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Violence and Brutality in French and Francophone Literature, Arts, and Culture: An Interdisciplinary Graduate and Post-Graduate Conference

Violence and Brutality in French and Francophone Literature, Arts, and Culture: An Interdisciplinary Graduate and Post-Graduate Conference

Publié le par Alexandre Gefen (Source : Kathleen Ellis)

The department of French at Rutgers University

Announces:

Violence & Brutality

In French and Francophone Literature, Arts and Culture

An interdisciplinary Graduate & Post-Graduate Conference

Saturday March 4, 2017

New Brunswick, NJ

Keynote lecturer: Renée Gosson, Bucknell University

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The use of words is often seen as a peaceful alternative to violent action, and yet language has long been a cause of violence if not a battleground in of itself. From D’Aubigné’s Les Tragiques to Kane’s L’Aventure ambiguë, the literary world has been just as brutal as reality, if not more so. To such an extent that we may ask ourselves whether or not violence and brutality are not simply literary themes or objects of representation but in fact integral to the very act and effects of writing, which, as even a poet as seemingly innocuous as Francis Ponge suggests in describing writing as a “jeu d’abus réciproque”.  Indeed, the violence of a text is often hidden and not always to be equated with open and apparent brutality. This brings us to reflect upon the duality and opposition of these two notions of violence and brutality, whether they be combined or treated as separate concepts. We must reflect upon the true nature of these battles which rage right under the reader’s nose. Does literature diffuse violence, or does it transmit or even create violence? Does literature critique violence, or does it legitimize it? Do writing and reading serve as a remedy to violence? As an act of resistance? Can subversive literary works overcome the selective interpretation of powerful individuals, groups, and systems? Can a text be at war with itself?

 

We would like to consider the balance maintained in this binary between violence and esthetics at various historical moments throughout the francophone world. How is aesthetics related to violence and how has this relationship evolved? Possible topics for papers could include but are not limited to:

 

  • Combining Beauty and Brutality
  • Transparency and Editing
  • Fighting with words/Fighting against them
  • The literary work’s hidden brutality
  • The struggle for literary recognition
  • Colonial/Postcolonial brutality
  • The violence of alterity
  • Disputes and rivalries between authors
  • Transcription of historical violence onto the page
  • Translation
  • Interpretation and Power

 

This conference will have a panel format. We welcome papers in both French and English. We particularly welcome papers that address multiple art forms and the relationship between them.

Abstracts of approximately 250-500 words should be submitted to the following email address Violence2017@gmail.com before the 17th of January. Abstracts should be preceded by a cover page with the following information:

 

 Name (last, first)

 Academic affiliation

 Title (PhD, Masters candidate, Post-Doc, Visiting Professor, etc…)

 Title of paper

 Telephone number

 Address

 Email address

This information should not appear on your abstract.