La Littérature authentique ?
conference
The University of London Institute in Paris (ULIP) is very pleased to announce the agenda for its second annual postgraduate conference : “La Littérature authentique?” which takes place at ULIP next month. Please find a full schedule for the day below.
We are particularly pleased to welcome Professor Michael Sheringham (All Souls, Oxford) as keynote speaker for the event. Professor Sheringham will be presenting a paper entitled ‘Annie Ernaux: event, exposure, writing’.
It promises to be a lively, informative and productive day and we are keen to extend the invitation to Fabula readers to attend.
Those wishing to join us are invited to pre-register by contacting eugene.brennan@ulip.lon.ac.uk.
Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions.
The ambiguous relationship between reality and representation and between lived experience and spectacle has consistently made the issue of authenticity a central concern of French literature. In fiction the problem of the authentic has ignited a number of historical debates and stylistic responses, from the realism of Balzac or Zola's naturalism to more experimental forms of literary representation to be found in the modernism of the Surrealists or contemporary autofiction. French philosophers, from Rousseau to the existentialism of Sartre and the virtual realities of Baudrillard, have also seen the question of authenticity as one of the essential problems of the modern condition.
The marginal social position of authors has also been seen to act as a subversive input of authenticity. At the same time, authenticity is often used as a decidedly reactionary tool in French society. Certain social practices and communities are oppressed and marginalized in the name of 'authentic' French culture. The notion of authenticity can therefore act as both a tool of critical empowerment and disempowerment. This raises questions as to the usefulness of authenticity as a concept and how it should be defined. This conference aims to examine, reassess and define the use of authenticity in French writing.
Agenda
09h30 – 10h00 : Registration
10h00 : Opening remarks : Professor Andrew Hussey (ULIP)
10h05 – 11h30 : Autofiction and authenticity (Chair : Russell Williams)
Catrinel Popa (University of Bucharest), ‘Authenticity, memory and fragmentation in George Perec’s writings’
Philippe Wilocq (Université Charles-de-Gaulle Lille 3), ‘L’authenticité à l’oeuvre du roman contemporain chez Jean-Philippe Toussaint’
Ophélie Chavaroche (Cornell University), ‘Authenticité et Trauma chez Virginie Despentes’
11h30 – 12h00 : Coffee break
12h00 – 12h45 : Keynote speaker: Professor Michael Sheringham (All Souls, Oxford) ‘Annie Ernaux: event, exposure, writing’
12h45 – 13h30: The limits of authenticity (Chair : Alastair Hemmens)
Ania Wroblewski (Université de Montréal) ‘Annie Ernaux, écrivaine engagée en quête de l’authentique’
Emily Kane (Cornell University) ‘Inauthentic Selves, True Untruths: Fictional Representation in Dora Bruder and Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles’
13h30 – 14h30 : Lunch break
14h30 – 14h55 : Angelos Triantafyllou (Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines), ‘Le collage, une écriture rhizomatique’
14h55 – 15h45: Authenticity and existentialism (Chair : Eugene Brennan)
Alexander McCabe (University of Glasgow) ‘The intertextual discourse of ‘authentic voice’ in existentialist fiction’
Beth Urquhart (University of Birmingham) ‘Degrees of Authenticity: Dada and Existentialist Literary Events’
15h45 – 16h30 Break
16h30 – 17h15: Francospherical authenticity (Chair : Dr Isabel Hollis)
Karim Simpore (Saint Lawrence University) ' « Ni Européens, ni Africains, ni Asiatiques, nous nous proclamons Créoles » : vers une quête impossible de l’authenticité’
Célia Sadai (Centre International d’Etudes Francophones, Paris IV – Sorbonne) ' L’Afrique n’existe pas. L’auctorialité au défi de l’authenticité dans les écritures postcoloniales africaines'
17h30 – Drinks reception (TBC)
This conference is organised by the ULIP Postgraduate Society: Russell Williams, Eugene Brennan and Alastair Hemmens. Leading on from postgraduate reading group sessions held during 2011/2012 at ULIP, this conference day will culminate in a publication late 2012.