The Department of French at Rutgers University announces its Interdisciplinary Graduate and Post-Graduate Conference
Transitions and Transgressions
Keynote speaker: Michèle H. Richman, Professor of Romance Languages, University of Pennsylvania.
Dates: Friday, March 6 & Saturday, March 7, 2015
New Brunswick, NJ
The Graduate Student Organization of the French Department at Rutgers University is pleased to announce an interdisciplinary conference that explores the concepts of transition and transgression in French and Francophone societies.
The notions of transition and transgression have a contrasting and intricate relationship. Transition is generally described as a gradual movement devoid of violence and urgency, a process consisting of the accumulation of small adjustments, as depicted in the works of Ross Chambers (Room for Maneuver) and Michel de Certeau (The Practice of Everyday Life). Transition is often imperceptible, but it can also be explored and enjoyed: in recent years, for example, the French collective Transitions has used Donald Winnicott's concept of “transitional space” to redefine culture and literature as such a space, where experience can be played with, transformed, and shared.
In contrast, transgression is often characterized as a movement of urgent violence. As theorized by Michel Foucault in “Préface à la transgression,” transgression is intent on destroying a limit, as it seeks to impose itself in the system that denies it inclusion. Transgression is typically embraced by modernity – and by modern aesthetics in particular; but thinkers such as Hélène Merlin-Kajman (founder of Transitions) have underlined the resulting paradox of institutionalized transgression, in which transgressive acts can no longer be instigated against a system that has already absorbed them.
Despite their contrasting dynamics, the concepts of transition and transgression share fundamental traits. They suggest a similar trajectory as they both move, albeit at different paces, toward a limit, a movement that is fueled by both power and desire.
Our upcoming conference proposes to explore the broad and very rich concepts of transition and transgression in cultural, political, and aesthetic contexts. We invite papers that examine the ways in which these phenomena are represented through various artistic media such as literature, film, music and visual arts in the Francophone world. How do we define transitions and transgressions? How do they work? What is their relationship to one another? What new understandings do they bring to French and Francophone literature and culture across centuries? How does the work of critical theorists enlighten or challenge our conception of transgressions and transitions?
Possible themes include but are not limited to:
The sacred and the profane
Sexuality
Revolutions, rebellions, uprisings
Taboos
Limits and horizons
Violence
ExcessArt as transgression
Art in transition
Transformations
Criminality
Morality/Immorality
Systems of Government
Social & economic changes
Capitalism and its discontents
Religion, faith, and apostasy
The private and the public
Immigration
Travel
Adaptability and alienation
The subaltern
Forbidden language
Hybridity, porosity
Exile
Independence and its discontents
Diasporas
Social and economic mobility
Geographical boundaries
Infiltrations
Liminality
Life transitions (childhood, adolescence, adulthood)
Colonization
Translation
Identities (gender, postmodern, postcolonial)
The conference will have a panel format. Presentations should last 15 to 20 minutes. We welcome papers in both French and English.
Abstracts of 250-400 words should be submitted to transgressionsrutgers2015@gmail.com before the 18th of January. The abstract should be preceded by a cover page with the following information:
- Name (Last, First)
- Academic affiliation
- Title (PhD/Masters Candidate, Post-Docs, Visiting Professor)
- Title of the paper
- Telephone number
- Email address
We are looking forward to hearing from you.