“Travail d’équipe: Models of Collaboration in Nineteenth-Century French Literature”

Travail d'équipe: Models of Collaboration in Nineteenth-Century French Literature

Deadline for abstracts: 15 December 2006
Deadline for final contributions: 1 June 2007

Submissions are invited for a collection of essays on collaboration in nineteenth-century French letters. Within this particular shared form of literary production, this volume will be particularly interested in questions of inclusion, exclusion, imitation, parody, and humor, among others. Entries may include, but are by no means limited to, collaborative efforts such as:

Precursors to nineteenth-century collaboration (la Pléiade; l'Encyclopédie);
Le Journal des Dames et des Modes (1797-1839) ;
Athénée des Dames (1808) ;
le petit cénacle / les Jeune-France;
Le Journal des Dames (1832-1838) ;
La Gazette des femmes (1836-1838) ;
Le Parnasse contemporain and/or Le Parnassiculet contemporain;
les Zutistes / l'Album zutique;
Cabaret groups of the 1880's (Hydropathes, Hirsutes, Jemenfoutistes, le Chat noir, etc.);
Symbolist literary journals;
Adoré Floupette and Les Déliquescences;
Edmond and Jules Goncourt;
Emile Zola and le groupe de Médan; and
Surrealism (perhaps marking the end of this kind of collaboration)

In addition, the editor welcomes essays on the relative lack of formal group ventures among women and/or including both men and women.

The main objective of this volume is to consider questions surrounding each group's formation, (de)stability, longevity, and dissolution; the ease with which one was accepted or refused entrance into, or rejected from the group; parody within and beyond the limits of the group; the internal group dynamic and its impact on collaborative productions and contemporary individual work outside the group (side projects); and the extent to which these aspects are unique to that group or universal to literary and artistic group productions. Finally, contributors are invited to discuss the impact of the century's constantly changing political landscape on the collaborative effort, either within the group's dynamics or in situating that group within the larger social context.

Essays (MLA style) should not exceed 6000 words, including notes and bibliography, and they should be accompanied by a short text (500-750 words) presenting a brief introduction to the collaborative effort discussed. Proposals may be submitted in English or French, but the final essays must be in English; translations of French texts will be accepted. Send proposals (100-150 words, MSWord attachment) by 15 December 2006 to Seth Whidden (seth.whidden@villanova.edu). Completed articles must be received by 1 June 2007 for full consideration.