What forms can do: attending to the real in 20^th and 21^st century French literature. A conference in honour of Pr. M Sheringham (Oxford)

What forms can do: attending to the real in 20^th and 21^st century French literature. 

A conference in honour of Pr. M Sheringham (Oxford)

Colleagues are cordially invited to attend this conference on forms, which is described below, and to celebrate the contribution that Professor Sheringham has made to the shape of French Studies. Over the three days a range of international speakers will come together to focus anew on the agency of form and its theorization and will dialogue with many of the themes and critical approaches that have been brought to prominence and received original treatment in Professor Sheringham’s own work.

Conference outline

How do the formal properties of texts inflect our reading of them? A central theme in twentieth and twenty-first century French and Francophone writing has been the exploration of how literary forms create distinctive textual environments, and at the same time engage with external realities. This applies to manifestly experimental writing (for example surrealist poetry, the narratological dispositifs of the nouveau roman, new autobiographical forms), as well as apparently more conventional texts, including those marking the recent return to narrative and reference. The aim of this international conference is to renew the engagement with form that has been a key feature of French literary production and of analysis in French studies. It will explore the reach of formal devices across a range of genres – including poetry, the novel, life-writing, the essay and visual/textual experiments – from the twentieth century through to the present day.

Speakers include Elza Adamowicz, Andrew Asibong, Celia Britton, Patrick Crowley, Alison Finch, Charles Forsdick, Patrick ffrench, Johnnie Gratton, Gunnthorunn Gudmundsdottir, Mairéad Hanrahan, Eddie Hughes, Ann Jefferson, Shirley Jordan, Marie-Chantal Killeen, Diana Knight, Patrick McGuinness, Ian Maclachlan, Emily McLaughlin, Michael Lucey, Patrick O’Donovan, Peter Read, Eric Robertson, Ann Smock, Susan Suleiman, Michael Syrotinski, David Walker, Emma Wilson. A full programme will be posted in due course.  

To register for the whole or part of the conference, please follow this link:  What forms can do conference

For further details please contact Patrick Crowley (p.crowley@ucc.ie), Shirley Jordan (s.a.jordan@qmul.ac.uk) or Emily McLaughlin (emily.mclaughlin@queens.ox.ac.uk)