CALL FOR PAPERS :
ICLA Vienna 21-27 July 2016
Papers invited for the group section : The roman noir in minority literatures
Organizer: Nanquette, Laetitia (University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia)
The roman noir started in America in the 1930s and in France in the 1940s as a version of the crime novel with a twist, as the protagonist is not a detective or a police officer but a victim or a perpetrator of the crime. In addition the ending more often than not does not re-establish social order. As it developed as a genre, the roman noir came to be characterized by a pessimistic view of the world and an emphasis on politics. The roman noir is indeed interested in the reasons for crime and in questioning society about its responsibility in their production.
The genre is predominantly a Western one, with well-known writers and numerous audiences in North America and Europe. However minority literatures also have romans noirs, which are essential to understand the genre in a world literature context. Sometimes written by migrant writers from peripheral countries in their adopted major languages, sometimes written in minor languages, these romans noirs redefine the genre and its politics. As they circulate in a globalized world, they come to not only question their country’s society but the world order in the making of crimes, for example when narrating the international selling of organs or the trafficking of humans.
This panel will consider the roman noir from peripheral literatures. Grounded in a historical understanding of the genre in the context of minor literatures, it will focus on the politics of the roman noir from peripheral literatures in the redefinition of the genre.
Should you have any questions, please send an e-mail to l.nanquette@unsw.edu.au. Thank you for your consideration, and I look forward to receiving your exciting contributions.
The deadline to send me your conference abstracts is 27th August.
Dr Laetitia Nanquette,
Lecturer and Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow,
School of the Arts and Media,
University of New South Wales, SydneyDear all,