CALL FOR PAPERS
CONFERENCE: ‘IDENTITY FORMATION'
WEDNESDAY 4 APRIL 2007
GUEST SPEAKERS:
PROF. CHARLES FORSDICK
&
PROF. ADRIAN ARMSTRONG
SCHOOL OF LANGUAGES, LINGUISTICS
& CULTURES
THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
Sponsored by The University of Manchester, The Society for French Studies and
The Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies
This will be the first ever conference to incorporate all the discipline areas in the School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures at The University of Manchester. This exciting inaugural event aims to be all inclusive and embrace all languages; it will treat the notion of ‘Identity Formation' in literature, art, film and media studies under three main themes:
1. The role of philosophy/ideology in the formation of identity:
- this addresses how the individual acts/forms his identity as a result of his philosophical ideas/ideological beliefs.
- it could include the philosophical ideas and values of, for example, the Enlightenment; the Counter-Enlightenment; Irrationalism; Existentialism; Post-Structuralism; Post-Colonialism etc.
- it could include the ideologies and identities of a particular class or gender of people, nation, or race in society or a historical era.
2. Diasporic and transcultural identities:
- this could include the notion of “becoming” identities; of identities being interchangeable; the concept of hybridity; and the effects of migration on identities.
3. Narrative identity:
- this addresses identity as a result of narration, which can be analysed by looking at the parts that constitute it - in particular plot, time and place.
Guest Speakers:
The guest speakers will be the distinguished scholars PROFESSOR CHARLES FORSDICK, The University of Liverpool, and PROFESSOR ADRIAN ARMSTRONG, The University of Manchester.
Professor Forsdick, who occupies the James Barrow Chair of French at the University of Liverpool, went to Liverpool in 2001. He previously studied at New College, Oxford and Lancaster University where he obtained his doctorate. Before being appointed to the University of Liverpool, he taught for five years at the University of Glasgow.
His research and teaching interests include exoticism, travel literature, postcolonial literature in French, the francophone dimensions of postcolonial theory, and the contemporary French novel. He has recently published Travel in Twentieth-Century French and Francophone Cultures (OUP, 2005), and is currently working on the links between travel and cultural diversity. His forthcoming publications include Francophone Postcolonial Studies (co-editor, Arnold) and editions of Victor Segalen's Essai sur l'exotisme and Equipée (Champion), and he is currently working on representations of the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint Louverture.
At this conference, Professor Forsdick will, amongst other subjects, discuss postcolonial representation and the effects of displacement, migration and travel.
Professor Armstrong completed his undergraduate degree and D.Phil. at Oxford, and spent a year as a Research Fellow in Cambridge before joining Manchester in 1995. Since then he has also taught as a visiting lecturer at Cambridge and Lyon-III.
His research centres around grand rhétoriqueur poetry; late medieval and early Renaissance literature; manuscript studies and bibliography; and the influence of book form upon literature. His principal interests are literary, and he has published work on various writers, including Villon, Molinet, Lemaire, Bouchet, and Jean Marot. However, his concerns with the book as object are also linked to literary questions by an interest in text editing, a discipline of fundamental importance for literary scholarship which is currently eliciting much methodological reflection. Besides a forthcoming edition of Jean Bouchet's Jugement poetic de l'honneur femenin, a pro-feminist text printed in 1538, he has co-edited a collection of occasional writing by the major rhétoriqueur Jean Lemaire de Belges from the period 1511-1513, with Jennifer Britnell (Société des Textes Français Modernes).
At this conference, Professor Armstrong will discuss how to successfully pursue a career in academia as a postgraduate student and will address issues of learning and teaching within higher education.
Please join us for an exploration of this compelling subject of identity formation.
The committee members, Louise Crowther, Michela Baldo and Kate Roy, cordially invite postgraduate and post-doctoral students to submit abstracts relating to one of the three aforementioned panel subjects.
Guidelines for Abstracts and Papers
Please follow these instructions carefully:
- Abstracts [and papers] should be in English and no longer than 150 words.
- All citations in both the abstract and the paper should be given in English.
- Abstracts should indicate clearly which of the three panels they correspond to; please put the title of the panel you are applying to as the e-mail's subject.
- Abstracts must be simply pasted/written into the e-mail and not attached as a Word [or other] document. Please also indicate the proposed title for the paper at the start of the abstract.
- Please state whether you will require PowerPoint/an overhead projector for your paper.
- The papers are to be 20 minutes in length and no longer, with approximately 10 minutes for questions.
- Abstracts should be sent to langsconference@yahoo.com
- The submission deadline is 15 January 2007.
Conference Registration:
- Please send your name, faculty, institution and contact telephone number to langsconference@yahoo.com Please enter the title ‘Registration' in the subject field of the e-mail. You will then receive an official registration form to complete and return with the fee of ten pounds. The deadline for registration is 25 February 2007.
Registration fees include refreshments, lunch and a reception in the evening.
The registration fees are non-refundable due to administrative costs.
- Enquiries should be addressed to Louise Crowther, on the committee, at: langsconference@yahoo.com
Please enter the title ‘Enquiry' in the subject field of the e-mail.
We look forward to seeing you at this exciting and inaugural event.