Contemporary Women's Writing in French
20 – 22 September 2007
The Fantastic in Contemporary (post-1980) French Women's Writing

PROGRAMME

Thursday 20 September

Registration: from 1pm

2.15 : Introduction to the conference (Margaret-Anne Hutton, University of St Andrews)

2.30-4.15: Parallel 1: Marie Ndiaye (i)

Marie-Claire Barnet (Durham University) ‘”Espèce de vilaine fée” ou comment les esprits revinrent à Eve Brulard: La Sorcière dans l' oeuvre de Marie Ndiaye'

Nora Cotille-Foley (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA) ‘Arts pictoriaux et inquiétante étrangeté dans l'oeuvre de Marie Ndiaye'

2.30-4.15: Parallel 2: The Boundaries of Reality (i)

Siobhan Brownlie (University of Manchester) ‘Translation and the Fantastic: Nancy Huston's Instruments des ténèbres '

Bertrand Ferrier (Université du Maine) ‘L'Enfance du bizarre: les figures du fantastique dans l'oeuvre pour adolescents de Marie-Aude Murail'

Marinella Termite (Groupe de recherche sur l'extrême contemporarain, Université de Bari, Italy) ‘Métamorphose des objets'

Philippe Willocq (Institut Supérieur d'Enseignement Libre Liégeois, Bruxelles) ‘Analyse de Truismes de Marie Darrieussecq sous l'angle critique de la Morphologie du conte de Propp'

Tea

4.30-6.15: Thresholds: spatial, temporal, personal

Annick Doquire Kerszberg (Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania, USA) ‘Antonine Maillet et l'écriture à remonter le temps'

Sabine Loucif (Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY, USA) 'Identité et exil chez Linda Lê: le surréel et la fiction comme fondements de la construction de soi'

Catherine Rodgers (University of Swansea) ‘Between “white” and “blanc”: the margin of the fantastic in Marie Darrieussecq's White '

Gill Rye (IGRS, London) ‘Threshold Worlds: the future present in the fiction of Marie Darrieussecq'

Vin d'honneur

Friday 21 September

9.45-11.00: Plenary session
Guest speaker Marie Desplechin: ‘Héritage et folie'

Coffee

11.15-12.15: Parallel 3: The Fantastic in Theatre and Poetry

Margaret Braswell (University of Maryland, USA) ‘Domestic Chores, Celestial Bodies: The phenomenon of women's labour in the poetry of Vénus Khoury-Ghata'

Julia Dobson (University of Sheffield) ‘Cixous's Theatre: the dramatic return of the dead'

11.15-12.45: Parallel 4: Fantastic Topoi: Dystopia, Reincarnation, Monstrosity

Susan Bainbrigge (Edinburgh University) ‘Dystopian landscapes and familiar questions: Jacqueline Harpman's Moi qui n'ai pas connu les hommes'

Nathalie Morello (University of Swansea):'Fils perdu , mère… délivrée? Enquête sur une étrange inquiétude dans Ne plus y penser d'Angélique Villeneuve (2005)

Rosalind Silvester (Queen's University, Belfast) ‘Reincarnation in Ying Chen's works: reality, fantasy or madness?'

Lunch

2.00-3.30: Parallel 5: Marie Ndiaye (ii)

Deborah Gaensbauer (Regis University, Denver, USA) ‘Further outside the bounds: mobilization of the fantastic as trauma narrative in works by Marie Ndiaye'

Shirley Jordan (Queen Mary, University of London) ‘Marie Ndiaye's light fantastic'

Catherine Poisson (Wesleyan University, CT, USA) ‘Embobineuses et embobinées: des femmes et du surnaturel chez Marie Ndiaye'

2.00-3.30: Parallel 6: Fantastic Bodies

Andrew Asibong (Birkbeck, University of London) ‘After the blood: women, zombies and progressive infection in French horror movies'

Philippa Caine (Edinburgh University) Marie Darrieussecq's fantastical inscriptions of the female Body: redefining the boundaries of corpo-reality'

Delphine Grass (UCL) ‘Beyond sexual fantasy: Alina Reyes's le Boucher and the fantastic as disrupted order of the symbolics of female sexuality'

Tea

4.00-5.30: Plenary Session
Guest Speaker: Professor Jean Duffy (Edinburgh University) ‘Liminality and fantasy in Marie Darrieussecq, Marie NDiaye and Marie Redonnet'

Conference Dinner

Saturday 22 September

9.30-11.15: Parallel 7: The Boundaries of Reality (ii)

Marie Burkhardt (Université de Zurich) ‘”La faille dans la routine” ou l'inquiétante normalité dans le fantastique contemporain francophone'

Fanfan Chen (National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan) ‘The Poetics of Water in Léa Silhol's Fantastic Tales'

Margaret Gray (Indiana University, USA) ‘”On ne peut pas admettre une telle histoire sans être folle”: Fantasy as Exhoration in Jacqueline Harpman's Orlanda '

Cora Monroe (University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez) ‘Towards a Definition of the Female Fantastic: Trois pépins du fruit des morts by Mélanie Fazi'

9.30-10.30: Parallel 8: Fantastic Crime and Sci Fi

Jean-Xavier Ridon (University of Nottingham) ‘Vonarburg: pour une redéfinition du voyage spatio-temporel'

Véronique Desnain (Edinburgh University) ‘Fantastic crime'

Coffee

11.15-12.30: Parallel 9: Amélie Nothomb

Lorie Sauble-Otto (University of Northern Colorado, USA) ‘Reality TV meets dystopia: Amélie Nothomb's Acide sulfurique '

Margaret Topping (Cardiff University) ‘Orientalism and the fantastic: narratives of (dis)enchantment in Amélie Nothomb's Stupeur et tremblements '

11.15-12.30: Parallel 10: Sylvie Germain

Elisa Bricco (Université de Genes, Italy) ‘Rôle et enjeux du fantastique dans les romans de Sylvie Germain'

Sylvie Vignes (Université de Toulouse-le-Mirail, France) ‘Un “réalisme merveilleux” français et féminin? Le Livre des nuits de Sylvie Germain'

End of Conference