The Department of French at Rutgers University
announces its Graduate Conference:
La Fracture: Disrupted Subjectivity
March 2-3, 2012
New Brunswick, NJ
The Department of French at Rutgers University is pleased to announce an interdisciplinary conference that explores the effects of upheavals on the self and society. La Fracture is a rupture or flaw in an established structure that governs a social order. Rupture occurs historically when the expected trajectory of events veers off course. Powers collapse. Ideologies shift. As order turns to chaos, individuals are disoriented. Rupture also occurs when a subject feels excluded from the norm, drifting in a state of in-between. Through art, literature, and other media, those affected try to come to terms with their confusion.
In this conference, we intend to discuss the ways in which subjectivities, whether personal or collective, are re-formed out of fragments and are reflected by literature, film, visual art, music, and bandes dessinées. We will accept papers in either English or French.
Possible themes for submissions include, but are not limited to, the following:
--Post-colonialism --Trauma theory --Fragmented identities --Distortions of the self, self-delusion --Madness and mental illness --The unrepresentable, l’indicible, le passage à l’acte --Gender and Queer Theory --Sexuality and pornography --Natural disasters --Revolution, coup d’état, change of regime --Evolution of ideas --War and terrorism --Technology --Democracy and totalitarianism --Economic crises
Keynote speaker: TBA
Your abstract should be submitted to the following email address: rutgers.la.fracture@gmail.com before the 30th of December. It should be around 250-500 words and be preceded by a cover page with the following information:
-Name (last, first)
-Academic affiliation
-Title of the paper
-Telephone number
-Address
-Email address
None of this information should appear on your abstract.