Global France, Global French Humanities Research Centre TheAustralian National University 21-23 October 2015 Confirmed keynotes: Professor Dominic Thomas, University of California, Los Angeles Professor Charles Forsdick, University of Liverpool In the eyes of many, France was the centre of the world throughout the modern age. Homeof the Revolution and the Rights of Man, heart of a vast colonial empire, capital of the literary,fashion and art worlds, France, and Paris in particular, was at once historical and mythical. Today,following upon a sequence of ‘turns’, from the postcolonial to the global, this centre has given wayto multiple centres, to conflicting and complementary sites of physical, economic and culturalexchange. As France has transitioned from a colonial power to a central member of the EuropeanUnion, it has been forced to negotiate immigration policies, the rise of political extremism and thegrowing unrest over the linguistic, cultural and spatial borders that divide French society. Debatesabout French national identity rage in political and cultural sectors: while some seek to bolster aweakened idea of ‘Frenchness’, others, for example the signatories of the 2007 Littérature-mondemanifesto, aim to redefine or ‘world’ that identity. At the same time, the ‘global turn’ in French studies has encouraged scholars to re-examineFrench literature, language, culture and history through a new, decentred perspective. Recentcriticism in literature and history, for example, has returned to early modern literary texts andspaces as well as to major historical events like the French Revolution, exploring the ways in whichthese traditions and events were not determined in a cultural vacuum, but, as Peter Hulme hasnoted, ‘were the product[s] of constant, intricate, but mostly unacknowledged traffic with the non-European world’. The goal of this colloquium is to offer an image of global France and global French, past,present and future. How have French culture and politics been shaped by encounters with Europeanneighbours and with the non-European world? How do contemporary migratory patterns andnetworks between France and the wider world compare to historical ones? How have neo-colonialpractices been reshaped by globalized markets and transnational capital? How have various artforms allowed for the articulation of displacement, community and solidarity throughout Frenchhistory and into the global present? In short, is the global a new horizon, or one that we are justdiscovering? Our aim is to generate an interdisciplinary discussion among colleagues in a wide range offields, including literature, film, linguistics, cultural studies, history, philosophy, music and digitalhumanities. Topics for papers/panels include but are not limited to: Global vs. local (cultures, histories, languages, art forms) Migration: patterns and networks Migration: language and policy The European Union and French national identity Multicultural, multilingual, multiethnic France/Paris Colonial, postcolonial, neo-colonial flows and encounters Translation among languages, cultures, media The circulation of bodies, capital, ideas, linguistic forms, art forms Borders: visible and invisible, inner and outer, real and imagined, linguistic and geopolitical Travel, tourism, trade Diasporas, past and present Please send an abstract of 300 words and a CV (max 2 pages) to Leslie.Barnes@anu.edu.au. Papers can be in English or French. The deadline for abstracts is 5 March 2015.
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