Registration form available here
SFPS 2023 Annual Conference
Travel, Writing, and In/exclusion
November 17-18
Institute of Modern Languages Research
University of London, Malet St.
Day 1 – Friday, November 17th
9:30 – 10:15: Registration
10:15-10:30: Welcome
10:30-12:00:
Panel 1A Women’s Travel Writing
Chair: Hannah Grayson
- Hannah Grayson (University of Stirling) ‘Thwarted mobilities: women, wheels and necroworlds in Monénembo’s latest novels’
- Ashwiny O. Kistnareddy (University of Oxford) ‘Marginalized “Migrants”: Remembering Forced Migration in Nahapétian’s Quitter Tehran and Thúy’s Vi’
- Amira Sadoun (Université Sorbonne Paris Nord) ‘Nouvelles voyageuses en terres d’Orient dans un contexte de production post-colonial: une étude d’Andrée Chédid et d’Assia Djebar’
Panel 1B New Worlds and Global Mobility
Chair: Erin Twohig
- Erin Twohig (Georgetown University) ‘Global Mobility and Pandemic Futurism in Moroccan Novels since 2020’
- Rebekah Vince (Queen Mary University of London) ‘Algeria as Archipelago: Towards a (Franco-)Maghrebi Poetics of Relation’
- Pankhuri Bhatt (University of Graz) ‘Le pèlerinage de Lanza del Vasto en Inde: une étude de Le pèlerinage aux sources (1943)’
- Amirpasha Tavakkoli (Sciences Po Toulouse) ‘Les passions persanes de Jane Dieulafoy’
12:00-1:30: Lunch break
12:30-1:30 SFPS Annual General Meeting
1:30-3:00:
Panel 2A Time Travel in the Archives
Chair: Heather Williams
- Alison Clare (University of Liverpool) ‘Travels through Memory: Literary Afterlives of Rosalie Bosquet’
- Heather Williams (University of Wales) ‘Travelling archives: Breton writers and papers in exile’
- Joanne Brueton (University of London in Paris) ‘Metonymic migrations: Amos Gitaï’s “House” (2022)’
Panel 2B Forced Migration: Between Trauma, Memory and Healing
Chair: Clare Finburgh Delijani
- Thierry Samuel Kamdem Bouobda (University of New Mexico) ‘Travel as a Boon to Healing Against Trauma in Gaël Faye’s Petit Pays’
- Andrew McGregor (University of Melbourne) ‘Travel as Trauma: The Myth of Romanticised Romani Nomadism in the Films of Tony Gatlif’
- Clare Finburgh Delijani (University of London) ‘Travel, Trauma, Time: Haunted Paris in Contemporary French Theatre’
3:00-3:30: Coffee/Tea break
3:30-5:00:
Panel 3A Travel, Language and (Un)belonging
Chair: Holly Lawton
- Holly Lawton (Independent Scholar) ‘Examining the Effects of Travel in Establishing Francophone Status through the Work of David Cheramie’
- Katelyn Knox (University of Central Arkansas) ‘Traveling (through) Sound: Excavation, Belonging, and AfroFrench History in Apkass’s Mais il arrive que la nuit tombe à l’improviste‘
Panel 3B Travel, Writing, and In/exclusion
Chair: Fraser McQueen
- Felisa Vergara Reynolds (University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign) ‘René Maran’s Un Homme pareil aux autres: or racism on the high seas’
- Adlai Murdoch (Penn State University) ‘John Edgar Wideman’s Martinique: Interrogating Travel, Identity, and Belonging’
- Fraser McQueen (University of Bristol) ‘Islam de France or Islams français? Travel in Muslim French fiction’
- Joseph Richmond (University of Liverpool) ‘Queer migration and cultures of whiteness’
5:00-6:00: Dorothy Blair Keynote ‘Seed journeys: dispersal, invasion, and flow across empire’ (Dr. Sophie Fuggle, Nottingham Trent University)
6:00-7:00: Vin d’honneur kindly sponsored by Liverpool University Press
7:30: Conference Dinner (own expense)
Day 2 – Saturday, November 18th
9.30-11.00
Panel 4a ECR workshop
Katelyn Knox ‘Hands-on Workshop ‘Book Questions, Chapter Answers: Practical Tools for Managing Your Book’
Tea/coffee break
11:10-12:10
Panel 5a Violent Journeys and Marginalized Lives
Chair: Audrey Small
- Helen McKelvey (University of Glasgow) ‘“Un long et périlleux voyage”: Perspectives on slavery in Wilfried N’Sondé’s Un océan, deux mers, trois continents’
- Audrey Small (University of Sheffield) ‘L’Atlantique de la démission et de la déresponsabilisation’
Panel 5b Travel Writing: The Self and the World
Chair: Amirpasha Tavakkoli
- Danielle Cervantes Stephens (Point Loma Nazarene University) ‘Voyage au bout du soi: Départs, Correspondances et Souvenirs d’Engagement Sartrien chez André Gide’
- Molly O’Brien (Princeton University) ‘Life Writing as Travel Writing: Finding New Homelands in Colette Fellous’s Kyoto Song’
12:10 – lunch break
12:45-1:45: Fieldwork Roundtable
Chair: Claire Griffiths
‘What does fieldwork add to research in Languages Cultures and Societies?’ A round table for PGRs, ECRs, and anyone interested in designing, preparing and conducting fieldwork in their research projects. The roundtable includes several members of the ILCS Fieldwork Research Group who will discuss the topic and respond to questions from participants on conducting fieldwork in our disciplines.
2:00-4:00: Film screening Omen by Baloji (2023, Aya Films)
Introduced by Jennifer Boum Make and followed by reflections from Chris Hogarth
4:00-4:30: Coffee/Tea break
4:30-5:30: Kate Marsh Memorial Lecture
‘The Sahara as a site of cross-cultural exchange: the “seer” and the “seen” in French and Algerian desert literature’ (Dr. Amina Zarzi, University of Oxford)
5:30: Conference Close
