New College Symposium
One Hundred Years of Jealousy: Homage to Swann
Oxford, 31st May 2013
To celebrate the centenary of the publication of the first volume of Proust’s A la recherché du temps perdu, Du côté de chez Swann, this one-day symposium proposes to revisit a major theme of the novel, jealousy. Romantic or sexual jealousy was the subject matter and the trigger of tragedy in some of the greatest works in literary history, but the attention devoted to it culminated at the turn of the twentieth century in the fiction of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, James, Svevo, Musil — and not the least, Proust. In A la recherche du temps perdu, jealousy is not only the determining factor of the lives of Swann and later the narrator himself — not to mention other central figures such as Charlus, Saint-Loup, or Gilberte — but also a crucial propelling power of the narrator's apprenticeship into the world of signs which ultimately leads to the birth of writing.
While revolving around this Proustian leitmotif and its afterlife in twentieth-century French literature, the symposium will aim to bring together a variety of perspectives including those of psychology, film studies, and philosophy.
Confirmed keynote speakers:
- Philippe Chardin (Professor of Comparative Literature, Université de Tours – Equipe Proust-ITEM)
- Rainer Warning (Professor Emeritus of Romance Studies, University of Munich)
- Candida Yates (Reader in Psychosocial Studies, University of East London)
Proposals are welcome for 20-minute presentations on topics including (but not limited to):
- aspects of jealousy in the Proustian novel
- the figure of Swann in Proust and in later intertextual references
- Proustian influence on later representations of love and jealousy
- male and female jealousy in twentieth-century French fiction
- jealousy in the film adaptations of the Recherche
- the role of jealousy in French film
- theoretical approaches to the phenomenon of jealousy and/or its representation
Please send 250-word abstracts as a Word document including your name and affiliation to the organizer, Erika Fülöp at erika.fulop@new.ox.ac.uk by Monday 11 February 2013. The preferred language is English, but proposals in French will also be considered.