culturel et divergences

 L’espace et la mémoire-archipélagique

– Bateaux, littoraux, ports, villes et les autres espaces où la mémoire-archipélagique est inscrite

– Isthmes, canaux, péninsules, et le rôle qu’ils jouent dans l’accroissement du sentiment archipélagique

– Les pays-natals nationaux, ancestraux et imaginaires palimpsestes de la mémoire-archipélagique

– Les identifications transocéaniques à travers les îles et les archipels, archipels continentaux, et continents archipélagiques

 Histoires, traumas et mémoire-archipélagique

– Les catastrophes humaines et naturelles dans les espaces archipélagiques

– Se souvenir et dépasser les conflits passés et les traumas collectifs

– Les vestiges du passé colonial dans le présent postcolonial et archipélagique

 Politique et mémoire dans l’archipel

– Les relations bilatérales entre les états archipélagiques, les petites îles-nations et les puissances continentales établies ou émergeantes.

– Les revendications maritimes et territoriales et leurs impacts sur la stabilité des régions et la prévention de conflits

– Le rôle de l’activisme dans la construction d’un futur archipélagique

Nous invitons des propositions en anglais et en français pour des présentations d’une durée de 20mins. Nous acceptons aussi les posters de recherche (par exemple, les travaux en cours ; les résultats de recherches) et les posters créatifs (par exemple : les projets de photos/poésies) en vue de les exposer, particulièrement venant d’étudiants en master ou doctorants. Pour la considération de vos communications et posters, veuillez envoyer un résumé de 300 mots, accompagné d’une courte biographie (100 mots) et 3-4 mots-clés au : archipelagicmemory@gmail.com

Date limite pour l’envoi des propositions : 20 Mars 2020

Notification d’acceptation : 31 Mars 2020

Pour plus d’informations, vous pouvez nous écrire au archipelagicmemory@gmail.com ou visiter le site internet de la conférence : http://www.archipelagicmemory.wordpress.com

Organisateur.rice.s de la conférence : Sraddha Shivani Rajkomar (University of Mauritius); Luca Raimondi (CISA, University of the Witwatersrand); Linganaden Murday (University of Mauritius)

Administratrice de la conférence : Rosa Beunel (King’s College London)

1.6 Call for Papers: “Blood on the Leaves/And Blood at the Roots”: Reconsidering Forms of Enslavement and Subjection across Disciplines

18th June 2020:

Pre-conference panel on getting published & networking event for postgraduate students and early career researchers and practitioners

Supported by the Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS)

19th-20th June 2020:

Two-day Interdisciplinary Conference

Funded by the University of Warwick Centre for Philosophy, Literature and the Arts (CRPLA), The Humanities Research Centre (HRC), the Environmental Humanities Network (EHN), the Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Studies (YPCCS), the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies, the Department of Philosophy, the British Comparative Literature Association (BCLA) and The Royal Historical Society (RHS)

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:

Professor Kaiama L. Glover (Columbia University)

Professor Robert Bernasconi (Penn State University)

Dr. Monique Allewaert (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Dr. Meleisa Ono-George (University of Warwick)

Conference organised by Lorenzo Serini and Giulia Champion

CALL FOR PAPERS:

Deadline: 20th April 2020

This event aims to open a multicultural space beyond institutional and geographical boundaries to foster discussions and to listen to a variety of voices, addressing the problems of enslavement and subjection. In this space, this conference seeks to explore the various figurations and conceptions of enslavement and subjection across disciplines—from philosophy to literature, from the arts to the social sciences, to mention only a few— and beyond territories. Enslavement and subjugation are not only concerns of our past but urgent problems of our present and future. The title of the conference directly refers to Billie Holiday’s 1939 performance of Strange Fruit so as to emphasise both the human and environmental impact of forms of enslavement and subjection which have—literally and metaphorically—left “Blood on the leaves / And blood at the Roots.”

This exploration, as we intend it, takes the form of a reconsideration because we believe that enslavement and subjection need to be continuously ‘considered again’ and ‘rethought’ to extend and problematise understandings and approaches to these key themes. Each time we return to these issues, we fix in our mind something that we ought not to forget and we learn something new that we ought not to neglect. In this conference, we would like to reconsider and return on the multiple facets of the problems of enslavement and its evolution in modern forms of subjections, taking with us and keeping in mind the following words:

“[E]ven as we experienced, recognized, and lived subjection, we did not simply or only live in subjection and as the subjected.” (2016:4)

In this quote, describing her family’s struggle as Black Americans in the 1950s US, Christina Sharpe’s words and italics highlight an insidious pitfall in methodological approaches to the study of slavery and its legacies in a number of academic disciplines. These approaches are often conducive to a consideration of subjected individuals and communities “simply or only” as ‘enslaved’ people. These subjected agents become objects of study only as ‘slaves’ rather than subjects endowed with their own agency, thinking and feelings, and this tendency continues in post-slavery and race studies. Hence, the very attempt to study and understand (post-)slavery and subjection poses the risk of falling back into another type of objectification and dehumanisation of ‘subjected subjects.’ As for example, Saidiya Hartman notes in relation to archival studies that “[t]he archive dictates what can be said about the past and the kinds of stories that can be told about the persons cataloged, embalmed, and sealed away in box files and folios. To read the archive is to enter a mortuary; it permits one final viewing and allows for a last glimpse of persons about to disappear into the slave hold.” (2007:17)

In light of these words and cognizant of this danger, the conference would like to propose a reconsideration of enslavement and subjection that aims to de-objectify and do justice to the humanity of what we have called the ‘subjected subjects,’ of the subjects of uneven (hi)stories of a brutally imposed condition, that is not just part of our past, but also continues to have disastrous impacts on our society and environment. Thus, we also aim to further consider the ecological dimension of enslavement and subjugation as tightly knit with the human one, promoting a de-reification of ‘nature’ and the ‘natural.’ Thereby our purpose is to illuminate systematic and structural issues of our current climates. The best way to carry out this reconsideration, in our view, is to create a space to listen and to discuss, bringing together diverse contributions across disciplines and institutions, within and without academia. We are convinced that only an inter-and-trans-disciplinary enterprise, which encourages human and intellectual diversity, enables a reconsideration of the problems of enslavement and subjection, as well as of the ways in which we approach these topics. For this reason, we welcome papers both from different fields of study and that tackle the issue of enslavement and subjection at the intersection of different disciplines. This space is not only open to scholars from all over the world, but also to activists and artists who wish to discuss their political engagement with and artistic approaches to the themes. We welcome other presentation formats such as roundtables, discussion, jam sessions.

We invite abstracts on topics including, but not limited to:

Forms enslavement across time from Antiquity to today.

Figuration and representation of enslaved people and/or slavery and more broadly subjugation in the arts (music, visual and performing arts, film, tv and media studies, theatre and drama, literature and graphic novels, etc.)

(Hi)Stories of slavery and oppression as well as emancipation and liberation, memory studies.

Comparative (Hi)Stories of forced labour and modern-day precariousness.

Philosophers’ views on slavery as well as the philosophical significance of the concept of enslavement and subjugation in the history and practice of philosophy.

Philosophical accounts of servitude as a condition.

(Political) Ethics of enslavement and/or subjugation.

Traces of slavery and enslavement in our time, structural racism, #BlackLivesMatter, minority activism movement and social (in)justice.

Gendered and reproductive enslavement and labour, housewifization and women’s emancipation movements and activism, #NiUnaMenos, #Metoo.

The role of colonisation and slavery in building Europe and the United States and its economy as well as debates surrounding restitution and reparation.

Movements on decolonising the University and the syllabus.

Movements toward slavery reparation and economic (in)justice.

The evolution of slavery, indentured labour and forced migration.

Modern slavery and human and animal trafficking.

Contemporary economies of tourism and/or neo-liberal practices of extractivism as forms of enslavement and subjugation.

The commodification of bodies and lands and their intertwined relations.

Traces of slavery on the environment, plantationocene, climate change, uneven developments and environmental justice.

Human-Animal relations, animal ethics and their exploitation and rights.

Extinction as a result of exploitation and subjugation.

We invite individual proposals for 20-minute papers, as well as proposals for panels (three 20-minute papers), for roundtables, jam sessions, or any other format to present artistic production or to address activism, etc. Please send an abstract (200-300 words) and a brief biography to bloodontheleaves2020@gmail.com by 20th April 2020.

We strongly encourage submissions going beyond Western scholarship and from scholars at any stage of their careers.

1.7 Call for Papers: Francophone Studies- MLA 2021 in Toronto

The executive committee of the LLC Francophone Forum of the MLA invites abstract submissions for the following three panels at the 2021 MLA Convention in Toronto.

Cultural (Mis)appropriation in theFrancophone The dynamics of cultural (mis)appropriation in Francophone transcultural consumption (barbouillage, fashion, religious and cultural iconography, language). Send 250-word abstracts by March 6, 2020 to Siham Bouamer (sbouamer@shsu.edu) and Denis Provencher (denisprovencher@email.arizona.edu)
Francopolyphonies: the Many Languages of the Francosphère. Multilingualism in literary and cultural production from the Francophone world. We welcome approaches to language politics looking beyond binary oppositions and toward unexpected entanglements. Send 250-word abstracts by March 6, 2020 to Tobias Warner (tdwarner@edu)
Extraction and African Literatures. Extractive economies (petrofiction, mining) in Francophone and Anglophone literary/cultural production and/or analytic approaches that rely on extraction (text-mining). Pre-1990 material welcome. Send 250-word abstracts and bio to Tobias Warner (tdwarner@ucdavis.edu ) and Stephanie Bosch Santana (sbsantana@humnet.ucla.edu by 15 March 2020.

1.8 Call for Papers: Conference on Environment and Identity in the Americas

University of Essex

10-11 September 2020

Keynote speakers: Professor Waskar Ari (University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA) and Professor Vinita Damodaran (University of Sussex)

Opening remarks: Professor Andrew Canessa (University of Essex)

This two-day interdisciplinary conference will bring together postgraduate and early career scholars working on environmental humanities in the Americas. The natural world has emerged as a lens by which to examine vital political, social and economic concerns. The notion of the environment as shaped by human forces is now a well established principle in environmental history. Rather than being timeless and static, scholars have shown that the environment has been actively shaped and repurposed over time by its human and non-human inhabitants (Cronon, 1983). At the same time, human relationships with the natural world have been powerfully mediated through the categories of class, race and gender. Others have pointed to the centrality of ecological domination in the rise of global capitalism in the Americas, understanding capitalism as a ‘world-ecological project’ (Moore, 2010).

But how to include also the non-human, or other-than human in historical and social enquiry? How has the concept of ‘nature’ changed over time? What can history inform us about the relationship between identity, politics and nature? This conference aims to interrogate and historicise the connections between the natural world and identity (ethnic, political, sexual, racial or other) in the Americas.

It therefore seeks contributions relating to, but not limited to:

Indigenous/afro-descendant peoples and the environment
Historical and contemporary struggles over land and resources in the Americas
Extractivism and (eco)imperialism in the Americas
The environment and the ontological turn
Cultural responses to the natural world in the Americas
Historicising nature and the non-human
Marxism, capitalism and nature
Feminist movements and the environment

The keynotes will be delivered by Professor Vinita Damodaran, a scholar in South Asian studies and environmental history, and Professor Waskar Ari, (University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA), an historian of indigenous movements in the Andes.

This two-day conference will take place at the University of Essex on September 10-11, 2020. We encourage submissions from scholars at all career stages and from all disciplines.

Please send abstracts of 250 words to EnvironmentConf2020@gmail.com by 13 March 2020 at the latest and include a brief bio in your email. Proposals are welcome in English, French, Spanish or Portuguese.

Principal organiser: Olivia Arigho-Stiles (University of Essex)

Key dates

CfP announcement: January 2020
Deadline for submissions: 13 March 2020
Programme announcement: May 2020
Conference: 10-11 September

Notes
Cronon, William. 1983. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. New York: Hill and Wang.

Moore, Jason. 2010. ‘“This lofty mountain of silver could conquer the whole world”: Potosí and the political ecology of underdevelopment, 1545-1800’, The Journal of Philosophical Economics, IV:1, 58-103

1.9 Call for Proposals: MHRA Working Papers in the Humanities 15

Echo

What is this face, less clear and clearer

The pulse in the arm, less strong and stronger —

Given or lent? more distant than stars and nearer than the eye

S. Eliot, ‘Marina’

Distanced, distorted, diminished: the echo represents an imperfect aftermath to communication. Yet it also denotes potential, a widening impact, an afterlife to the spoken (or written) word. With these central preoccupations of (mis)communication, resonance and legacy, the echo has become a recurrent metaphor and critical tool in literary studies. Such concerns hold obvious interest for modern linguists, and in the ever-expanding fields of translation studies and comparative literature. It is hoped that this issue of MHRA Working Papers in the Humanities will evidence the multifaceted meaning of the echo, as well as demonstrating the echoes which resonate between diverse cultures, languages and periods.

We encourage a creative and wide-ranging approach to the idea of the echo, to reflect the rich potential of the term. In T. S. Eliot’s ‘Marina’, the memory of the past is twinned with the echo of the self into the future via the relationship of parent and child. This echoing of the self is also pertinent to Joan W. Scott’s insightful term ‘fantasy echo’, whereby in her analysis women ascribe elements of themselves into the past to create a gendered cross-temporal identification. As a starting point, contributors may wish to engage with such concerns, and with other areas which may include but are not limited to:

Displaced Authorship/ Plurality in Authorial Voice
Memory and Trauma
Intergenerational Legacy
Translation/ Transnationality
Adaptation
Reception Theory and History
Comparative Literature
Cultural Studies / History
Gender Studies
Sociolinguistics
Postcolonialism
Cultural Discourse Studies
Environmental Humanities

We invite proposals covering a range of periods (from the medieval and Early Modern to the twenty-first century) and across different national contexts (including English-, French-, Germanic-, Hispanic-, Italian-, Portuguese-, and Slavonic-speaking cultures). We hope to attract scholars working in a variety of fields (Modern Languages, English Studies, Comparative Literature, Cultural History, Film and Media Studies and Digital Humanities, Art History, Performance and Reception History, and others).

MHRA Working Papers in the Humanities is an electronic open-access journal intended to allow researchers to present initial findings or hypotheses that might, at a later stage, be eligible for publication in established scholarly journals. As such it will be of particular interest to postgraduate researchers, although established scholars are also invited to submit papers.

We invite proposals for papers of up to 4000 words in MHRA style, with completed essays to be delivered to the editors by 3rd July 2020. Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be sent, accompanied by a short biographical statement on the same page, to postgrads@mhra.org.uk by 28th February 2020.

1.10 Call for Contributions: Transnational Popular Culture as a Catalyst for Social Change Workshops

Sheffield Hallam University, 22-23 June 2020

https://transnationalpopculture.weebly.com/

Call for Contributions

Changing minds changes lives. Popular culture has enormous discursive power which creates meaning through storytelling and performance, and can thus be used as a political tool for social change. Arts and Humanities put the human at the centre of analysis and provide a methodological framework for cultural, social and economic critique. These workshops aim to forge interdisciplinary links between those working in disparate disciplines such as Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences, Law, Health and Wellbeing. We will consider popular culture as a key mediator in the transnational understanding of power and a significant interlocutor in social change. If we consider popular culture one of the most influential agents of value construction, then cultural artefacts can be considered a powerful tool to guide viewers through the moral climate of their time, attesting to a collective process of working through social issues. Social and economic benefits of this research are instrumental as well as intrinsic. Raising awareness, creating knowledge and changing attitudes towards transnational cultures improves social and intellectual capital of individuals, social groups and organisations. Brexit and its aftermath make this knowledge creation a strategic imperative for the country.

The Creativity and Culture Research Institute at Sheffield Hallam University is renowned for its world-leading research and thus provides the ideal context. The workshops are run by the following colleagues:

Esther Johnson, https://www.shu.ac.uk/about-us/our-people/staff-profiles/esther-johnson

Anja Louis, https://www.shu.ac.uk/about-us/our-people/staff-profiles/anja-louis

Ana-Maria Sanchez, https://www.shu.ac.uk/about-us/our-people/staff-profiles/ana-maria-sanchez-arce

Amy Wigelsworth, https://www.shu.ac.uk/about-us/our-people/staff-profiles/amy-wigelsworth

The workshops will cover all forms of Popular Culture (e.g. comics, fiction, film, performing arts, and television) Themes may include but should not be limited to:

Globalisation
Health
Identity politics
Interculturality
News Media
Migration
Multiculturalism
Neoliberalism
Otherness and Othering (BAME, disability, gender, LGBTQ+)
Place-making
Postcolonialism
Security

Organiser:

Dr Anja Louis, Reader in Cultural and Intercultural Studies, Languages and Cultures, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield S1 1WB, a.louis@shu.ac.uk

Workshop Formats

Audio-visual presentations (e.g. short film or film clips with Q&A). Please indicate the screening length. We aim to programme a couple of 1-hour slots dedicated to audiovisual presentations. We suggest a screening limit of 30 minutes.

Individual presentations

A 20-minute presentation by an individual author, with 10-min for Q&A

Panel presentation

Three thematically connected papers. All contributions consist of a 20-minutes presentation by the authors, with an extra 30-minute slot allocated for discussion at the end.

Round tables (innovative formats are welcomed).

The usual format is 3 speakers with 10 minutes each, and 30 minutes Q&A.

Posters A0-size academic posters, which will be displayed during a dedicated poster session. Please note that posters should be printed by individual contributors.

Proposals should include an abstract under 350 words and a bio of no more than 100 words. Panel proposals (three papers) should combine the abstracts and bios of speakers in one document, and should also include a short rationale and panel title. Poster proposals should include an abstract of no more than 250 words and a 100-words speaker bio.

All proposals should be submitted to the organiser: a.louis@shu.ac.uk .

Deadline: 29 March 2020

1.11 Call for Proposals: “Taking up Space”: Womxn at Work in Contemporary France

Call for papers for an edited volume (We have received initial interest from an academic press)

Deadline for article proposal: 1 March 2020

Edited by Siham Bouamer (Sam Houston State University) and Sonja Stojanovic (The University of Notre Dame)

In France, the second half of the 20th century heralds major developments for womxn’s rights: from the right to vote in 1944 to reproductive rights—birth control, 1967; abortion, 1975. France is one of the first countries to declare “à travail égal, salaire égal” [equal pay for equal work] in 1946 (International Labour Organization), and inscribes equality as a fundamental human right in the Préambule de la Constitution du 27 octobre 1946. However, more than seventy years later, there is still a lot to be achieved when it comes to matters of accessibility, diversity, inclusivity, as well as regarding issues of career advancement, equal pay, sexual harassment in the workplace, and precarious labor, to name a few.

While several recent studies have focused on historico-sociological frameworks to approach this topic (Un siècle de travail des femmes en France: 1901-2011; Categories In Context: Gender and Work in France and Germany, 1900–Present), a focus on the representations in contemporary cultural productions of womxn’s experiences at work is certainly timely and complementary. We are particularly interested in contributions which allow for a reflection on the question of space as it relates to work or the workplace, be it the factory, the boardroom or the street.

In her book Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others (2006), Sara Ahmed explores, in a phenomenological tradition, the positionality of the body in space, time, and the everyday life. More specifically, she questions “how we inhabit spaces as well as “who” or “what” we inhabit spaces with” (p. 1). Within that framework, she examines how non-normative bodies orient themselves towards certain objects in “spaces [that] are already occupied” (p. 62). Such dynamic, explains Ahmed “involves hard work […] [and] painstaking labor for bodies to inhabit spaces that do not extend their shape” (p. 62). Expanding on Ahmed’s lexical use of labor, it is the aim of this volume to inquire how womxn have “take[n] up spaces” in the workplace since 1945. Contributors will examine how the depiction of womxn in cultural productions—which include, but are not limited to works in literature, cinema, and art—take on the “task […] to recall their [womxn] histories of their arrival, and how this history opens up spaces for others that have yet to be cleared” (p. 62).

This volume will include contributions that analyze texts (broadly understood) bridging several areas of inquiry and blurring disciplinary boundaries, as well as contributions on single works of art or of fiction. We invite papers (of no more than 6000 words) from a variety of disciplines (literary studies, history, sociology, film studies, gender studies, philosophy, queer theory, art). We welcome contributions located at the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality, and on, but not limited to, any of the following topics:

Affective/Emotional labor Activism and/at work Digital labor
Disability

Equal pay

Glass ceiling / cliff
Harassment (#MeToo / #Balancetonporc / #TimesUp) Invisibility / hypervisibility
Immigration / migration
Precarious labor
Power relations
Reproductive labor
LGBTQIA+
Unemployment
Women of color and work
Work/life balance

Abstracts in English of no more than 250 words, along with a short biography, should be submitted to both Dr. Siham Bouamer (sbouamer@shsu.edu) and Dr. Sonja Stojanovic (sonja_stojanovic@nd.edu) by 1 March 2020.

1.12 Call for Papers: Postcolonial Realms of Memory: Sites and Symbols in the Modern Francosphere

Winthrop-King Institute for Contemporary French and Francophone Studies
International conference

8-9 October 2020

Call for papers

Invited speakers:

Étienne Achille (Villanova University)
Charles Forsdick (University of Liverpool)
Lydie Moudileno (University of Southern California)
Debarati Sanyal (University of California, Berkeley)
Hue-Tam Ho Tai (Harvard University)
Robert Young (New York University)

Recognized as one of the most influential studies of memory in the late twentieth century, Pierre Nora’s monumental project Les Lieux de mémoire has been celebrated for its elaboration of a ground-breaking paradigm for rethinking the relationship between the nation, territory, history and memory. It has also, however, been criticized for implying a narrow perception of national memory from which the legacy of colonialism was excluded.

Driven by an increasingly critical postcolonial discourse on French historiography and fueled by the will to acknowledge the relevance of the colonial in the making of modern and contemporary France, the volume Postcolonial Realms of Memory: Sites and Symbols in Modern France (Liverpool, 2020) addresses in a collective and sustained manner this critical gap by postcolonializing the French Republic’s lieux de mémoire. The various chapters discern and explore an initial repertoire of realms and sites in France and the so-called Outremer that crystalize traces of colonial memory, while highlighting its inherent dialectical relationship with firmly instituted national memory.

This conference seeks to consolidate and diversify further the volume’s work in making visible the thread that links the colonial to various manifestations of French heritage. The objective is to bring into sharp focus the ways in which the colonial aspect is inextricably intertwined with collective memory, and in particular to consider lieux de mémoire that are not covered in the volume, but which are also important parts of the network of sites and memories that have often been silenced by French national memory.

We therefore invite proposals for papers that share the volume’s intention to expand and rethink notions of French collective memory, and that additionally engage with the theme as it appears in colonial and postcolonial sites in the wider Francosphere.

Please submit your proposal by 30 April 2020: https://winthropking.fsu.edu/event/postcolonial-realms-memory-sites-and-symbols-modern-francosphere

1.13 Call for Papers: University of Portsmouth Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Postgraduate Study Half Day 2020

6 May 2020 – Milldam Building, University of Portsmouth

Keynote: Dr Alison Carrol, Brunel University London

Where dominant groups form in particular places and they start to define their own coherent identity, borders may be imagined as a demarcation line between distinct communities. Yet in reality, borders are not ‘natural’, their meanings are constructed, and they are often hotly contested. For example, dominant powers have historically drawn up borders arbitrarily to divide and bound annexed, conquered and colonised societies, of which complicated legacies persist. The contemporary implications of these legacies tend to be a quite macro discussion, of which bottom-up perspectives are missing.

Crucially, many scholars today emphasise the importance of peripheral agency in alternative understandings of how borders are (de)constructed, not only by national actors, but also by regional, international and transnational ones. The theme of agency is key to researchers who consider how local populations live with, understand, transgress, and make borders meaningful, as well as changes of opinion over time. New case studies in different spatial and relational contexts on cross-frontier exchanges, networks, transfers, and relationships are particularly useful for offering insight into how borders can be understood as both points of contact and conflict (Carrol, 2018).

Whilst physical geographical borders have recently sparked political debates about immigration and the right to belong, simultaneously the internal construction of invisible cultural barricades imagined along cultural, racial, gendered and religious lines have been critically analysed by scholars.

This study day seeks to bring together postgraduate students who are interested in borders, both real and imagined. We encourage proposals that interpret ‘borders’ as widely as possible. We invite abstracts for 20-minute papers in English that include, but are not limited to, history and society, literature, politics, linguistics, film and visual cultures, philosophy, critical theory, and other disciplines, as well as interdisciplinary approaches.

Suggested topics include but are not limited to:

Disciplinary barriers
Periphery vs Centre
Myths and ‘reality’
Grassroot activism and Elite policy
Trauma, neurodivergence, bodily restraints
Death, silence, taboos
Exile and refugees
Buildings, objects and sites
Gender and Sexuality
Footnotes to history
Power and Revolution
Security, terrorism and war zones
Area Studies
Language, discourse(s) and translation
La Francophonie, beyond the Hexagone
(Post)colonialism, (de)colonialism, race
Nationalism, Multiculturalism
Forgotten histories, disconnected pasts
Limits and Liminality
Ordinary and Extraordinary
Transcending and Transforming
Containment and contestation
Integration and exclusion
Belonging and Dissociation
Closure and conflict
Intervention and Interpretation
Threshold of tolerance
Revision and relocation
Intercultural crossroads
Subversion and Resistance
Boundary-thinking, Boundary-breaking
Master Narratives, Vernacular Voices
Acts of memory/le devoir de mémoire
Institutions, spaces and places
Competitive/ irreconcilable narratives

Abstracts of no more than 300 words, in English, should be sent to BordersatPortsmouth@gmail.com. Submissions should be received by 9:00 AM UK time on Friday 20^th March 2020.

The Study Half Day provides an opportunity for MA and MSc students to engage with PhD students and senior academics from other institutions. It is generously funded by the Graduate School at the University of Portsmouth and is supported logistically by our hosts at the School of Area Studies, History, Politics and Literature. Attendance is free. Travel reimbursement will be made available for speakers. All conference venues are fully accessible, and we are very happy to discuss particular needs that participants might have and how we can best accommodate these.

Organising Committee: Antony Horne, Dieunedort Wandji, Megan Ison and Patience Monhovo.

1.14 Call for Papers: Connecting Memories Research Initiative. 2020 Symposium with Postgraduate Masterclass

Monday June 29th 2020

University of Edinburgh

Keynote Speaker: Prof Astrid Erll, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

It has been convincingly argued that thinking seriously about memory means considering it as a wide-ranging multidisciplinary concept. Memory has been called ‘a genuinely transdisciplinary phenomenon’ and memory studies a ‘field of convergence’ that demands an ‘integrative’ approach to memory based on a responsive awareness of how different disciplines understand the term (Erll 2011). The diversity of work being done in ‘memory studies’ contributes a large part of what makes it an exciting and accommodating field but also one that can be disorientingly and dauntingly expansive. Endowing ‘memory’ with an almost all-encompassing breadth can constitute a liberation enabling otherwise impossible insights, but also risks rendering the term meaningless. For scholars working on any of its different aspects, specifying precisely what memory means in the context of one’s own research and situating oneself within the wide field of other work being done on memory are essential but formidable tasks.

Seeking to encourage students and scholars to reflect on their own methods, this Connecting Memories event will expose delegates to a multitude of approaches to memory and foster a discussion about the transdisciplinarity of memory. The day will comprise of a series of sessions in which speakers, each with the aid of a poster, concisely present their research and methods. In addition, as well as giving a keynote lecture, leading memory studies scholar Professor Astrid Erll (Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt a. M.) will host a ‘masterclass’ for postgraduate students exploring the transdisciplinarity of memory and the usefulness of interdisciplinary research methods.

Refreshment breaks throughout the day as well as lunch and a symposium dinner in the evening – all free of charge for registered delegates – will provide plentiful opportunities for informal discussions and networking. There is no conference fee and we are delighted too to be able to offer a large number of travel bursaries, applications for which will be open to all speakers as well as all postgraduate attendees studying at Scottish HEIs.

We are grateful to the Scottish Graduate School for the Arts and Humanities (SGSAH) for their generous support with this event.

We welcome proposals for 5-minute micro-presentations from PG students, ECRs and established academics. These should be submitted by 1st April 2020 to info@connectingmemories.org as a max. 200-word abstract in English as well as a short bio.

1.15 Call for Papers/Appel à communications: Queer Faith: Marginalization, Citizenship, and Nationhood / La foi et le queer : marginalisation, citoyenneté et nationalisme en contexte minoritaire

University of Chicago Center in Paris, 6 rue Thomas Mann, 75013 Paris

10 April 2020

Queer people who are members of minority religious groups must often navigate marginalizations from multiple angles. Those perceived as members of minority religious groups face an increasing wave of bigotry, manifested in the transnational right wing’s string of victories in recent years. For example, in the West, a racialized Muslim, immigrant other has been central to the justification of extremist positions, such as Donald Trump’s and Geert Wilders’ proposed “Muslim bans” and Marine Le Pen’s proposed moratorium on both illegal and legal immigration. The mainstreaming of racist, anti-immigrant discourses and policies in the political sphere has affected the everyday lives of visible religious minorities across the West.

In addition to race- and religion-based discrimination and violence, the marginalization of queer people in minority religious groups is often compounded by queerphobic rejection from their ethno-religious social groups and broader society. The pervasiveness of queerphobic attitudes in minority ethnic and religious communities—manifested recently in the highly publicized Birmingham protests against LGBT-inclusive education and the “Journées de retrait de l’école” strikes in France—makes it all the more difficult for queer members of these groups to navigate their seemingly competing identities. Moreover, religious and counter-normative gender and sexual identities are often specifically pitted against each other in both religious and political hegemonic national and transnational discourses.

With these issues in mind, this symposium aims to build upon recent developments in emerging literature on the intersection of queer and religious identities, with a particular focus on marginalization, citizenship, and the nation. Proposed papers may respond to the following questions, or other related areas of interest:

How are queer minority religious identities constructed and negotiated? How might homonationalist and exclusionary narratives influence this process?
How might different national understandings of citizenship shape subjectivities and feelings of belonging among queer people who are members of minority religious groups?
How might religion and queerness interact and shape one another in minority contexts?
How do national ideals of multiculturalism and secularism determine who can publicly speak for minority religious communities, queer communities, and those with intersecting identities?

We welcome submissions in English or French, from researchers of diverse disciplinary backgrounds studying queer and religious identities. Submissions should have a focus on marginalization, citizenship, othering, or the nation. There is no regional or temporal requirement.

Proposals should be submitted no later than 4 March 2020 to queerfaith.submissions@gmail.com. Submissions should include the title of your paper, your name and university affiliation, and an abstract of no more than 500 words.

1.16 Call for Contributions: MLA volume on teaching emotions in world literatures

Emotions in World Literature

Long limited to the social sciences, the study of emotions has gradually picked up in the humanities and in literary studies. A good instance of this focus is the special topic issue of PMLA entitled Emotions. Moreover, numerous panels devoted to emotion studies have become increasingly visible in major conferences, including the MLA convention.

Literature, film, media, and languages play a crucial role in the dissemination and representation of emotions. The depiction of emotions cannot be dissociated from the cultural grammars and narrative frameworks disseminated by cultural works. The emotion known as love, for instance, presents the advantage of being a concept that is largely understood throughout languages, cultures, and centuries, as everybody can approximate its meaning. Its interpretation and representation, however, vary widely across culture and centuries and offer various multilayered narratives that can be the loci of scholarly focus. Love in an eighteenth-century romance, in a twentieth-century Urdu tragedy, or from the point of view of an ASL practitioner may carry the same input yet would not share the same emotional charge. Indeed, emotions cannot be separated from social, historical, cultural, and linguistic practices. How an emotion is performed at a linguistic and cultural level is contingent upon a network of societal conventions that allow for individual and collective modes of adherence or, on the contrary, contestation of such norms.

Although it can be argued that the study of emotions in cultural works can be traced back to antiquity (for instance, the works of Aristotle), recent pathbreaking theorizations of emotions by historians and cultural critics enable us to conceptualize emotion studies as a distinctive field of knowledge. Historians such as Barbara Rosenwein and William Reddy have referred to emotions as speech acts that follow particular social scripts and translate personal or group reactions to a wide range of external stimuli. Therefore, emotions are real identity makers that allow divergent socioeconomic categories to perform their identity by belonging to what Rosenwein calls “emotional communities.” Literary historians, in turn, complicated this model while retaining the idea that emotions are performed through social scripts. The latter, as Sarah McNamer has recently pointed out, lead to a “performance of feelings.” At the core of this performance is the existence of what McNamer calls an “affective stylistics,” a set of formal textual features that generate a certain range of emotions in the audience. Cultural theorists such as Sianne Ngai and Sara Ahmed have linked emotions to everyday modes of production, circulation, and consumption. Emotions, underscores Ahmed, are circumscribed on the surface of the bodies, and they “stick,” They circulate between the bodies and, thus, produce subjectivities that disrupt or reconfigure a certain status quo. Moreover, as Ngai underlines, such circulation of emotions is symptomatic of social dynamics and of modes of personal and collective forms of vulnerability and agency.

Building on the signposts of scholarship on emotions mentioned above, this volume invites contributions that look at emotions in their literariness, as identity makers, or as embedded in different affective circuits of productions and consumption. Because emotions are experienced corporeally and performed culturally, their study allows bridging traditionally disparate fields and domains of study ranging from neurosciences and social sciences to the humanities. Moreover, the ingrained interdisciplinarity of emotion studies calls for approaches than can make teaching and research accessible to an audience that might not have been otherwise aware of how their own pedagogic and scholarly interests could properly be housed in traditional humanistic disciplines. As of late, diverse fields such as natural sciences, business, and engineering have become places that have welcomed new fields of studies for the humanities and, particularly, languages, where disciplines like professional languages have garnered a diversity of approaches.

Such heuristic flexibility makes emotion studies potent pedagogic tools adaptable to a curriculum that must be academically rigorous and, at the same time, ethically compatible to the needs of a diverse student population. The aim of this volume is, therefore, to translate the theoretical and interdisciplinary perspectives enumerated above to the space of an inclusive classroom.

We invite papers that engage one or several of the suggested approaches:

Different emotional vocabularies that lead to the formation of “emotional communities” in an upper-division literature class, for instance, as opposed to an instructional class in the target language or a composition class designed for first-year students.

Possible pedagogical techniques and sources that allow students to identify and analyze a certain “affective stylistics” embedded in a canonic or lesser-known text.

Sources that expose students to transhistorical and diachronic definitions of emotions: from the Stoic passio and Christian affectus to modern emotions.

Case studies of analyzing particular emotions or emotional conglomerates (hate, fear, joy, compassion, happiness, etc.) in lower- and upper-division and graduate classes taught in English or the target language.

Types of methodological approaches in the study of emotions and modalities of tackling them in different types of classes ranging from graduate seminars and upper-division classes in the field of literary, visual, or media studies to TESOL and second language acquisition and expository writing classes.

Emotional lexicons that allow students and instructors from diverse socioeconomic, sexual, and racial backgrounds to articulate certain identity questions and to influence the teaching of particular emotional practices. How can the study of emotions help students gain a sense of community? How can these activities develop a stronger bond between students and faculty members and their environment and type of institutional affiliation?

Emotional scripts in nonwritten languages such as ASL.

Presentation of interdisciplinary projects and digital archives for the study of emotions.

Please submit a 350–400-word abstract and a short biography (100–150 words) to both Andreea Marculescu (andreea.marculescu@ou.edu) and Charles-Louis Morand-Métivier (cmorandm@uvm.edu) by 15 April 2020.

1.17 Call for papers: New approaches to the history of soft power in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

At the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Dates: 10-11 December 2020

Organisers:

Dr Sylvia Dümmer Scheel (Conicyt post-doctoral fellow, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile)

Dr Charlotte Faucher (British Academy post-doctoral fellow, University of Manchester)

Dr Camila Gatica Mizala (Conicyt post-doctoral fellow, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile)

Scholars of modern foreign and international relations are giving increasing attention to the role of culture, education, propaganda, and public relations in diplomacy. Thirty years after the publication of Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power, in which Joseph Nye coined the phrase ‘soft power’, the field of soft power has grown to incorporate emotions (Gienow-Hecht 2009), the role of crowds and performance (Goeschel 2016; Mort 2017), and “sport diplomacy” (Blaschke 2016) amongst other important elements. In addition historians have been approaching cultural diplomacy not only through foreign policy analysis, but also through a cultural history of the field (Mori 2011; see also the series of international workshops organised by Mort, Goeschel, and Tunstall Allcock at the University of Manchester and the Institute of Historical Research, London in 2016-2018). Invigorated by transnationalism, scholars have paid attention to the role of religious orders, academics, and migrants in shaping soft power (Sarah Curtis 2016; Tronchet 2014). While there has been an increased scholarly interest in the role of internationalism in modern public diplomacy (Iriye 1997), historians of soft power continue to make significant contributions to our understanding of nationalism and the making of modern states: studying cultural and public diplomacies is a particularly fruitful way to understand how nations, states, and communities viewed themselves and were constructed, not just ideologically, but socially and administratively.

The study of soft power in the modern period is unequal, with much attention understandably paid to the Cold War when culture offered a surrogate for damaged and blocked political dialogues. But practices that aimed at promoting a nation abroad were not invented after the Second World War, nor were they inexistent before then. Some historians have traced their origins back to the nineteenth century with the formation of nation states (in Europe) and the growth of ministries of foreign affairs. In addition, the historiography has largely omitted soft power policies produced by and targeting so called “periphery countries”. Therefore, much remains to be written if we are to fully appreciate the history of soft power and its associated key concepts (public and cultural diplomacy, propaganda, publicity, promotion, oeuvres -in the French context, public relations) and the multiplicity of meanings with which these ideas and practices were endowed globally throughout the modern period.

We are inviting scholars to re-assess historical studies of soft power (including in the fields of cultural diplomacy, public diplomacy, and propaganda) and suggest ways in which this area of study can move forward over the next decade.

We particularly invite contributions on the following themes:

– Strategies for prestige-building in modern international relations

– Writing a cultural history of diplomacy

– The role of material culture in soft power

– The environment, design, and architecture of soft power

– Methodologies and chronologies of soft power

– Agents of soft-power and their identities

– The globalization of soft power

– Early and/or peripheral experiences of soft power

– Transnational transfer of knowledges and models of public diplomacy

– The audiences of soft power (foreign or domestic audiences, diaspora…)

– Soft power and identities

– The relevance of the distinction between soft and hard power

The conference will take place at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and is co-organised by a team of researchers based in Chile and the United Kingdom who are keen to bring together scholars from the Americas and beyond. We expect to organise a follow up workshop on soft power in the world which is scheduled to take place in Britain in 2021. During this second event, there will also be an opportunity for historians to exchange with practitioners of cultural and public diplomacy.

We are pleased to be able to host international researchers working on soft power in Chile. This country is often overlooked in global studies of modern soft power, and considering that we particularly welcome speakers whose research focuses on peripheries of soft power this location is all the more meaningful to us.

This two-day workshop invites scholars at all stages of their careers, working on nineteenth and twentieth century history to reflect on soft power in relation to their research, but also to ask new questions which can help the field move in fresh directions. Selected participants will present a twenty-minute paper (day 1) followed by participation in a round table about specific methodological and conceptual issues which they have been facing in their research (day 2). We hope that this format will allow all presenters to receive relevant and valuable feedback as well as forge fruitful connections with colleagues working on soft power. The working languages of the workshop will be Spanish and English. We appreciate that not all participants will be bilingual, we will ask presenters to share a draft version of their paper one week before the workshop, hoping that advanced copies of contributions will facilitate debates during conference. For the round tables (day 2), we will provide informal interpretation so that anglophone and hispanophone scholars can exchange ideas.

In light of the climate emergency, we want to underline that we will consider paper proposals from participants who wish to attend by video call and are available during both days of the conference. We are planning to live-stream day 2 of the conference (via facebook live or an alternative) so that scholars who join us remotely on day 1, as well as other scholars interested in the topic and the general public can contribute to the debate. Please do mention if you wish to contribute via video call on your application.

Each proposal should comprise a paper title, abstract of 400 words, and a one-page CV in a single PDF or MS Word file.

Submissions should be emailed to sftpwrconf@gmail.com and queries should also be directed to this email address.

While we cannot guarantee it at this stage, we hope to have some funds to cover travel and accommodation expenses of PhD students and early career researchers who will present at the conference.

The deadline for abstracts is 15 May 2020 and applicants will be contacted shortly afterwards.

2. Job and Scholarship Opportunities

2.1 NEW JOB OPPORTUNITY: Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Decolonising Screen Worlds

We are excited to welcome applications for the ERC-funded role Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Decolonising Screen Worlds within SOAS’s School of Arts.

Key Details

Salary: £37,614.50 per annum inclusive of London Allowance

Full time (35 hours per week)

This post is fixed-term for 2 years – from August 2020

The role and its responsibilities

The ‘Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Decolonising Screen Worlds’ will join our new ERC-funded project Screen Worlds: Decolonising Film and Screen Studies full time for two years. They will be responsible for co-leading Case Study 3 (“Decolonising Film and Screen Studies”) with the Principal Investigator. They will be responsible for the following deliverables: making a 30-minute documentary film and six, short audio-visual essays related to the topic of “decolonising screen worlds”; researching and publishing two journal articles; assisting the PI in editing the volume Decolonising Film and Screen Studies; and working with the Screen Worlds team to develop and distribute our “Decolonising Film and Screen Studies” toolkits. Beyond this, the Postdoctoral Research Fellow may be expected to help to disseminate the results of the research at related workshops, conferences, film festivals, and through online media dissemination on the project website and elsewhere. They need to support the PI in realising the overall vision for the project and show creativity and initiative.

Skills and experience

The successful candidate must have a PhD in a related field, or be very close to completion of a PhD in a related field (i.e. film/screen studies, with a strong practice element). The candidate needs to have a deep knowledge of decolonising theories and to show engagement with current decolonising debates and movements. Excellent filmmaking skills, and communication skills in general, are vital. Discipline, creativity, a team-player attitude, and a commitment to the goals of the “Screen Worlds” project are very important.

Competitive benefits package

As an employer of choice SOAS offers an extensive benefits package including:

30 days holiday plus bank holidays and additional School closure days (pro rata for part time staff)

Pension scheme with generous employer contribution

Various loan schemes including season ticket and IT equipment

Cycle to Work Scheme

Enhanced Maternity, Paternity and Adoption Pay provisions, childcare voucher scheme, financial support for childcare

About the School of Arts

SOAS’s School of Arts is a world-leading centre for study and research involving visual and sound arts, material and intangible cultures, media industries and digital cultures of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and their global diasporas. There are many arts degrees available bringing together scholars and students from three units at SOAS: the Department of the History of Art & Archaeology (HAA), the Department of Music and the Centre for English Studies. The School of Arts also hosts the Centre for Creative Industries, Media and Screen Studies. It is a unique concentration of experts, with some thirty full-time academic staff members, unsurpassed in scale and reach by any other institution or university worldwide.

How to apply:

If you are interested in applying for this vacancy, please complete the short online application form and attach you CV and Personal Statement. Further information can be found in the Job Description and Person Specification, along with a full list of duties and responsibilities.

Closing date: Monday, 20 April 2020

Completed applications must be received by 23:59 on the closing date to be considered.

Interviews will provisionally be held Early May 2020.

If you have any questions or require any assistance with regard to the application process, please contact hr-recruitment@soas.ac.uk

2.2 One-year postdoctoral position, University of Nottingham

The University of Nottingham is seeking a PhD-qualified candidate with an interest in post-1800 health, gender literature and/or social history for a post on its AHRC-funded ‘Florence Nightingale Comes Home’ project. For more details see https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BYH370/research-fellow-fixed-term-part-time

2.3 Job announcement: Dean in the School of Histories, Languages and Cultures, University of Liverpool

Closing date: 24-Feb-2020

The School of Histories, Languages & Cultures comprises 5 departments: Archaeology, Classics & Egyptology, History, Irish Studies, Modern Languages & Cultures and Politics. The Dean will provide strategic direction and leadership for staff based within the School, ensuring the achievement of our strategic priorities. The role will encompass a key strategic focus and influence in leading and driving School-wide activity. You will be expected to demonstrate academic leadership at both Faculty and University level by providing senior level contribution to Faculty and University projects and to the achievement of the University’s Strategy 2026.

You will possess significant leadership experience, project management and people management skills at a strategic level, gained via successful performance in a similar role and/or via demonstrable achievements in a Professorial leadership role. The ability to develop, implement and measure achievement of academic and business plans, including financial and budgetary control, along with a highly developed awareness of the national and international factors which impact on the University and how this affects strategy, policy and day-to-day business will be essential. You will chair the School Management Team and will play an active role in the Faculty Management Team.

Applications from Modern Linguists very welcome.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/unijobs/listing/194443/dean-of-the-school-of-histories-languages-and-cultures/

2.4 JOB: Director of the Institute of Modern Languages Research

INSTITUTE OF MODERN LANGUAGES RESEARCH

School of Advanced Study • University of London

https://www.jobs.london.ac.uk/displayjob.aspx?jobid=1641

Applications are invited for the full-time post of Director of the Institute of Modern Languages Research. The post is open to a person with expertise in any area of Modern Languages (which, in this context, does not include specialist linguistics).

The School seeks someone of outstanding academic stature who will command respect across the Modern Languages community and the humanities as a whole. S/he will bring significant leadership qualities, be able to work comfortably and creatively with others and set an agenda for the next decade enhancing the work of the Institute nationally and internationally.

Reporting to the Dean and Chief Executive of the School of Advanced Study (SAS), the Director will provide high-level strategic and managerial leadership for the Institute and contribute to that of the School as a whole. The Director will be expected to enhance SAS’s work in the priority areas as well as its work in Modern Languages. S/he will be a capable and experienced manager of people and budgets and be able to deliver forward-looking initiatives.

Anyone considering applying who would like to discover more about the role can contact the Dean, Professor Rick Rylance, or Deputy Dean, Professor Jo Fox, for an informal discussion. An appointment can be made through Lydia Charles (lydia.charles@sas.ac.uk).

The appointment is offered as either a substantive permanent appointment with the University of London or a secondment for five years to the role of Director of the Institute of Modern Languages Research (renewable).

The successful candidate will have the opportunity to be considered for a Pro-Dean appointment. The School of Advanced Study has a number of Pro-Deans who represent particular areas of the School’s work across its Institutes and Libraries and lead their development. These include the Senate House and SAS Libraries; research strategy; and postgraduate work. Pro-Deans have responsibility for enabling strategic cohesion across the areas they represent.

Further Information

To be considered for this opportunity, please submit your CV and cover letter (by clicking ‘apply for job’ at the bottom of the advert page linked to above) before the closing date at midnight on Friday, 17 April 2020. Further details of the position are available on the advert page.

Interviews will be taking place on Thursday, 14 May 2020.

2.5 Le Centre d’histoire de Sciences Po recrute trois post-doctorants spécialistes de l’histoire de l’Afrique du Nord et de la Méditerranée

Le Centre d’histoire de Sciences Po recrute, dans le cadre de l’ERC “SLAVEVOICES” de M’hamed Oualdi, trois post-doctorants spécialistes de l’histoire de l’Afrique du Nord et de la Méditerranée.

The Centre for History at Sciences Po recruits

a postdoctoral researcher in the history of modern North Africa and the Mediterranean, with an interest in the history of the end of slavery in Italyand North Africa from the mid-18th century to the 1930s.
a postdoctoral researcher in the history of modern North Africa and the Mediterranean, with an interest in the history of the end of slavery in Moroccofrom the mid-18th century to the 1940s.
a postdoctoral researcher in the history of modern North Africa and the Mediterranean, with an interest in the history of the end of slavery in Spainand France from the mid-18th century to the 1930s.

See below for further details:

http://www.sciencespo.fr/departement-histoire/content/le-centre-dhistoire-de-sciences-po-recrute-trois-post-doctorants

2.6 Short-term Visiting Scholar Research Grant: French Political Economy (Stanford Libraries)

Stanford University Libraries is accepting applications for a short-term research fellowship for scholars wishing to use the Gustave Gimon Collection on French Political Economy, held in the Libraries’ Special Collections department. The Libraries annually awards stipends of $3000-$5000 (depending on the length of visit, expected to last from 2 to 4 weeks) in support of research in the collections. The funds can be used to defray the costs for travel, lodging, food, and other expenses associated with the recipient’s research trip. This fellowship program is funded by a grant from the Flora Family Foundation.

The current application deadline is March 15, 2020. The fellowship can be used September 2020 to August 2021. The scholar should plan on visiting while the university is in session so that he or she can meet with Stanford faculty and students.

Scholars working on serious projects about French political economy may apply, including advanced graduate students at the dissertation phase of their study. Selection criteria include the relevance of Gimon Collection to the candidate’s project, the contribution that the finished work will make to our understanding of French political economy, and the applicant’s qualifications. The library encourages potential applicants to contact the curator, Sarah Sussman, for more information about the scope and contents of the collection.

There is no application form. Interested researchers are encouraged to send in a detailed project proposal of no more than 1000 words clearly stating why materials in the Gimon Collection are essential to carrying out the research project, two letters of recommendation from scholars in the field, and a CV.

Proposals are to be sent by April 1, 2020 to the curator Sarah Sussman ssussman@stanford.edu

About the Gimon Collection on French Political Economy

The Gustave Gimon Collection on French Political Economy contains approximately 1000 titles that concentrate broadly on the evolution of French economics and politics from the late sixteenth to the mid nineteenth century. Because the Gimon Collection embodies a broad definition of political economy and because its materials span the three centuries from 1550-1850, scholars working in fields as varied as History, Literature, Art History, Economics, and Philosophy are invited to apply for an opportunity to work in the collection. The collection is particularly strong in material from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Topics of focus include Physiocracy, nineteenth century utopian thought (Saint-Simonianism and Fourierism), workers’ rights, and how economic, social, and political thought was applied to issues as varied as religious freedom, political sovereignty, taxation and trade policies, colonial issues, agriculture, and transportation. The scholar will also be able to use other materials held in Stanford Libraries, which contain rich holdings of French historical works.

Bibliography of the Collection

For more information about Stanford University Libraries: http://library.stanford.edu/

For more information contact: Sarah Sussman ssussman@stanford.edu 650-723-9481

2.7 Aston University LSS PhD studentship competition 2020

The School of Languages and Social Sciences (LSS) invites applications for up to three fully-funded PhD studentships from strong candidates in any of the research areas covered by the School. The studentships are for full-time study over three years, commencing in October 2020.

LSS is a multi-disciplinary research-focused School which brings together researchers in the areas of Languages (French, German, Spanish), Translation Studies, History, Politics and International Relations, Sociology and Policy, and English. Further information on the School’s research areas can be found here.

1 October 2020 start date with completion date of 30 September 2023

Financial Support

Will be provided to the successful applicant to cover the Home/EU fees rate £4,327 in academic year 2019/20) plus a maintenance grant at the standard AHRC/ESRC rate (currently £15,009) with the corresponding standard increases in subsequent years. Applicants from outside the EU may apply for these studentships but will need to pay the difference between the ‘Home/EU’ and the ‘Overseas’ tuition fees (Overseas tuition fees are £13,650 in academic year 2019/0 so the difference to pay will be in the region of £10,682 per year).

Person Specification

The successful applicant should have a first class or good upper second class honours degree or equivalent qualification in a relevant subject area. They should have, or be near to completing, a postgraduate qualification such as a Masters or equivalent. An overall merit grade with merit in the dissertation is normally required.

Applications

Apply by completing the Postgraduate research application form including:

A substantial outline of your proposed research (see below).
2 written references
Photocopies of your first and Masters degree certificates and a transcript of your grades
Evidence of an approved English language qualification (if required)

In addition to this information applicants must also submit a statement of maximum 500 words signed by themselves and their proposed supervisor outlining:

Academic strengths of the candidate
Quality of the proposed project
Fit between the project and the expertise of the supervisory team

Please find the form template here. This statement must be emailed to mailto:lss_research@aston.ac.uk before the deadline.

Deadline

Applications must be submitted by Monday 16 March 2020

2.8 Three-year Scholarship to Undertake a Ph.D. at Trinity College Dublin

Trinity’s Department of French is currently offering a research scholarship known as the Pichois Award for a suitable candidate holding a first-class or II.1 Honours Degree in French (or equivalent) and having a research project within the area of nineteenth and/or twentieth-century French Literature. The three-year award covers EU fees and subsistence costs of €16,000 per annum.

HOW TO APPLY

Prospective candidates are invited to consult the Department’s research areas (https://www.tcd.ie/French/people/), select a potential supervisor, and direct initial enquiries to the specific member of staff and then to the Head of Department, providing a full CV and an outline of the research project envisaged.

The research proposal (maximum three pages) should include: aims and objectives, status of research in terms of the project’s central research questions, the proposed methodology, and compatibility of the project with the host institution (supervisor, research facilities, etc.).

Although there are no closing dates for applications for higher degrees by research, there are only two registration periods (September and March). Applicants are advised to apply as early as possible prior to their chosen registration period as supervisory capacity may be limited.

THE FRENCH DEPARTMENT AT TRINITY

The Department of French at Trinity College Dublin has a long and distinguished tradition in the fostering and promoting of doctoral research.

The Department offers PhD supervision in a wide range of areas of French, notably Medieval and Renaissance Literature, History and Ideas; Enlightenment History, Literature and Culture; French Nationalisms and Fascisms; Contemporary French History; Francophone Literature and Culture; Travel Writing; Translation Theory; Marginal Writing; Autobiography; Nineteenth- and Twentieth-century French Literature and Thought; Literary Theory; Aesthetics; Deconstruction; Eco-criticism; and Sociolinguistics.

The Department boasts one of the oldest Chairs of French in the world (1776) and has, among its alumni, Samuel Beckett. The Discipline of French is a constituent department of the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies, which has consistently been ranked in the top Modern Languages Schools in the QS subject rankings. French Department staff members are actively involved in the School’s research centres – the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and the Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation – as well as in Trinity’s Arts and Humanities Research Institute, the Trinity Long Room Hub.

The Old Library at Trinity College Dublin is the largest library in Ireland, with invaluable manuscripts and world-class collections in the early modern and later periods. The Library is a legal deposit library for books published in Ireland and the UK. It has significant holdings in French and extensive electronic resources.

For more general information on the French Department, please consult the departmental website: http://www.tcd.ie/French/.

2.9 PhD-Position in humanities and social sciences, 3 years (Media analysis and Sociology of art/literature)

The ERC Research Group “Minor Universality” based at the philosophical faculty of Saarland University (Germany) is inviting applications for a PhD position – Wissenschaftliche/rMitarbeiterIn – (3 years) starting at the latest on October 1st, 2020.

enables students and staff to share and exchange knowledge and ideas between disciplines, between universities and across borders. With over 17,000 national and international students, studying more than a hundred different academic disciplines, Saarland University is a diverse and dynamic learning environment.

Reference number W1663, salary in accordance with the German TV-L salary scale1, pay grade: E13, employment: 50 % of standard working time, duration: 3 years.

The ERC Research Group “Minor Universality”:

“Minor Universality: Narrative World Productions After Western Universalism” is a

transdisciplinary research project funded by the European Research Council through a highly prestigious ERC Consolidator Grant. It offers an excellent academic environment both locally and through its worldwide cooperation network associating institutional partners from Berlin, Paris, Mexico, Tunis, and Hong Kong. The research group led by Professor Markus Messling wants to make a substantial contribution to the actual debate on the problem of universality after the era of Western universalism. If we live in times of a double relativistic signature – the necessary political and epistemic critique of Occidental Universalism, and diverse identitarian claims –, it is of prime importance to understand an emerging new global awareness that provides a background for the ethical and institutional standards of a world-society. But how can this new universality be addressed? Our research group takes a narratological approach to this issue, starting from the presupposition that narrations materialise in society according to political realities, and are capable

of putting these into question. “Minor Universality” investigates how a new consciousness of universality is under way of being produced: How do contemporary cultural and social practices such as oral transmissions, narrations of the self and literatures, films, photography, and social media, self-organized spaces and cultural festivals, architectures and museums, open up local settings so as to create a new embodied awareness of humanity.

Job requirements and responsibilities:

The ERC Research Group “Minor Universality” is looking for an outstanding doctoral student with strong interest in committed research and a high motivation to complete her/his thesis from a theory-based perspective within an transdisciplinary group dynamic.

The successful candidate will have the opportunity to develop her/his own research project in the areas of media analysis and cultural sociology of art/literature dealing with contemporary literary/cultural festivals and how they stage themselves as cultural events of “global reach”. The candidate will question the cultural and political power of these festivals and scrutinize how they position themselves with respect to the question of a global awareness: Are they machines to create a “global” public space? Does their claim to be of “worldwide validity” mean more than creating a

setting of authors, artists and intellectuals coming from all over the world – does it possibly reflect a praxis leaning towards a new universality? The doctoral candidate will not only analyse the marketing concepts of literary/cultural festivals and institutions with respect to their narrative dimension, but also implement a qualitative investigation building on interviews with the programme directors and organisers as well as with the invited authors, artists and intellectuals.

The funding from the European Research Council includes a full package covering travel allowance for field research and interviews, as well as the publication fee for the thesis. The PhD position does not entail mandatory teaching.

Your qualifications:

Holding a MA or equivalent degree obtained with honours qualifying for doctoral studies in the

field of humanities and/or social sciences

Excellent command of English both spoken and written

Would be an appreciated asset:

Good comprehension skills in German or French. If otherwise, the candidate should be willing to learn one of these languages during her/his stay. As language diversity is a key topic within the research group Minor Universality, we highly recommend the candidates to mention any skills they could have in other languages.
Proficiency in qualitative social research and its methods

The Saarland University can also offer you:

A flexible work schedule allowing you to balance work and family
A broad range of further education and professional development programmes
An occupational health management model with numerous attractive options, such as our university sports programme
Supplementary pension scheme (RZVK)
Discounted tickets on local public transport services (‘Jobticket’)

Applications are requested exclusively in electronic form quoting the reference number W1663 and are to be addressed in English, French or German by March 1st, 2020 to Prof. Dr. Markus Messling (minor.universality@uni-saarland.de).

One single PDF file including following documents:

letter of motivation
research proposal (max. 3 pages)
copy of your academic degrees
CV, with publication list if applicable
letter of reference

Interviews will be held in April 2020. If you have any questions on the application process, please contact Dr. Hélène Thiérard (helene.thierard@uni-saarland.de).

For further information on the ERC-project Minor Universality, please visit our website:

https://www.uni-saarland.de/lehrstuhl/messling/forschungerc-projekt.html

In accordance with the objectives of its equal opportunities plan, Saarland University seeks to increase the proportion of women in this field. Qualified women candidates are therefore strongly encouraged to apply. Preferential consideration will be given to applications from disabled candidates of equal eligibility. The successful candidate has the option of choosing to work part-time in this position.

Pay grade classification is based on the particular details of the position held and the extent to which the applicant meets the requirements of the pay grade within the TV-L salary scale.

When you submit a job application to Saarland University you will be transmitting personal data. Please refer to our privacy notice for information on how we collect and process personal data in accordance with Art. 13 of the Datenschutz-Grundverordnung. By submitting your application you confirm that you have taken note of the information in the Saarland University privacy notice: https://www.unisaarland.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Campus/Service/Dienstleistungen_Verwaltung/personalamt/Dokumente_Gemeinsame/Datenschutzerkl%c3%a4rung_der_UdS_f%c3%bcr_die_Verarbeitung_personenbezogener_Daten.pdf

2.10 PhD-Position in humanities and social sciences, 3 years (Cultural Anthropology/Ethnography)

Saarland University is a campus university with international reputation for research excellence. Fostering young academic talent and creating ideal conditions for teaching and research are a core part of the university’s mission. As part of the “University of the Greater Region” (Germany, France, Luxemburg and Belgium), Saarland University enables students and staff to share and exchange knowledge and ideas between disciplines, between universities and across borders. With over 17,000 national and international students, studying more than a hundred different academic

disciplines, Saarland University is a diverse and dynamic learning environment.

Reference number W1664, salary in accordance with the German TV-L salary scale1, pay grade: E13, employment: 50 % of standard working time, duration: 3 years.

The ERC Research Group “Minor Universality”:

“Minor Universality: Narrative World Productions After Western Universalism” is a

Job requirements and responsibilities:

The ERC Research Group “Minor Universality” is looking for an outstanding doctoral student with strong interest in committed research and high motivation to complete her/his thesis from a theory-based perspective within a transdiscilinary group dynamic.

The successful candidate will have the opportunity to develop her/his own research project in the area of cultural anthropology, engaging with contemporary refugees’ life stories and the question of how a global awareness might emerge from concrete experiences of radical loss, flight and migration. Flight is a moment in which one has to reset her/his entire world-relations: How do refugees and migrants manage to merge their connections to diverse places and people both practically and emotionally? Here the role of self-narration can be to allow simultaneity and

dehierarchization, supported by the possibilities of Social Media. What is the role of narrative imagination when it comes to finding a new “place” in the “world”, staying connected, and establishing a new social life? Does a form of “citizenship of the world” emerge from this condition “in-between” that differs from normative cosmopolitanism? How can migrants and refugees make concrete claims about social acceptances and rights out of this very position? As part of an oral

history of the present the project should not only constitute a corpus of relevant cultural productions and analyse documentary texts, photography and films dealing with circulation of people and migration; the doctoral candidate could also pursue interviews with persons starting to organize their social life after arriving in Europe, using methods of qualitative research based on biographical analysis.

First contacts have been established with several civil right organisations. The candidate can also count on the generous support of our ethics committee so as to conform with ethical research standards and legislation. The funding from the European Research Council includes a full package covering travel allowance for field research and interviews, as well as the publication fee for the

thesis. The PhD position does not entail mandatory teaching.

Your qualifications:

Holding a MA or equivalent degree obtained with honours qualifying for doctoral studies in the field of humanities and/or social sciences
Excellent command of English both spoken and written

Would be an appreciated asset:

Good comprehension skills in German or French. If otherwise, the candidate should be willing to learn one of these languages during her/his stay. As language diversity is a key topic within the research group Minor Universality, we highly recommend the candidates to mention any skills they could have in other languages.
A first experience in social research and/or qualitative interview

The Saarland University can also offer you:

A flexible work schedule allowing you to balance work and family
A broad range of further education and professional development programmes
An occupational health management model with numerous attractive options, such as our university sports programme
Supplementary pension scheme (RZVK)
Discounted tickets on local public transport services (‘Jobticket’)

Applications are requested exclusively in electronic form quoting the reference number W1664 and are to be addressed in English, French or German by March 1st, 2020 to Prof. Dr. Markus Messling (minor.universality@uni-saarland.de).

One single PDF file including following documents:

letter of motivation
research proposal (max. 3 pages)
copy of your academic degrees
CV, with publication list if applicable
letter of reference

Interviews will be held in April 2020. If you have any questions on the application process, please contact Dr Hélène Thiérard (helene.thierard@uni-saarland.de).

For further information on the ERC-project Minor Universality, please visit our website:

https://www.uni-saarland.de/lehrstuhl/messling/forschungerc-projekt.htm l

Pay grade classification is based on the particular details of the position held and the extent to which the applicant meets the requirements of the pay grade within the TV-L salary scale.

https://www.uni-saarland.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Campus/Service/Dienstleistungen_Verwaltung/personalamt/

Dokumente_Gemeinsame/Datenschutzerkl%c3%a4rung_der_UdS_f%c3%bcr_die_Verarbeitung_personenbezogener_Daten.pdf

2.11 The Miles Morland Foundation African Writers’ Scholarship in the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia

Closes: 12 noon, Friday 1 May 2020

Start Date: September 2020

The Miles Morland Foundation African Writers’ Scholarship

The Miles Morland Foundation African Writers’ Scholarship is awarded to a Postgraduate student within the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing to enable them to enable them to study on the MA Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) course. It is available for applicants of international fee status from any country within Africa.

The School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia has a long-established international reputation in literary studies. In the most recent Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014), UEA was ranked joint tenth in the UK for the quality of its research in English Language and Literature (Times Higher REF 2014 Analysis), with 82 per cent of our research rated either 4* (world leading) or 3* (internationally excellent). World famous for our pioneering courses in creative writing, we are also home to prize-winning scholars and translators of literature and drama from all periods.

Our unique approach to the study of literature and writing is powered by our conviction that – to quote Ezra Pound – ‘literature is news that stays news’. At all levels of study, and on all degree courses, our School is the place where criticism and creativity go hand in hand.

The Miles Morland Foundation African Writers’ Scholarship is worth £25,000, available as a full tuition fee discount and a maintenance grant.

How to Apply

Scholarship applications for 2020 entry are now open. The deadline is 12 noon on Friday 1 May 2020

Further information about application to the MA in Creative Writing (Prose) at the University of East Anglia can be found here:

https://www2.uea.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/taught-degree/detail/ma-creative-writing-prose

3. Announcements

3.1 IMLR Regional Conference Grant Scheme 2020-21

The IMLR Regional Conference Grant Scheme aims to support the study of modern languages in the UK outside London, to promote inter-institutional collaborations, and to bring together scholars from the wider region as participants or attendees.

Applications are now invited for events planned to be held between 1 September 2020 and 30 June 2021.

Applicants can apply for a maximum of £2,000 and it is expected that up to three grants will be awarded each year.

The closing date for applications is 16 March 2020.

Further details and how to apply: https://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk/events/regional-conference-grant-scheme

3.2 Call for Applications: ASMCF Initiative Fund

The Association’s Initiative Fund provides small grants (up to £500) to individuals who are members of the Association to help defray the costs of research events (conferences, study days, workshops etc.), including postgraduate-led initiatives. The Association is particularly keen to encourage and support regionally-based collaborative initiatives on the part of its members, which should be intended to benefit a wide public. The deadline for applications is 28th February 2020. More details about the prize can be found on the ASMCF website: https://asmcf.org/funds-prizes-awards/initiative-fund/

3.3 Call for Applications: ASMCF Schools Liaison and Outreach Funding Initiative

The ASMCF’s Schools Liaison and Outreach Funding Initiative offers up to £500 to support members of the Association who organise teacher- or pupil-focused events which fulfil the following objectives:

promote the learning of French in its social, political, historical and cultural context in schools to prepare pupils for the diversity of content of current UK French degrees;
assist teachers who wish to engage in personal intellectual development in subjects relating to those which they are teaching, with a view to enrich their provision and enable them to help students to bridge the gap between school and university.

The deadline for the submission of applications is 28 February 2020 for projects to be undertaken between March 2020 and June 2020. More information about the scheme, including project criteria and application procedure can be found on the ASMCF website: http://www.asmcf.org/funding/#outreach

Examples of successful past projects are available here, and more information about topics and activities which can be of interest to schools can be found here.

If you have any questions about the scheme please email camille.jacob@protonmail.com

3.4 Call for Applications: ASMCF Outreach Funding

Please find below details of the ASMCF’s Schools Liaison and Outreach Funding Initiative. The deadline for applications is 28th February 2020. For more details about awards/prizes, please visit the ASMCF website: https://asmcf.org/funding-prizes/

promote the learning of French in its social, political, historical and cultural context in schools to prepare pupils for the diversity of content of current UK French degrees;
assist teachers who wish to engage in personal intellectual development in subjects relating to those which they are teaching, with a view to enrich their provision and enable them to help students to bridge the gap between school and university.
The deadline for the submission of applications is 28 February 2020 for projects to be undertaken between March 2020 and June 2020. More information about the scheme, including project criteria and application procedure can be found on the ASMCF website: http://www.asmcf.org/funding/#outreach

Examples of successful past projects are available here, and more information about topics and activities which can be of interest to schools can be found here. If you have any questions about the scheme please email camille.jacob@protonmail.com

3.5 PSA/Journal of Postcolonial Writing Postgraduate Essay Competition 2020

The PSA/Journal of Postcolonial Writing Postgraduate Essay Competition provides a great opportunity for postgraduate scholars to showcase their work in a leading postcolonial academic journal and to earn some really useful research funding. The winners and runners-up constantly remind us of the innovative and timely contributions that postgraduate scholars make to postcolonial studies. The competition is a means of duly recognising their work and of furthering their careers as postcolonialists.

The deadline for submissions is 1 April 2020.

Applicants are invited to submit an essay on any topic relating to postcolonial studies. We welcome essays from all disciplines, including cultural studies, geography, politics, theology, history, anthropology, literature, film, or development studies. The competition is open to any postgraduate student who is registered at any institution anywhere in the world, by, or within three months of, the submission deadline.All essays are subject to an anonymous peer review by a panel of established experts in postcolonial studies. The winning essay will, subject to editorial approval, be published in The Journal of Postcolonial Writing, a journal that has a long tradition of publishing innovative work in the field and which has had an ongoing partnership with the PSA.The winner will be awarded £250, and, should they not already be a member, will receive a complimentary year-long membership to the PSA. The runner-up will also have their work notably mentioned.

Guidelines for applicants:

Essays should be no longer than 7,500 words and no shorter than 7,000 (including bibliography and any notes). Any essays that are too long or too short will be automatically disqualified, so please ensure your word count meets this requirement.
Essays must conform to the MLA referencing style.
The author’s identity must not be identifiable in any way from the essay (electronic tags, such as those on Microsoft word, should be removed).
Only one submission per person is allowed. Candidates who have previously entered the competition are welcome to enter again, but must submit a different piece of work.
No essay will be considered that has been published in any form elsewhere, whether in print form or online.
No essay, in whole or part, should be submitted for consideration for publication elsewhere before the winner is announced.
Entries must be submitted between November 2019 and 1 April 2020.
The judges’ and the JPW’s editors’ decisions are final.

Some useful tips!

Make sure the essay stands proudly on its own. If it is part of your MA dissertation or PhD thesis, ensure that the article frames your argument cogently. There’s nothing our judges like less than reading an entry that is directly drawn from an un-adapted source.
How is your work contributing to the ongoing expansion and revision of postcolonial studies? Don’t be afraid of commenting on the contribution to your field. If you don’t mention the word ‘postcolonial’ at some point, then something must be going wrong!
Share your work with your peers and supervisor(s) for preliminary feedback, or undertake changes suggested by markers’ comments. Their suggestions will provide useful ways of revising your article before submission and will really make a difference.

If you are an ambitious and hardworking postgraduate, we encourage you to submit an essay. If you are an established academic, please spread the word to your own students or to any postgraduates whose innovative work you think is in need of public recognition. Thank you, and good luck!

3.6 Appel à candidatures pour la Bourse doctorale de l’ADEFFI/ Call for applications for the ADEFFI Postgraduate Bourse

L’ADEFFI (L’Association des Études Françaises et Francophones d’Irlande) offre une bourse doctorale, parrainée en 2020 par L’AMOPA Irlande (Association des Membres de l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques en Irlande). Cette bourse, d’un montant de €500, est destinée à un(e) doctorant(e) méritant(e) inscrit(e) dans un établissement d’enseignement supérieur de l’île d’Irlande.

Votre candidature (en français ou en anglais) devra être accompagnée d’une courte description de votre projet de recherche (moins de 1.000 mots). Veuillez également joindre un curriculum vitae (coordonnées personnelles, informations sur votre affiliation universitaire, communications lors de conférences et vos publications éventuelles) et demander à votre directeur/directrice de thèse de bien vouloir nous faire parvenir une lettre de recommandation confidentielle.

Le projet de recherche, le curriculum vitae et la lettre de recommandation sont à envoyer par courrier électronique à la Présidente de l’ADEFFI, Dr Derval Conroy (derval.conroy@ucd.ie) avant le 16 mars 2020.

***

ADEFFI (The Association for French and Francophone Studies in Ireland) offers a Postgraduate bourse sponsored in 2020 by AMOPA Irlande (Association des Membres de l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques en Irlande). The bourse is valued at €500 and is open to postgraduate students studying at a higher education institution on the island of Ireland.

Your application, which can be in English or French, should contain a brief description of your research project (no longer than 1,000 words). Please include your curriculum vitae (listing your personal details, information on university affiliation, details of any conference presentations and possible publications resulting from your research). Please also ask your thesis supervisor to forward a confidential letter of recommendation.

The project outline, together with the curriculum vitae and the letter of recommendation should be emailed to the President of ADEFFI, Dr Derval Conroy (derval.conroy@ucd.ie) before 16^th March 2020.

3.7 Where Are We Now? The Location of Modern Languages and Cultures

Durham, 20-22 April 2020

Plenary speakers: Sarah Kay, Alison Phipps, Ming Tiampo

Plenary roundtable participants: Janice Carruthers, Catherine Davies, Charles Forsdick, Claire Gorrara, Neil Kenny

Questions concerning the uptake of the study of languages and the identity of Modern Languages as a disciplinary field within the academy are of urgent national concern. Where Are We Now? aims to build on the success of Our Uncommon Ground (organized by Durham’s School of Modern Languages & Cultures in 2018). The 2018 conference sought to sketch out both the common and uncommon ground between the many (sub-)disciplines that comprise Modern Languages and to offer a platform from which to establish a regular UK-based gathering of the Modern Languages community. It did so in order to promote the productive exchange of ideas across existing subject boundaries and collectively to address issues facing the discipline nationally and globally (see further: http://our-uncommon-ground.co.uk/).

By focussing on the question of location, both disciplinary and geographic, Where Are We Now? aims to foster dialogue about the connections between new research in Modern Languages and a range of highly topical debates around space, access, mobility, and the global and the local. Those are debates which cannot properly be conducted without thinking about language/s. The ‘where’ of research in Modern Languages is primarily – but not exclusively – a question of the location of the ‘target’ or subject cultures and their languages. It also encompasses the question of the researcher’s subject position; institutional factors determining perceptions of cultural difference and visibility of Modern Languages research; social factors determining access to language learning and exposure to the positives of intercultural exchange (as opposed to those negatively configured in rhetoric surrounding migration); and a politically sensitive, critical perception of mobility and of the global/local relationship in the Anthropocene.

The conference programme and registration are available here: https://www.dur.ac.uk/mlac/research/conf2020/

Thanks to support from the British Academy and UCML, we are able to offer postgraduate bursaries for attendance at the conference. To apply, please send a statement of maximum 200 words describing how the conference would benefit the development of your research to artsandhumanities.researchteam@durham.ac.uk by 14 February 2020.

3.8 French Creoles: Homage to the Late Professor Philip Baker

Tuesday, 24 March 2020, 10.00am – 6.30pm

Bloomsbury Room, G35, Ground Floor, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU

https://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk/events/event/21508

The two-day conference (Tuesday 24 March 2020 and Wednesday 25 March 2020) is dedicated to the late Professor Philip Baker. The convenor, Dr Shihan de Silva (Senior Fellow, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London) whose doctoral research on Sri Lanka Portuguese was directed by Professor Baker, thanks the scholars who are participating in the event to remember a life dedicated to advancing our understanding of contact languages.

*Separate registration for each day required

PROGRAMME

10:00 Welcome and Introduction: Catherine Davies (IMLR, London); Shihan de Silva (ICwS, London)

10:10 “Between French and English: my translational experiences with Philip Baker” Nicolas Quint (CNRS)

10:50 “Philip Baker and the origin of plantation creoles” Mikael Parkvall (Stockholm)

11:30 Break

11:50 “Assessing the Bantu influence on the development of Indian Ocean Creoles?” Anand Syea (Westminster)

12:30 “Philip Baker and Mauritian Creole” Peter Stein (Regensburg)

13:10 Lunch (own arrangements)

14:10 “Semantic and Syntactic Peculiarities of Culinary Discourse in Seychellois Creole” Olga Klymencko & Christine Pejakovic (Seychelles)

14:50 “Seselwa i koz angle an kreol: A study of how the English language is altering the linguistic properties of the Seychellois creole” Aneesa Vel (Seychelles)

15:30 Break

15:50 “Agent nouns in Haitian Creole: diachrony and morphology” Alain Kihm (Paris)

16:30 “An Eighteenth Century Trinidad Creole French text?” Anthony Grant (Edgehill)

17:10 “Do creoles derive from pidgins? The development of the Lesser Antilles Creoles” Peter Bakker (Aarhus)

17:50 Roundtable Discussion

18:30 Conclusion

Generously supported by the Cassal Endowment Fund

Registration for 24 March: Standard £10 | Students/unwaged £7. Register at: https://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk/events/event/21508

*Register separately for the second day of the conference held at SOAS on 25 March:

‘Contact Languages: Homage to the late Professor Philip Baker’ at: https://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk/events/event/21633

3.9 UCL French Departmental Research Seminars This Term

Please find below the list of speakers and topics for the French departmental seminars this term, which will take place at 4 pm in 133 Foster Court. All are welcome.

22 January 2020 – Mairéad Hanrahan (UCL), ‘Genet, Religion and the Middle East’

12 February 2020 – Emma Claussen (Cambridge), ‘“Les passions plus vives”: Life and Art in Early Modern France’

4 March 2020 – Itay Lotem (Westminster),’Introspection, Repentance and Everything In Between: The Memory of Colonialism as a Marker of Political Affiliation in France after 2005′

18 March 2020 – Xiaofan Amy Li (UCL), ‘Pascal Quignard’s Reinvention of Chinese Antiquity’

Please note these further two French events as well:

28 January 2020- Sara-Louise Cooper (Kent), ‘Mourning the Mother, Mourning the World: Caribbean Writing as “World Literature”’, 30 pm–7.30 pm, IAS Seminar 11: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ucllinks-seminar-on-world-literature-tickets-74073280175

29 January 2020 – Patrick Bray (UCL)’s book launch, 4 pm-6 pm, IAS Common Ground: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of-advanced-studies/events/2020/jan/ias-book-launch-price-literature-french-novels-theoretical-turn

3.10 Translating Across Worlds: Translation, Creativity, and Intercultural Politics in Contemporary Francophone Women’s Writing

Tuesday 25 February 2020, Durham University

The Durham French Research seminar, in collaboration with award-winning independent press Les Fugitives, is delighted to welcome francophone authors Ananda Devi and Colette Fellous for a one-day event on translation, creativity, and intercultural politics. Featuring interactive workshops and a panel discussion, the event aims to interrogate the roles played by translation and creative writing in giving shape to and making sense of the world, particularly in view of colonial legacies, nationalist movements, and rising extremism, where women are often the primary victims but also the most powerful voices for change.

Fostering dialogue between these two writers in the wake of the recent publication of their work in English by Les Fugitives, this event will key into urgent contemporary debates on migration, protest, and anti-racism across the world.

What happens as translation carries texts dealing with pressing issues into new languages and cultural environments?

What potential does creative writing have in coming to terms with traumatic legacies and offering fresh perspectives on the world?

How do literary texts engage with contemporary politics in the face of rising populism and extremism? What role does memory or fantasy play in imagining alternative futures?

This event is open to researchers, postgraduate and undergraduate students, and creative writing and translation professionals. Attendance is free, but space is limited, so please email Dr Amaleena Damlé amaleena.damle@durham.ac.uk, to register your interest for one or more of the sessions.

13.30-15.00 Creative Writing Workshop with Ananda Devi

15.00-15.30 Refreshments

15.30-17.00 Translation Workshop with Colette Fellous and Sophie Lewis

Ritson Hall, Alington House, 4 North Bailey, Durham DH1 3ET

17.30 Vin d’honneur

18.15 Panel discussion, Lindisfarne Centre, St Aidan’s College, Windmill Hill, Durham University, DH1 3LJ

Co-organised by Dr Amaleena Damlé and Dr Rebekah Vince,

School of Modern Languages and Culture, Durham University

Sponsored by Durham’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities Research Fund, Living Texts Research Group, Translation Studies Research Group, and the Society for French Studies, UK

3.11 Jewish-Muslim Research Network Reading Group Sessions (Manchester)

Please note the details of the next two reading group sessions in Manchester. As always, skyping in to join us is a possibility if you get in touch in advance! Updates for future reading group sessions will be posted on the website: https://jmrn.co.uk/reading-group/ If you have suggestions for future texts to read or would like to facilitate a future discussion, please let us know! See you soon!

Session 7 – February 28, 2020, 1-2pm
Facilitator: Adi S. Bharat, UoM
Readings: Introduction and Chapter 1 of Aaron Hughes’ Shared Identities: Medieval and Modern Imaginings of Judeo-Islam (2017).
Location: Room S1.37, Samuel Alexander Building, University of Manchester
Click here for the text: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kkDoHSfOxcp1h1nIRSWgot_HU76M9qej

Session 8 – March 20, 2020, 1-2pm
Facilitator: Urussa Malik, UoM
Readings: Brian Klug’s “The limits of analogy: comparing Islamophobia and antisemitism” (2014) and Reza Zia-Ebrahimi’s “When the Elders of Zion relocated to Eurabia: conspiratorial racialization in antisemitism and Islamophobia” (2018).
Location: Conference Room (C1.18), Graduate School of Arts, Languages and Cultures, Ellen Wilkinson Building, University of Manchester
Click here for the text: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1puxaCwdbAwoMYqVNS2NpwPpD0esYIGwe

3.12 Jewish-Muslim Research Network Reading Group Session (London)

Jewish-Muslim Research Network reading group
Wednesday 4th March, 5-6.30pm
MayDay Rooms, 88 Fleet St, London EC4Y 1DH

You are warmly invited to attend the first session of the Jewish-Muslim Research Network reading group in London. Over coming sessions we plan to read key texts which engage with, illuminate and challenge the useful but problematic paradigm of Muslim-Jewish relations. All welcome.

For this first session we will be reading chapter 1 of Aaron Hughes’s Shared Identities and Gil Anidjar’s ‘Muslim Jews.’ Texts are available here.

To join the JMRN mailing list and receive notices about future reading group sessions and other events, send a blank email to jewish-muslim-subscribe-request@listserv.manchester.ac.uk

3.13 Report launch: Working at the Intersections

On 25 February at 6pm at the British Academy 10-11 Carlton House Terrace London SW1 5AH we will be launching Working at the Intersections, a report on lessons from the work of the strategic research themes funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) from 2010-2019, notably Translating Cultures. This report makes key recommendations to promote interdisciplinary and community-oriented research in the arts and humanities. We hope you can join us at this event.

In 2010, in response to a consultation with its research community, the AHRC, the leading funder of arts and humanities research in the United Kingdom, launched four cross-cutting research themes: Translating Cultures; Science in Culture; Digital Transformations; and Care for the Future. Nearly five hundred projects were financed by the AHRC under these themes, including major flagship projects on a scale not previously financed by the AHRC, and innovative work on subjects such as big data in arts and humanities, space industries, and dark tourism. The themes enabled the impact of individual projects to be considerably enhanced. The four theme leader fellows have now produced a joint report summarising the messages which emerged from a decade of exciting research.

The AHRC’s strategic themes provided an environment which fostered interdisciplinary dialogues and showed how the horizons of arts and humanities research could be expanded. Working closely with the ‘Connected Communities’ programme, the themes also explored how arts and humanities researchers can more effectively engage with communities and develop more participative forms of research. Working at the Intersections provides a template for future interdisciplinary research in the arts and humanities and makes important recommendations at a time when arts and humanities research in the UK is entering a new era with the recent creation of UK Research and Innovation.

To launch this report, a panel of distinguished speakers including Professor Thomas McLeish FRS, University of York and Chair of the Royal Society Education Committee, Professor Karen Salt, Deputy Director, Culture and Environment, UKRI, and Professor Sarah Churchwell, University of London, will offer their thoughts on promoting more interdisciplinary and inclusive research in the arts and humanities. For the AHRC theme fellows, Professor Charles Forsdick, University of Liverpool (Translating Cultures), Professor Barry Smith, University of London (Science in Culture), and Professor Andrew Prescott, University of Glasgow (Digital Transformations), will present their thoughts and reflections on the work of their respective themes.

The event will be hosted by Professor Edward Harcourt, Director of Research for the AHRC. Reports from the Translating Cultures and Digital Transformations themes will also be available. The event will be followed by a wine reception.

We hope very much you will be able to join us on 25 February. Please book your free ticket here:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/working-at-the-intersections-ahrc-strategic-themes-2010-2019-tickets-92741431117?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

3.14 Translingualism in Postcolonial Literature: Theories and Practices

The Politics of Culture and Memory Cluster, at the University of Bath, in the Department of Politics, Languages, and International Studies invites you to the Symposium on ‘Translingualism in Postcolonial Literature: Theories and Practices’.

Thursday 13 February 2020, 16:15 – 18:15, Room 1W 2.01, University of Bath

Followed by Wine Down with Cheese (please book using this link: tiny.cc/7ll5iz)

Speakers:

Natalie Edwards, University of Adelaide, Australia

‘Theorising Translingualism: Literary Writing Beyond Monolingualism’

Christopher Hogarth, University of South Australia

‘The Language of Italian Migrant Literature: Reflections on a Thirty-Year Period’

Antonia Wimbush, University of Bath

‘Ageing in a Different Language? A Study of Lebanese-born Writer Abla Farhoud’

Naziha Hamidouche, University of Bath

‘Translanguaging in Postcolonial African Authorships: A Comparative Approach’

Eventbrite booking link: tiny.cc/7ll5iz

3.15 Postcolonial Literary Bibliographies and Archives

On 13 March 2020 the postcolonial research group CEREP at the University of Liège in Belgium will be holding a one-day symposium on “Postcolonial Literary Bibliographies and Archives”. As its title suggests, this event aims to encourage reflection on the different issues involved in compiling bibliographies, setting up literary archives, and conducting scholarly work based on literary archives in the postcolonial field. The two keynotes speakers will be Alison Donnell (University of East Anglia, UK) and Sulaiman Addonia (creative writer, http://www.facebook.com/Sulaiman-Addonia-49522697323/).

Here is the programme of the event:

9.45-10.00 Welcome

10.00-11.00 KEYNOTE SESSION 1

Alison Donnell (University of East Anglia, UK), “Archival Lives: Caribbean Writers and the Strange Presence of Loss”

11.00-11.30 Coffee break

11.30-13.00 PANEL SESSION 1

Véronique Bragard (Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium), “Beyond the Colonial Archive: Reappropriation and Conflictual Readings of Alice Seeley Harris’s Photographs”

Daria Tunca (University of Liège, Belgium), “Compiling a Bibliography of Works by and about Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Methodological and Practical Challenges”

Delphine Munos (University of Ghent, Belgium), “Archiving Born-Digital Literatures”

13.00-14.00 Lunch

14.00-15.00 PANEL SESSION 2

Janet Wilson (University of Northampton, UK), “Approaching the Archive: Researching Writers of the New Zealand Diaspora”

Asha Rogers (University of Birmingham, UK), “State Sponsored Literature: Reading the Public Archive as Postcolonial Archive’”

15.00-15.30 Coffee break

15.30-16.30 PANEL SESSION 3

Helga Ramsey-Kurz (University of Innsbruck, Austria), “Telling Encounters: Archiving Refugee Narratives”

Bénédicte Ledent (University of Liège, Belgium), “Working at the Beinecke Library on Caryl Phillips’s Archives”

16.30-17.30 KEYNOTE SESSION 2

Sulaiman Addonia (Eritrean-Ethiopian-British author), “Silence in Words”

This programme, as well as information on registration, can also be found at this address: http://labos.ulg.ac.be/cerep/postcolonial-literary-bibliographies-archives/

3.16 Stefano Harney lecture on racial capitalism – University of London Institute in Paris

Stefano Harney will give a guest lecture at the University of London Institute in Paris on Wednesday 18 March at 18h. This is a public event; see here for further details and registration:

https://ulip.london.ac.uk/events/merit-and-corruption-undercommon-grounds

Merit and Corruption: Undercommon Grounds

Stefano Harney will discuss racial capitalism, the ‘undercommons’ in the contemporary university, and his ongoing critical engagement with the limitations and possibilities of academic study today. His lecture will draw upon The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study, the book he co-authored with Fred Moten, as well as his experience teaching in universities in Singapore, the UK and the U.S. For Harney and Moten, while “it cannot be denied that the university is a place of refuge…it cannot be accepted that the university is a place of enlightenment”, as the pressure to gain credit, pay off debt and adapt to the requirements of logistics repeatedly obstruct the pursuit of meaningful study.

Against these restrictions, the ‘undercommons’ refers to a set of practices and possibilities – fostered by unrestricted sociality – that challenge the norms of the contemporary university.

In light of this ongoing work, Harney’s talk will use the example of Singapore and the ‘excellent’ university, laying out undercommon grounds suggesting possible answers to the following set of questions: Can we understand corruption and meritocracy as two sides of the same coin? Does meritocracy stand in the way of our corrupting corruption, of our tendency to corrupt? How does merit enforce both a history of individuation and a history of racial capitalism?

Stefano Harney is co-author with Fred Moten of The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study (Autonomedia/Minor Compositions 2013) and the forthcoming All Incomplete (Autonomedia/Minor Compositions 2020). Other books include State Work: Public Administration and Mass Intellectuality (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002) and Nationalism and Identity: Culture and the Imagination in a Caribbean Diaspora (London and Mona, Jamaica: Zed Books and the University of West Indies Press, 1996).

He is honorary professor at the Institute of Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia, a visiting critic at Yale School of Art, and a visiting lecturer at the Dutch Art Institute. He was previously Professor of Strategic Management at the Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management University, and Professor of Strategy at the School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London.

Together with Tonika Sealy Thompson he runs Ground Provisions, a reading residency. He is also co-founder of School for Study, a collective of teachers in higher education experimenting with ensemble teaching.

3.17 Caribbean Conversations in Conservation Conference, March 16-19, 2020

The UWI/ OAS Caribbean Heritage Network (CHN) announces that Registration for the upcoming conference “Caribbean Conversations in Conservation” March 16-19, 2020 at the Sagicor Cave Hill School of Business and Management at The UWI, Cave Hill Campus is now open! The first day’s sessions open with the “Keeping History Above Water: Caribbean Workshop” which is being hosted by the University of Florida’s College of Design, Construction and Planning and the Newport Restoration Foundation. This workshop will focus on visualizing and mitigating the impact of sea level rise and storm surge associated with Climate Change in historic urban centers. The focus of the remaining sessions are on Climate Change and heritage conservation in Barbados and the region. There are a number of workshops dealing with conservation of archives and objects as well as ICROM’s First Aid to Cultural Heritage programme.

To register for the conference, please visit https://www.caribheritage.org/CCC2020. There is limited space in workshops, so you must reserve a space. Payment by major credit card is available online.

Please contact info@caribheritage.org for more information.

3.18 Global Africas: Congolese Literature, Music, and Art in the 21st Century

Special guests: Baloji, Alain Mabanckou, Pat Masioni

5-6 November 2020, Winthrop-King Institute for Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, Florida State University

The Winthrop King Institute is developing a new series of events under the broad title of “Global Africas,” the aim of which is to address and explore the plurality and complexity of everyday life on the continent both in the past as well as in the present while simultaneously insisting that Africa has always been globally interconnected with the rest of the world.

“Global Africas” examines the cultural, linguistic, political, and historical realities of Francophone regions of Africa from a range of academic and artistic perspectives. The inaugural Global Africas event is a two-day set of workshops, lectures, round tables, and performances that focus on the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Congolese diaspora by featuring internationally renowned author Alain Mabanckou, the Paris-based artist and cartoonist Pat Masioni, and Belgium-based rapper Baloji.

Multi-award winning and multi-talented artist, the Belgium-based musician Baloji works on audiovisual representations of the cultural wealth of his Congolese roots. Made famous with his post-modern 2011 rap cover of the popular rumba classic Indépendance Cha-Cha-Cha, his creations also function as a commentary on the current sociopolitical status of Congolese society. Named after the Swahili word for “man of science”, Baloji therefore combines what pleases the eyes to what pleases the ears; also exploring linguistic diversity so relevant to this region, his work vibrantly explores sounds and colors of Congolese heritage through the medium of music videos, recently peaking to the climax of his art with the creation Zombie, winning the 2019 Oberhausen short movie festival.

World-renowned author, professor, and public intellectual Alain Mabanckou is undoubtedly one of the 21^st century’s most prominent voices. Mabanckou’s work, richly dense with allusions to world literature, political discourse, comics, music, and fashion, not only spans space and time, but also literary genres and mediums. Most notably, drawing from his 2009 novel Black Bazar about a Congoloese sapeur in Paris, Mabankcou collaborated with musicians Modogo Abarambwa and Sam Tshintu to generate an album in 2012 of the same name in part to bring Congolese rumba to an international audience. Mabanckou, originally from the port city Point-Noire in the Republic of the Congo, has been a longtime critic of France’s bifurcated vision of the Francophone world and co-authored the famous 2007 Pour une ‘littérature-monde’ en français [“For a “World Literature” in French] also known as the Manifeste des 44 [“Manifesto of the 44”] (referring to the forty-four writers who signed the manifesto published in Le Monde). His long list of accolades includes, alongside numerous prestigious literary prizes and nominations, invitations to preside over important literary festivals and public lectures.

Pat Masioni, originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, studied painting and ceramics before attending the Académie des Beaux Arts in Kinshasa where he received a degree in architecture. Starting in the early 1983, Masioni became an illustrator for local comics and eventually cofounded ACRIA (Atelier de création, recherche et initiation à l’art) in 1992 with fellow Congolese cartoonist Barly Baruti. Masioni’s detailed, hyper-real, and dramatic style attracted French documentarian Cécile Grenier and the two worked together on the two-volume graphic novel Rwanda 1994 about the Rwandan genocide. In 2009, Masioni began working with American comic book writer Joshua Dysart on the DC Comics/Vertigo series The Unknown Soldier, making him one of the only African Francophone cartoonists published in the United States.

The events are free and open to the public. The final program will be posted closer to the event. For further information, please contact the organizers, Michelle Bumatay (mbumatay@fsu.edu), Alexis Finet (afinet@fsu.edu), or Martin Munro (mmunro@fsu.edu).

3.19 Caribbean Generations: Ruptures, Traditions, Returns

Canada Room, Queen’s University Belfast

20-21 March 2020

9-9.15: Welcome and registration

9.15-11.00: Negritude, Modernism, Decolonisation

Jason Hong (Yale): War of the Worlds: Negritude, Cosmopolitanism and Monde

Pat Crowley (UC Cork): Aimé Césaire’s Une tempête: the hyphen of non-rupture, the suspension of decolonisation

Hugo Azerad (Cambridge): “Un cri noué en forme de langage”: Malemort ou la naissance d’un modernisme antillais

Charly Verstraet (Birmingham, Alabama): Writing the Rupture: Tracing the Literary Aesthetics of the Middle Passage in Césaire, Glissant and Chamoiseau

11-11.30: Coffee

11.30-1: Prison Breaks: the ruptures, continuities and genealogies of Haitian confinement

Sarah Arens (St Andrews): The Prison and Pan-Africanism: Institutionalised Education, Intellectualism and Liberation in Haitian Diaspora Literature.

Ryan Augustyniak (Florida State): Confinement, Prisons and the Haitian Literary Tradition.

Charles Forsdick (Liverpool): Reading the Memory-Traces of the Bagne.

1-2: Lunch

2-3.30: Looking back: eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Margaret Cunningham (QUB): Rupture and rootlessness: The Unhomely in the early béké novel

Maeve McCusker (QUB): Colour trouble in early Creole fiction

Finola O’Kane (UC Dublin): Structuring the Colonial Picaresque. Comparing the Representation of Jamaica and Saint Domingue (Haiti) in the long eighteenth century.

3.30-4: coffee

4-5.30: Chamoiseau: poetics and posterities

Pim Higginson (U of New Mexico): Slurred Speeches: Rum and Identity in Patrick Chamoiseau’s Solibo Magnifique

Orane Onyekpe-Touzet (Sorbonne-Warwick): De la trace à l’empreinte. Connexions mémorielles, artistiques et ontologiques dans La Matière de l’absence

Mary Gallagher (UC Dublin): Poetic Posterities: Patrick Chamoiseau’s dance around Saint-John Perse

6-7pm: Martin Munro, SFS Visiting International Fellow (Winthrop King Institute and Florida State University): “The Other American: Michael Dash and the U.W.I. Generation.”

Vin d’honneur: sponsored by CDRG, AEL

8pm: Dinner Molly’s Yard sponsored by AHRC Translating Cultures

Saturday 21 March

9.30-11: Relation, Crossings, Dialogue

Carlos Garrido Castellano (UC Cork): Sounding the Hurricane: Creative resilience and Archipelagic Crossings.

Marta Fratczak-Dabrowska (Poznan): Fred D’Aguiair’s Children of Paradise as an example of intergenerational, ecocritical dialogue in Anglo-Guyanese fiction

Amanda Skamagka (Athens): Memory, Identity and Tradition in Caribbean Literature: Aimé Césaire’s and Derek Walcott’s poetical nostos

11-11.30: Coffee

11.30-1: Institutions, Language, Rupture

Adlai Murdoch (Tufts): Contesting Marginality in an Identitarian Frame: Continuity, Rupture and Temporality in the French Caribbean DOMs

Antonia Wimbush (Bath): BUMIDOM: an enforced rupture with the French Caribbean?

Matthew Allen (Warwick): Haitian Kreyòl and the search for a linguistics beyond filiation

Lunch: 1-2

2-4pm: Haiti: Rupture, Resilience, Return

Kate Hodgson (UC Cork): “Tant d’histoires que l’on ne verrait jamais la fin”. Decolonization, gender and violence in Haitian storytelling.

Emma Monroy (North Carolina): Drawing the Text: Reformatting Literary Genealogies in Dany Lafferière’s Autoportrait de chat and Frankétienne’s Héros-Chimères.

Rachel Douglas (Glasgow): Creating Rasanblaj. Haitian Cultural Production Beyond the Earthquake

Rebecca Loescher (St Edwards): Rewriting the Return. Dany Laferrière’s Pays sans chapeau and L’Enigme du retour as Notebooks for Relation

4-5.30:

Intertextuality, Intratextuality and Return

Maéva McComb (QUB): Rewriting as Symbolic Return to the native land: The case of Joseph Zobel’s Les Jours Immobiles and Les Mains pleins d’oiseaux.

Marco Doudin (Sorbonne): Intertextual Readings of Glissant’s Les Indes

Lorna Milne (St Andrews): Histoires de retour au défi natal: Pulvar and Condé

Dinner First Floor Bistro, Ormeau Road Belfast sponsored by Society for French Studies and AHRC Translating Cultures

3.20 Contesting the Classroom. Reimagining Education in Moroccan and Algerian Literatures: A talk by Erin Twohig

11:00 AM–12:30 PM, Maison française, 2^nd floor, Buell Hall, Columbia University

Introduction, Madeleine Dobie

Respondent, Sophia Mo

Contesting the Classroom is the first scholarly work to analyze both how Algerian and Moroccan novels depict the postcolonial classroom, and how postcolonial literatures are taught in Morocco and Algeria. Drawing on a corpus of contemporary novels in French and Arabic, it shows that authors imagined the fictional classroom as a pluralistic and inclusive space, often at odds with the narrow nationalist vision of postcolonial identity. Yet when authors wrote about the school, they also had to consider whether their work would be taught in schools.

Erin Twohig is Assistant Professor of French & Francophone Studies, Georgetown University. Madeleine Dobie is Professor of French & Comparative Literature, Columbia University. Sophia Mo is a PhD candidate in the Department of French and the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, Columbia University

For further information: http://maisonfrancaise.org/contesting-the-classroom-reimagining-education-in-moroccan-and-algerian-literatu

3.21 Who is Multiracial? Investigating the Experiences of ‘Multigeneration’ Multiracials

University of Chicago Center in Paris, Wednesday, March 4^th 2020 at 5:30 p.m.

Discussion with Miri Song (University of Kent)

Moderator: Cécile Coquet-Mokoko (Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin)

Discussant: Nathalie Loison (Université Paris XI Orsay)

While there has been significant growth in studies about multiracial (or mixed race) individuals – that is, the children of interracial unions – very few studies have investigated the experiences of people who are the descendants of multiracial individuals (such as the children of multiracial people).

Miri Song is Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent. She is an American who did her PhD in London, and she has been interested in trans-Atlantic debates and research on migration (in its many forms), race, racisms, and most recently, multiracial people and experiences. Her most recent book is: Multiracial Parents: Mixed Families, Generational Change and the Future of Race (NYU Press 2017).

REGISTER HERE

The University of Chicago Center in Paris

6 rue Thomas Mann, Paris 13e

3.22 From Katrina to Michael: Disaster in the 21st-century Circum-Caribbean

International Conference
20-21 February 2020

Winthrop-King Institute for Contemporary French and Francophone Studies
Florida State University, Tallahassee

Conference Organizers: Matthew Goldmark, Anasa Hicks, Vincent Joos, Martin Munro, Jeannine Murray-Román, John Ribó

Conference Artist: Édouard Duval Carrié

Program

Sessions on Thursday, February 20, 2020 will be held at FSU’s Student Services Building (SSB) Sessions on Friday, February 21, 2020 will be held at FSU’s Fine Arts Building (FAB)

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20

8.15AM – Registration/coffee

8.45AM – Welcoming remarks

9.00AM – 10.30AM – Panels 1a and 1b

Panel 1a (SSB 203)

Post-disaster Cultural Production

CHAIR: Candace Ward

Jeannine Murray-Román (FSU). Hurricane Diaries: Puerto Rican Independent Publishing and the Creation of post-María Heterotopias.
Rachel Douglas (University of Glasgow). Creating Rasanblaj: Haitian Cultural Production Beyond the Earthquake
Martin Munro (FSU).Reading and Writing Post-2010 Haitian Literature

Panel 1b (SSB 203)

Small-Scale Dynamics of Large-Scale Disasters Before 1800

CHAIR: Anasa Hicks

Laurie Wood (FSU). Disaster Capitalism in Pre-Revolutionary Saint-Domingue
Robert Taber (Fayetteville State University). Shaking Things Up: Life in Colonial Haiti After the Earthquakes
Mary Draper (Midwestern State University). The Politics of Piloting After the 1692 Port Royal Earthquake

10.30-10.45 – Coffee

10.45-11.30 – Presentation and Roundtable on journal 360 (SSB 208)

Vincent Joos (FSU)
Mehdi Chalmers (360)
Carine Schermann (360)

11.30AM-1.00 PM – Lunch

1.00-2.00 Keynote Lecture (SSB 208)

Chair: Martin Munro
Laura Wagner (Freelance anthropologist) The Earthquake Never Really Ends: Douz Janvye, Hurricane Matthew, and the Long Afterlife of Disaster.

2.00-2.30 – Coffee

2.30-4.00 – Panels 2a and 2b

Panel 2a (SSB 208)

Disaster and Cultural Heritage

CHAIR: John Ribo

Paul Niell (FSU).& Kyle Killian (FSU). Architectural Heritage and Disaster Management in Puerto Rico
Jayur Mehta (FSU). Consequences of Climate Change and Sea Level Rise on Cultural and Historical Resources along the Northern Gulf Coast of Mexico
Vanessa Selk (Tout-Monde Foundation) Art and Politics facing Disaster in the Caribbean

Panel 2b (SSB 214)

Infrastructure, Tourism, Resilience

CHAIR: Manfa Sanogo

Greg Beckett (University of Western Ontario). The Blackout as Political Paradigm: On the Infrastructure of Disaster in Haiti
Mila Turner (FAMU). From Disaster Tourism to Recovery Tourism: Lessons Learned from 21st-Century Disasters
Giorgia Cristiani (Tulane University). Resilience, exoticism, and otherness in post-earthquake Haiti narratives

4.15-5.15 – Keynote lecture(SSB 208)

Chair: Vincent Joos

Mark Schuller (Northern Illinois University and Faculté d’Ethnologie – Université d’Etat d’Haïti) Haiti’s Humanitarian Occupation Ten Years Later:NGOoing the Country

5.15-6.00 – Film screening (THEATER)

Malia Bruker (FSU). Batay La (2019)

6.15-7.45 – Reception (Venue TBA)

Welcome reception for conference participants.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21

9.30-11.00 – Panels 3a and 3b

Panel 3a (FAB 249)

Case Studies

CHAIR: Jean Francois Cheuwa

Jean-Kesnold Mesidor (FSU). Gender Differences in Resilience and Coping Strategies Three Years after the 2010 Haitian Earthquake
John McGreevy (University of Georgia). Comparing household natural resource use and disaster response across a varied landscape in Camp Perrin, Haiti
Yann-Ollivier Kersaint (Universität Münster). (Un)planned Vulnerabilities: The Production of Vulnerability in post-earthquake Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The Case of Canaan

Panel 3b (FAB 332)

Literary Representations

CHAIR: Michelle Bumatay

Laura Loth (Rhodes College). Past Disasters and Future Survivors: Narratives of Saint-Pierre in the face of Climate Change
Brigitte Tsobgny (FSU). Déboisement et écologie : Représentations de la nature dans Les Arbres musiciens de Jacques Stephen Alexis
Alex Lenoble (USF). Mélovivi ou le piège: ni prophétie ni malédiction

11.00-11.15 – Coffee

11.15-12.45 – Panels 4a and 4b

Panel 4a (FAB 249)

Capital, Austerity, Governance

CHAIR: Mara Rainwater

Jana Braziel (Miami University). From Goudougoudou to Maria: Disaster, Catastrophe, Capital in the Caribbean: Lessons from Haiti and Puerto Rico
Vincent Joos (FSU). Repeating Disasters: Austerity, Industrialization, and Neocolonialism in Haiti
Sarah Molinari (CUNY). ¿Tu Estás Preparado?: Neoliberal Disaster Governance in Puerto Rico in the Age of Climate Change

Panel 4b (FAB 332)

Community Recovery and Resilience

CHAIR: Peter Osne

Cassandra R. Davis (UNC). Unwavering After the Strom: Examining Black, Brown, and White Communities’ Resistance to Racial and Economic Injustice through Resiliency
Shaleen Miller (UNC). Collaboration for Resilience, Post-Disaster: A reflection on practice in Post-Maria Puerto Rico

12.45-2.00 – Lunch

2.00-3.30 – Panels 5a and 5b

Panel 5a (FAB 249)

Ritual, Memory, Apocalypse

CHAIR: Kellen Hoxworth

Maxine Montgomery (FSU). Romance After the Ruin: Beyonce’sLemonade as Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy
Shearon Roberts (Xavier University). From Profiling to Pups: Examining Intrusions on African American traditions during Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest.
John Ribó (FSU). Post-Disaster Wake Work in the Circum-Caribbean

Panel 5b (FAB 332)

Visual and textual cultures

CHAIR: Matt Goldmark

Silvia Baage (McDaniel College). Environmental Disasters and Local Resistance in Frank Smith’sKatrina, Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiane
Ana Baez (Colorado State University). The Forbidding of Representation: Eduardo Lalo and Puerto Rican Photography
Randi Kristensen (George Washington University). Round and Round: Disaster capitalism and cruel optimism in the circum-Caribbean

3.30-3.45 – Coffee

3.45-4.30 – Global Disaster Roundtable

4.45-6.00 Keynote lecture (FAB 249)

CHAIR: Jeannine Murray-Roman

Yarimar Bonilla (Rutgers University)

6.00-7.30 Closing Reception at the Museum of Fine Arts (MoFA)

3.23 Embodied Interculturality in the Language Class.

The Language Teaching Forum @ York is organising its second workshop of the current academic year. Details below:

Embodied Interculturality in the Language Class.
Donata Puntil, SFHA, Programme Director for the Modern Language Centre
• Monday, 16 March 2020, 2-4pm
• V/N/123, Vanbrugh Nucleus, University of York

Programme:
2:00 – 2:15 Registration and Coffee
2:15 – 2:20 Welcome and Introduction

2:20 – 3:45 Talk and discussion led by Donata Puntil

3:45 – 4:00 Closing remarks and feedback

Free admission. Refreshments provided. Please register by Tuesday, 10 March 2020 using this registration form.
Further details of the workshop as well as video recordings, PowerPoints and handouts from previous workshops are available on the forum’s website. Please forward this to anyone you think might be interested.

If you have any questions please contact: language-teaching-forum@york.ac.uk.

3.24 Conférence de Arnaud Dubois, le 18 février à 18h30

ENSA Limoges

Amphithéâtre Jean-Jacques Prolongeau | entrée libre et gratuite

« Le partage de la couleur : entre biologique et social » tel est le thème de la conférence de Arnaud Dubois ce 18 février.

Dans l’Histoire Naturelle (1749-1789), le naturaliste et philosophe Buffon postule que tous les êtres humains sont issus d’un même rameau, à partir duquel ils se seraient différenciés : « L’Homme, blanc en Europe, noir en Afrique, jaune en Asie et rouge en Amérique n’est que le même Homme teint de la couleur du climat ». Cette diversité chromatique humaine devient un objet d’étude dans les premières enquêtes de l’anthropologie biologique de la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle. Les protocoles empiriques mis en place pour l’étude de la coloration de l’homme produisent ainsi des typologies classificatoires. Les travaux de Paul Broca et son « Tableau chromatique des yeux, de la peau et des cheveux » (1864) ou encore ceux de Georges Pouchet et sa thèse sur « les colorations de l’épiderme » (1864) alimentent l’idée d’un impérialisme esthétique du blanc où les couleurs sont la marque dégradante de l’Autre. Les travaux anthropologiques sur la coloration permettent ainsi d’objectiver les thèses racistes et évolutionnistes et de justifier la colonisation et l’esclavagisme. Cette politique de la couleur a des conséquences centrales dans les débats sociologiques de « la ligne de couleur » (Du Bois 1903) qui émergent au tournant du XXe siècle au sein du mouvement anti-raciste et des théories décoloniales.

A travers l’examen de sources historiques issues des sciences naturelles, de l’anthropologie biologique, de la sociologie de la race et de l’histoire de l’art, cette conférence tentera de penser les sources du problème de la couleur dans la pensée occidentale et de restaurer ainsi la dimension des pratiques sociales, politiques, esthétiques et scientifiques de ce qui est défini comme couleur en occident, indispensable pour mener un travail de critique des présupposés de race aujourd’hui.

Arnaud Dubois est professeur d’histoire de l’art et du design à l’Ensa-Limoges et chargé de recherche au Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers. Son dernier ouvrage La vie chromatique des objets (Brepols 2019) propose une approche anthropologique de la couleur dans l’art contemporain. Ses recherches portent sur la construction sociale de la couleur dans les sociétés européennes modernes qu’il étudie au prisme des relations entre science, art et technique.

→ En savoir plus sur le travail de Arnaud Dubois

3.25 Caribbean Studies Association Awards Nominations

Barbara T. Christian Literary Award<https://www.caribbeanstudiesassociation.org/awards-grants/barbara-t-christian-literary-award/> (Deadline: March 25, 2020)
Best Dissertation Award<https://www.caribbeanstudiesassociation.org/awards-grants/best-dissertation-award/> (Deadline: March 1, 2020)
Lifetime Achievement Award<https://www.caribbeanstudiesassociation.org/awards-grants/lifetime-achievement-award/> (Deadline: March 30, 2020)

3.26 Women in French ‘One Book, One WIF’ nominations

One Book, One WIF

Call for nominations

With this initiative, WIF North America and WIF UK seek to foster international collaboration by the members of and participants in our two organizations and conferences. In addition, our goal is to draw the attention of scholars to the work of deserving, lesser-‐known women authors in France and throughout the Francophone world. Our hope is that this will lead to increased readership for and scholarship devoted to these authors. To the extent possible, it is our goal to include authors from all periods and countries. Finally, when living authors are chosen, we will encourage conference organizers to explore the possibility of the author attending the conference. We realize that this final goal will be a challenge due to availability, funding, etc. and thus, the choice of books will not be contingent upon the author’s ability to attend the conference.

Nominating a Book

Eligibility: Any student or scholar who is a member of WIF North America or who has attended a WIF North America or WIF UK conference is eligible to propose a book for selection in this initiative.

Books nominated should be books that are either lesser-‐known themselves or written by lesser-‐known authors.

Please send the following information to Stephanie Schechner at saschechner@widener.edu by March 1, 2020 for full consideration.

Your name:

Name of author:

Author’s Date of Birth/Date of Death (if applicable):

Country of origin:

1-‐2 sentences about the author

Book Title and Year of publication:

List of themes raised by this book:

Explain in 250 words or less why this book should be read

Name of a scholar(s) who might be able to lead discussion of the book at a conference:

*This question is asked for informational purposes only and will not factor in the selection of the book for the initiative

3.27 Appel à candidatures: Ma thèse d’histoire de l’art en 180 secondes

La 10e édition du Festival de l’histoire de l’art aura lieu à Fontainebleau les vendredi 5, samedi 6 et dimanche 7 juin 2020 avec le Japon comme pays invité. Le thème fédérateur choisi cette année est le Plaisir.

Dans le cadre de cette édition, il est proposé aux doctorants de participer au concours « Ma thèse d’histoire de l’art en 180 secondes ».

Chaque candidat disposera de trois minutes (180 secondes) pour réaliser un exposé clair et concis de son projet de recherche. Les présentations réalisées par les candidats retenus devront convaincre deux jurys composés d’historiens de l’art et de professionnels. A l’issue du concours, trois prix seront attribués aux trois meilleurs orateurs.

Premier prix: 1000€
Deuxième prix: 500 €
Troisième prix: 500€

Les frais de transport et d’hébergement des participants hors région parisienne seront pris en charge sur présentation de justificatifs (jusqu’à 150€).

Date limite de candidature : 15 mars 2020

Renseignements et inscription à l’adresse suivante: http://bit.ly/2OlKYos

http://festivaldelhistoiredelart.com

3.28 H-France Scholars Registry

One goal of H-France is to bring together scholars of Francophone history and culture across the globe. In order to facilitate contacts, H-France established the Scholars Register, a searchable database which allows scholars to establish accounts that they control to identify themselves by their research interest and contact information. The Scholars Registry is used by scholars looking for others with similar research interests for potential conference panels, presses looking for potential manuscript reviewers, and journal editors seeking book reviewers. If you have not established an account or you need to update an existing account, you may do so at: https://www.h-france.net/scholars/.

The Scholars Registry is edited by Tracey Rizzo, University of North Carolina-Ashville, who ensures that those who create accounts are scholars and scholars-in-training.

4. New Publications

4.1 Nadia Kiwan, Secularism, Islam and public intellectuals in contemporary France (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019)

This book focuses on how Muslim intellectuals in contemporary France contribute to our understanding of the relationship between Islam, secularism and French society. Whilst most books about Islam in France tend to examine polemicized issues such as the veil or Islamist violence, this book’s focus on secular Muslim intellectuals challenges polarizing accounts of Islam and Muslims. Secularism, Islam and public intellectuals in contemporary France thus departs from the ‘clash of civilisations’ approach and, more broadly challenges divisive claims that European ‘multiculturalism’ must be abandoned in order to uphold democratic principles and values. The book entails a contextualised analysis of the published works and public interventions of Abdennour Bidar, Malek Chebel, Leïla Babès, Abdelwahab Meddeb and Dounia Bouzar – intellectuals who have all received little, if any scholarly attention despite being well-known figures in France.

https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781784994129/

4.2 Carter V. Findley, Enlightening Europe on Islam and the Ottomans: Mouradgea d’Ohsson and His Masterpiece (Brill: Leiden, 2019)

Everything the enlightened despot needed to know — Mouradgea d’Ohsson’s Tableau général de l’Empire othoman provided precisely that guidance in the Enlightenment’s most authoritative work on Islam and the Ottomans. As its long subtitle states, his work has two parts: one on Islamic law (three-fourths of the total), the other on the state. Magnificently illustrated with 233 engravings, the work offers the century’s richest collection of visual documentation on the Ottomans and opens deep insights into the processes and politics of illustrated book production in this period. D’Ohsson is commonly mistaken for a travel writer or an orientalist. Nothing could be more wrong, as this first thorough study of both his career and his masterpiece demonstrates. The demand for this work sprang from an episode unique in the annals of European states’ relations with the Ottoman Empire: a reigning European monarch, Sweden’s Charles XII’s five-year residence with a large entourage at Bender in Ottoman Bessarabia (1709-1714). The demand for a Linnean taxonomy of practical information about Islam and the Ottomans began then. No one could complete the full array until d’Ohsson, the brilliant secretary interpreter of the Swedish mission in Istanbul, did seventy-five years later. So high were his princely patrons’ expectations for the Tableau that it was published simultaneously in two different editions: 3 fully illustrated folios (Paris, 1787-1820) for rich collectors and 7 partially illustrated octavo volumes (Paris, 1787-1824) for the wider public. Further information and sample pages are available on line at https://brill.com/view/title/36104

4.3 Agnès Schaffauser (ed.), Salim Bachi (Paris: l’Harmattan, 2019)

À trente ans, l’auteur franco-algérien, Salim Bachi, publie chez Gallimard Le chien d’Ulysse qui reçoit le Prix Goncourt du premier roman et le Prix de la vocation. Depuis, il a publié un recueil de nouvelles, deux essais autobiographiques et neuf romans qui ont fait l’objet d’une grande attention médiatique et académique. Toutefois, aucune monographie n’a été consacrée à son travail. Regroupant une quinzaine d’articles thématiques et stylistiques, cet ouvrage s’intéresse à son travail intertextuel, à l’islam en littérature, à la place de la mobilité contemporaine dans ses romans, mais aussi au terrorisme et au deuil impossible. D’autres contributions explorent des perspectives philosophiques, sociologiques, historiques, voire transhistoriques.

Le volume comprend des contributions de Bernard Aresu, Mounya Belhocine, Carine Bourget, Yves Davo, Carole Delaitre, Tristan Leperlier, Susan Noakes, Lamia Mecheri, Erin Tremblay Ponnou-Delaffon, Bernadette Rey Mimoso-Ruiz, Agnès Schaffauser, Jaouad Serghini, Imane Terhmina et François-Nicolas Vozel ainsi qu’un entretien avec l’auteur et une bibliographie très détaillée.

Vous pourrez en trouver la présentation sur le site de l’éditeur via le lien suivant:

https://www.editions-harmattan.fr/index.asp?navig=catalogue&obj=livre&no=64830&razSqlClone=1

4.4 Jean-Pierre Boulé, Abdellah Taïa, La Mélancolie et le cri (Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 2020)

Parution le 23 janvier 2020.

Disponible également en version numérique sur https://books.openedition.org/

http://presses.univ-lyon2.fr/produit.php?id_produit=2056&id_collection=83

Ce livre est le premier essai critique consacré à l’écrivain marocain Abdellah Taïa. Il analyse l’ensemble de ses écrits dans un ordre chronologique, depuis les premières nouvelles publiées en 1999 jusqu’au dernier roman en date, La Vie lente, paru en 2019, dans une démarche associant texte, paratexte et biographie de l’auteur. Par ailleurs, il prend en compte l’écriture photographique et filmique de l’auteur, analysant ses commentaires d’images, son court-métrage réalisé sur la tombe de Jean Genet et son long-métrage, intitulé L’Armée du salut. Cet essai se penche également sur l’engagement d’Abdellah Taïa, auteur de nombreux articles politiques publiés dans la presse et d’interventions dans les médias sociaux. Enrichi d’un long entretien avec l’auteur à propos de la création littéraire et la genèse de son œuvre, cet ouvrage propose aux lecteurs trois courts récits inédits d’Abdellah Taïa. Complété par une bibliographie exhaustive, il constitue un outil indispensable pour mesurer la portée d’une œuvre très largement reconnue, traversée par le deuil, la mélancolie et le cri.

4eme de couverture :

En 2013, Abdellah Taïa déclare à un journaliste : « Pour moi, écrire – même quand il s’agit de “fiction” –, c’est raconter son origine, son monde premier, ses premiers cris. » L’écriture de soi est au cœur de l’œuvre de cet auteur engagé, premier écrivain marocain à avoir dévoilé son homosexualité.
Brassant matériaux littéraire et cinématographique, paratexte et éléments biographiques, Jean-Pierre Boulé retrace avec minutie le parcours de cet écrivain hors normes, mettant en lumière des thèmes comme le deuil, la spiritualité ou la famille, qui hantent la parole de Taïa.
Enrichie d’un entretien avec Abdellah Taïa ainsi que de trois récits inédits en français, cette étude est le premier essai critique consacré à l’écrivain marocain, aujourd’hui internationalement connu.

Jean-Pierre Boulé est professeur d’études françaises contemporaines à l’Université de Nottingham Trent. Spécialiste de Serge Doubrovsky, d’Hervé Guibert et de Jean-Paul Sartre, il privilégie une lecture analytique via l’autofiction ou la fiction et s’intéresse, derrière les mots, à l’être de chair et de sang. Il est l’auteur d’une dizaine d’ouvrages, dont Hervé Guibert : l’écriture
photographique ou le miroir de soi, co-écrit avec Arnaud Genon, paru aux Presses universitaires de Lyon en 2015.

4.5 Aro Velmet, Pasteur’s Empire: Bacteriology and Politics in France, Its Colonies, and the World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020)

In the 1890s, the Pasteur Institute established a network of laboratories that stretched across France’s empire, from Indochina to West Africa. Quickly, researchers at these laboratories became central to France’s colonial project, helping officials monopolize industries, develop public health codes, establish disease containment measures, and arbitrate political conflicts around questions of labor rights, public works, and free association.

Pasteur’s Empire shows how the scientific prestige of the Pasteur Institute came to depend on its colonial laboratories, and how, conversely, the institutes themselves became central to colonial politics. This book argues that decisions as small as the isolation of a particular yeast or the choice of a laboratory animal could have tremendous consequences on the lives of Vietnamese and African subjects, who became the consumers of new vaccines or industrially fermented intoxicants. Simultaneously, global forces, such as the rise of international standards and American competitors pushed Pastorians to their imperial laboratories, where they could conduct studies that researchers in France considered too difficult or controversial. Chapters follow not just Alexandre Yersin’s studies of the plague, Charles Nicolle’s public health work in Tunisia, and Jean Laigret’s work on yellow fever in Dakar, but also the activities of Vietnamese doctors, African students and politicians, Syrian traders, and Chinese warlords. It argues that a specifically Pastorian understanding of microbiology shaped French colonial politics across the world, allowing French officials to promise hygienic modernity while actually committing to little development. In bringing together global history, imperial history, and science and technology studies, Pasteur’s Empire deftly integrates micro and macro analyses into one connected narrative that sheds critical light on a key era in the history of medicine.

More information available here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/pasteurs-empire-9780190072827?cc=us&lang=en&#

4.6 Ramona Mielusel & Simona Pruteanu (eds.), Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America: Multicultural perspectives on political, cultural and artistic representations of immigration (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020)

Link to the book : https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783030301576 :

The first decades of the new millennium have been marked by major political changes. Although The West has wished to revisit internal and international politics concerning migration policies, refugee status, integration, secularism, and the dismantling of communitarianism, events like the Syrian refugee crisis, the terrorist attacks in France in 2015-2016, and the economic crisis of 2008 have resurrected concepts such as national identity, integration, citizenship and re-shaping state policies in many developed countries. In France and Canada, more recent public elections have brought complex democratic political figures like Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau to the public eye. Both leaders were elected based on their promising political agendas that aimed at bringing their countries into the new millennium; Trudeau promotes multiculturalism, while Macron touts the diverse nation and the inclusion of diverse ethnic communities to the national model. This edited collection aims to establish a dialogue between these two countries and across disciplines in search of such discursive illustrations and opposing discourses. Analyzing the cultural and political tensions between minority groups and the state in light of political events that question ideas of citizenship and belonging to a multicultural nation, the chapters in this volume serve as a testimonial to the multiple views on the political and public perception of multicultural practices and their national and international applicability to our current geopolitical context.

4.7 Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 55:6 (December 2019). ‘Diasporic Trajectories: Charting new critical perspectives’

This special issue is devoted to articles originally presented in the ‘Diasporic Trajectories’ seminar series held at the University of Edinburgh, a guiding aim of which was to cross-fertilize contemporary francophone and anglophone research in the growing field of diaspora studies.

The articles comprising this special issue can be accessed via the journal website: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rjpw20/55/6?nav=tocList

‘Diasporic Trajectories’ is coordinated by the Diaspolinks research group: https://www.ed.ac.uk/literatures-languages-cultures/diaspolinks

Table of Contents:

Obituary: In Memoriam Professor Geoffrey V. Davis

Janet M. Wilson

Introduction: Diasporic Trajectories: Charting new critical perspectives

Françoise Král, Sam Coombes & Corinne Bigot

Articles:

Poetics and the geopolitics of knowledge: From colonial to global

Claire Joubert

Epistemological fractures: The decline of western paradigms. Beyond the current epistemic hegemony?

Rada Ivekovíc

Glissant and diaspora studies

Sam Coombes

“Dead men tell no tales, but dead white men document plenty”: Imagining the Middle Passage in Caryl Phillips’ Crossing the River and Fred D’Aguiar’s Feeding the Ghosts

Abigail Ward

Diasporic Culinary Trajectories: Mapping food zones and food routes in first-generation South Asian and Caribbean culinary memoirs

Corinne Bigot

From Sojourners to citizens: the poetics of space and ontology in diasporic Chinese literature from Aotearoa/New Zealand

Michelle Keown

Making Sense of memory in the writings of the Caribbean diaspora: Sam Selvon’s London calypso

Kathie Birat

Polyglossing in English: the diasporic trajectories of the English language

Françoise Král

Postcolonial untranslatability: Reading Achille Mbembe with Barbara Cassin

Michael Syrotinski

Afterword:

Chronotopes and fractals: An afterword to a special issue on diasporic trajectories

Robin Cohen

Review Article:

The Testaments; Quichotte; Machine Like Me and People Like You

Bruce King

4.8 French Historical Studies, 43:1 (2020)

The year’s first issue of French Historical Studies is now on line. It opens with an editorial essay by Eric Savarese, “Politiques de la mémoire et modèle de citoyenneté: Ce que nous apprend le cas français (fin dix-neuvième–début vingt et unième siècle).” A forum on Jewish History follows with contributions by Maurice Samuels, Joshua Schreier, and Ethan Katz and an introduction by Julie Kalman and Daniella Doron. The issue concludes with an article by Samuel Kalman, “Unlawful Acts or Strategies of Resistance?: Crime and the Disruption of Colonial Order in Interwar French Algeria.”

Readers interested in Eric Savarese’s essay might wish to revisit an earlier discussion of the politics of memory: French Historical Studies’ 1995 forum on “The Vichy Syndrome” is now available outside the paywall through the end of April. It includes contributions by John Hellman (“Wounding Memories: Mitterrand, Moulin, Touvier, and the Divine Half-Lie of Resistance”), Pierre Nora (“Le Syndrome, son passé, son avenir”), Bertram M. Gordon (“The “Vichy Syndrome” Problem in History”), and a response by Henry Rousso (“Le Syndrome de l’historien“). Thanks to J-Stor and Duke University Press for making this forum available here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/i212737.

Table of Contents,

Eric Savarese, “Politiques de la mémoire et modèle de citoyenneté: Ce que nous apprend le cas français (fin dix-neuvième–début vingt et unième siècle)”

French Jewish History : A Forum on the Field, edited by Julie Kalman, Daniella Doron, and Vicki Caron

Julie Kalman and Daniella Doron, “French Jewish History: A Review”

Maurice Samuels, “The Question of Assimilation in French Jewish Historiography”

Joshua Schreier, “Recentering the History of Jews in North Africa: The View from Oran”

Ethan B. Katz, “Jewish Citizens of an Imperial Nation-State: Toward a French-Algerian Frame for French Jewish History”

Samuel Kalman, “Unlawful Acts or Strategies of Resistance?: Crime and the Disruption of Colonial Order in Interwar French Algeria”

4.9 Dalhouse French Studies, 115 (Winter 2020). ‘Précisions sur les sciences dans l’œuvre de Marie Darrieussecq’

C’est avec grand plaisir que nous vous annonçons la parution du numéro spécial Précisions sur les sciences dans l’œuvre de Marie Darrieussecq dans Dalhousie French Studies (vol. 115, 2020), co-dirigé par Dominique Carlini Versini et Carine Fréville, avec les contributions de Colette Trout, Simon Kemp, Enda McCaffrey, Stephanie Posthumus, Benjamin Dalton, Sonja Stojanovic, Isabelle Galichon et Isabelle Dangy. Merci à nos contributeurs et contributrices !

Le numéro spécial Précisions sur les sciences dans l’œuvre de Marie Darrieussecq, est inspiré du colloque international du même nom, qui s’est tenu à l’Université de Kent à Paris en mai 2017. Il envisage la pluralité de l’engagement de l’autrice avec les sciences dans ses fictions. Le numéro est la première réflexion collective sur le sujet et regroupe neuf contributions, qui cherchent à questionner la présence des animaux dans les textes entre éthologie, écologie et darwinisme ; les explorations de la matière (noire ?) ou encore la critique du médical ou de la technologie qui se dessinent dans l’écriture de Darrieussecq, à travers une large sélection de textes allant de Truismes (1996) jusqu’à Notre vie dans les forêts (2017). Le numéro spécial se clôt par un entretien avec Marie Darrieussecq, au cours duquel elle revient sur l’importance des sciences dans son imaginaire.

The special issue Précisions sur les sciences dans l’œuvre de Marie Darrieussecq takes its inspiration from the international symposium of the same name, which was held at the University of Kent Paris School of Arts and Culture in May 2017. It considers the author’s plurality of engagement with sciences in her fictions. The issue is the first collective reflection on the subject and brings together nine contributions, that seek to question the presence of animals in the texts, between ethnology, ecology and Darwinism; the explorations of (black?) matter as well as criticism of the medical and of technology that emerges in Darrieussecq’s writing, through a broad selection of texts, from Truismes (1996) to Notre vie dans les forêts (2017). The special issue ends with an interview with Marie Darrieussecq, in which she addresses the importance of sciences in her imagination.

4.10 International Journal of Francophone Studies, 22:3 & 22:4 (2019)

Articles

Fasting, feasting: The resistant strategies of (not) eating in Ananda Devi’s Le Voile de Draupadi and Manger l’autre

Amaleena Damlé

Choses d’apparat: The poetics of dress in Michel Leiris’s L’Afrique fantôme

Peter Poiana

Angry laughter: Postcolonial representations of dictatorial masculinities

Charlotte Baker

Penser et jouer l’absurde dans le théâtre haïtien: Corps, mémoire, possession

Jason Allen-Paisant

Negritude, Americanization and human rights in Gorée, Senegal: The Maison de Esclave 1966–2019

Robin Ostow

Repenser sur l’environnement: Une étude écocritique dans Gouverneurs de la rosée de Jacques Roumain, Moi,Tituba sorcière… noire de Salem de Maryse Condé et L’Exil selon Julia de Gisèle Pineau

Evaristus Nkemdilim Ugwu

Vincent Nnaemeka Obidiegwu

Embodied explorations and migrants’ agency: Movements, memory and solidarity in Passages by Émile Ollivier

Marie Paillard

SFPS Mailing: February 2020

1. Calls for Papers/Contributions

1.1 Appel à communications / Call for papers: Perspectives littéraires et artistiques sur la Chinafrique.