Séismes / Seismic Shifts, 20th and 21th-Century French and Francophone Studies, International Colloquium

Séismes / Seismic Shifts

20th and 21st-Century French and Francophone Studies
International Colloquium
Minneapolis, MN
March 26-28, 2009

Call for Papers

How might moments of upheaval—the fractures they reveal and the projects of reconstruction and recovery that come in their wake—be rethought in the 20th and 21st centuries? What shifts have effected the reordering of tectonic plates in literature, philosophy, art, politics, racial and sexual consciousness, popular culture and technology? How are events and contingencies, sudden signals on a variety of historical, social, cultural, and esthetic seismographs, registered? In what ways does shifting ground open up new perspectives in social thought, esthetic perception, theory, cultural production, or artistic practices? What kinds of force or creative energies are required to shake up and displace epistemological certainties? Where have the fault lines of French and Francophone cultures and thought been situated in a diversity of times and spaces in the course of the 20th century? Where are they located at the beginnings of the 21st century?


We welcome disciplinary specific and interdisciplinary submissions in all fields of French and Francophone studies, including culture, literature, art, film, theater, theory, and pedagogy.

Possible topics/sessions include:

Movements and environments
Transformations
Projection / retrospection
Discursive shifts / remixes
Cultural shocks / re-mappings
Epistemological revolutions
Reinventing comparative literatures
Displacements and migrations
Rifts, fractures, fragments
Unpredictability
Measures
Contacts / contexts
Après-coups / aftershocks
Bodies
Trauma
Subjectivities
Technologies and media
Political disruptions
Groundbreaking moments
Rhythm and vibrations
Wars and conflagrations

Papers may be given in either English or French. All submissions must contain the following information for all proposed speakers:

Name
Affiliation
E-mail address
Mailing address, phone, and fax number
Title of paper or presentation
Brief description/summary of paper or presentation (250-500 words)

Proposers of panels and other sessions must provide the above information for each paper, together with their own contact information, and a brief description/summary (250-500 words) of the overall rationale for the proposed panel or session. Deadline for submission: 31 August, 2008

Proposals and enquiries should be addressed to 20-21st Faculty Group:

Email: frcolloq@umn.edu
Fax: 612-624-6021
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Department of French and Italian
260 Folwell Hall
9 Pleasant Street S.E.
Minneapolis, MN 55455

For conference and program information, please contact the faculty organizers at frcolloq@umn.edu. In addition, program updates with be posted regularly on the Department of French and Italian website: http://frit.umn.edu