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Minorités en vue

Minorités en vue

Publié le par Julia Peslier (Source : Greg Kerr)

‘Minorités en vue'

A one day colloquiumorganised by the

Department ofEuropean Languages and Cultures, Lancaster University

Keynotespeaker: Pap Ndiaye (EHESS), author of Lacondition noire:

essaisur une minorité française (Calmann-Lévy, 2008).

Friday 6 May 2011

Lancaster UniversityConference Centre

Coincidingwith the recent debate around French national identity is the salience ofcertain ethnic or religious minorities, such as Roma or Muslim, in publicdiscourse. Yet the ‘discovery' of such groups has the potential to conceal theenduring presence they may have maintained in French society over decades, or,indeed, centuries. This colloquium will reflect on the conditions that bringcertain minorities into, and out of, focus. It will ask how France'sminorities negotiate their intermittent (in)visibility through literary andcinematic representations and consider how the latter are linked to relationsof power.

Howare minorities constructed in different discursive fields and forms of representation?When and under what conditions do minoritised subjects become visible orinvisible, and how is this process mediated by aesthetic strategies? Can a group's successful ‘assimilation' intothe dominant culture be consistent with minority status and what role doesmemory play in maintaining that status? What, then, is a French majority, and how does it define itscultural hegemony as a counterpoint to minority groups?

Somepotential topics for discussion might include the following:

- Raceand/or nation as indices of identification among minorities

- Literary/cinematicsubjectivities: the transition from objects to subjects of representation

- Issuesof class, religion, gender and sexuality among minority groups

- Thephenomena of apatridie and/or diaspora

- Thetransition from the discursive construction of ‘immigrant' to that of‘minority'

- Triggersof cultural memory: 50 years of independence in Africa, the expulsion of Romafrom France, 80 years since the Exposition Coloniale…

- ‘New'(for example, Algerian, Senegalese, Turkish) and ‘old' (for example, Armenian,Roma, Catalan) minorities

Please e mail a 250 wordabstract and 100 word bio to Charlotte Baker c.baker@lancaster.ac.uk and Greg Kerr g.kerr@lancaster.ac.uk by Monday 28 February 2011, clearly marked‘DELC Colloquium'. Presenters will beinvited to speak for 20 minutes and papers may be presented in French or inEnglish.

‘Minorités en vue' is supported by the Yves-Hervouet Fundfor Anglo-French Relations