Text for advance reading and discussion: Espèces (2010): Ying Chen’s tenth novel Espèces, was published simultaneously in Paris and Montreal in September 2010. It features the same narrator who first appeared in Immobile (1998). This time, though, her wandering spirit has crossed the species barrier, the better to observe her husband “A”. The freedom afforded by her new status as a feline affords the narrator the space for some ironic and at times cruel observations on a bad marriage and the woman’s lot within it. It is also an observation of human society and of woman’s place in it. Surreal humour is not new to Ying Chen's fiction which had previously explored the roles of daughter and mother through fantasy tales. Nor is this the last in the series since the author has stated that her narrator will not see clearly and the object of her quest will continue to elude her until she has undergone further migrations. Espèces is a caustic tale in which wry humour and absurdity are proffered as the only sane response from a mind revolting at the female condition and striving to escape it.
Student travel bursaries:
With thanks to Cassal Fund support for the seminar, small travel bursaries for Seminar meetings are available to postgraduate students. If you wish to apply, please email Gill Rye (gill.rye@sas.ac.uk), giving the cost of your ticket (cheapest available), department/university where you are registered and name of supervisor. Application deadline is 11 February 2011
Women in French in Scotland One-Day Conference Saturday 5 March 2011,
with the generous support of the Institut Français d’Ecosse, Edinburgh
Deadline for submissions: 31 Dec 2010 click here for more info
Programme http://wifis.edublogs.org/
Practical queries and registration forms: Barbara Fleming, WIFIS conference administrator, St Andrews University, email bf@st-andrews.ac.uk
8 March 2011, 5.00 p.m.
ELIZABETH FALLAIZE MEMORIAL LECTURE
Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford
Literature
Main Hall, Taylor Institution, St Giles'
TORIL MOI (James B. Duke Professor of Literature and Romance Studies, Duke University)
‘Knowing Oneself, Knowing Others: Love, Language and Truth in Simone de Beauvoir's “The Woman Destroyed”’.
Convener: Michael Sheringham FBA, Marshal Foch Professor of French
A Drinks Reception will follow.
All Welcome
7-10 April 2011 Panels for Northeast Modern Languages Association (NeMLA) conference, New Brunswick, NJ,
Deadline: 15 September 2010 click here for more info
Thursday 28 April 2011, 17.15 CWWF Summer Term Seminar – Department of French, University of Durham 'Valérie Mréjen on Film Work and other projects, followed by Q& A with the film-maker/artist'
website:
http://w01.igrscms.wf.ulcc.ac.uk/index.php?id=322
Organiser: Marie-Claire Barnet (Durham)
Contact: gill.rye@sas.ac.uk Student travel bursaries: With thanks to Cassal Fund support for the seminar, small travel bursaries for Seminar meetings are available to postgraduate students. If you wish to apply, please email Gill Rye (gill.rye@sas.ac.uk), giving the cost of your ticket (cheapest available), department/university where you are registered and name of supervisor. Application deadline is 15 April 2011
5 May Joanne Harris & Tatiana de Rosnay in conversation on Being French and British, Writing Novels & Loving Literature
7pm, Institut Francais, London more information
6-8 May 2011 WOMEN IN FRENCH (UK) CONFERENCE 2011 Hinsley Hall, Headingley, Leeds, UK,
WOMEN MATTER/FEMMES MATIÈRE, Supported by the Service Culturel de l’Ambassade de France
17 May CWWF Seminar
French author Christine Angot reads from and discusses her latest novel Les Petits (Paris: Flammarion, 2011)
Organiser/Chair: Shirley Jordan (QMUL)
5.30 - 7.00pm Room G37 (Senate House, Ground Floor) All welcome. No charge, but please email gill.rye@sas.ac.uk if you wish to attend.
NB Student travel bursaries:
With thanks to Cassal Fund support for the seminar, small travel bursaries for Seminar meetings are available to postgraduate students. If you wish to apply, please email Gill Rye (gill.rye@sas.ac.uk), giving the cost of your ticket (cheapest available), department/university where you are registered and name of supervisor. Application deadline is 5 May.
19 - 21 May 2011 Colloque international: « Marguerite Duras, le rire dans tous ses éclats » organisé par Cécile Hanania
en partenariat avec la Société Marguerite Duras
Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA, Etats-Unis
Deadline for proposals: 25 August 2010 click here for more info
26-28 mai 2011 Colloque international, ‘Une femme puissante – l’oeuvre de Marie Ndiaye’
Universite de Mannheim, Romanisches Seminar
Deadline for submissions: 15 Oct 2010 click here for more info
4-6 July 2011 The Society for French Studies 52nd Annual Conference
Queen Mary, University of London, This year's conference includes plenary lectures from Marie Darrieussecq, Richard Parish (University of Oxford), Anne Simon (CNRS, Paris) and Richard Terdiman (University of California, Santa Cruz).
Further details available at http://www.sfs.ac.uk/conference.htm
16-23 August
Colloque: "Narrations d'un nouveau siècle : romans et récits français (2001-2010),
org. Bruno Blanckeman et Barbara Havercroft
more info:
http://www.ccic-cerisy.asso.fr/narrations11.html
12 November CWWF seminar, Autumn term meeting,
IGRS, University of London, Stewart House, room ST273 Topic: Please suggest topics to Gill Rye, at gill.rye@sas.ac.uk; alternatively we will have a reading group on a rentrée text (to be decided after the rentrée!)
N.B. The Spring term meeting will be held at the University of Leeds, date and topic to be confirmed.
24-25 February 2012 Women in French Conference:
"Crossing Boundaries: French and Francophone Women in Literature and Science, Culture and the Arts"
Arizona State University, Tempe Campus
Deadline for panel papers 15 August 2011 and 1 September 2011 for individual papers: CFP
CWWF Seminar Spring 2010 meeting: Ananda Devi Saturday, 13 March 2010, 2.30 - 4.30, at the University of Reading, Building L4 Room G01 on the London Road Campus (NOT on the main Whiteknights campus)
Gender and Memory in European Literature, Film and Visual Art
22-23 April 2010
Birkbeck College, University of London CANCELLED BECAUSE OF VOLCANIC ASH
Conference venue: Room B04, Main Building, Malet Street, Bloomsbury, London, WC1E 7HX. Free event but you are asked to register. For programme and registration form please click here
Women’s Filmmaking in France 2000-2010 2-4 December 2010 Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, University of London,
Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU, UK.
CWWF Seminar Autumn meeting
Saturday 21 November 2009, 2.30-4.30 pm, Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies
We will discuss Marie Ndiaye's Goncourt-winning novelTrois femmes puissantes (Gallimard, 2009).
All welcome. It is hoped that participants will read the novel before the seminar.
If you would like to join other participants for a reasonably-priced informal lunch before the meeting at Pizza Paradiso, Store Street, London WC1, please get in touch with Gill Rye beforehand (gill.rye@sas.ac.uk).
With thanks to the Cassal Fund, we are able to offer some postgraduate travel bursaries to help with attendance at this seminar.
To apply, please email gill.rye@sas.ac.uk with travel costs (cheapest available), university and supervisor's name, by 15 November 2009.
Book Launch:'Narratives of Mothering: Women's Writing in Contemporary France'(Newark: Delaware, 2009)by Gill Rye
2 February, 6 pm - Room 274/275, Stewart House
With presentations by Prof. Gill Rye (IGRS) and Dr Shirley Jordan (QMUL)
Followed by a wine reception. All welcome!
About the book: "This unique book focuses on contemporary notions of motherhood in France through literary analysis of fictional and autobiographical accounts. [...] Though Rye narrows the focus by concentrating on accounts of mothering in contemporary France, the book has a wider application, given the excellent introduction that situates contemporary motherhood within feminist and cultural theory. The author concentrates on first person (or third-person limited) accounts of mothering, and in each chapter zeroes in on two representative texts. After her theoretical introduction, she moves to a consideration of narratives of bereaved mothers, mothers coping with incest and rape, mother-daughter separation, and single and lesbian mothers. Overall, the focus is not, as an unsophisticated reader might expect, about the joys of motherhood, but rather about pain and loss. As Rye points out, these narratives serve to interrogate and subvert the norms of motherhood in general, and French norms in particular."
A. E. McKim, St. Thomas University, Reviews Humanities, December 2009
This book engages with an important new trend in contemporary women-authored literature, namely, a turn to narratives of mothering from the perspective of mothers themselves. Although there have been some instances of this in the past, mothers in French literature have, on the whole, tended to be objects of others’ discourses rather than narrative subjects in their own right. However, since the beginning of the 1990s, mothers’ own voices have come to the fore in a new body of literature, comprising authors such as Christine Angot, Geneviève Brisac, Marie Darrieussecq, Camille Laurens, and Marie Ndiaye, among many others.
Gill Rye examines a selection of autobiographical and fictional narratives of mothering published on the cusp of the millennium, from the early 1990s through the first decade of the twenty-first century, addressing narratives of childbirth and death, of separation and guilt, of lone and lesbian mothering. Her study explores how contemporary literature is engaging with changing family patterns and practices of mothering in France, yet one of its most striking findings is the recurrence of loss. In some cases, the texts are produced in response to a specific experience of loss, but its prevalence throughout the corpus of these new narratives of mothering suggests that loss, or the fear or fantasy of loss, is at the very heart of the mothering experience.
This is the first book to engage with these new narratives of mothering, a number of which have won literary prizes and/or have been translated into English and other languages. The study is grounded in the contemporary moment of the French Republic in which motherhood continues to be lived in contradictory ways, yet many of the situations and issues that are raised by the literary examples here have a wider relevance. Thus Narratives of Mothering offers new insights to the study of French literature, to French cultural studies and, more broadly, to feminist work on mothers and mothering. It will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate students, teachers and researchers alike.
CWWF conference
The Memory of Myths: Sylvie Germain’s Narratives
Friday 22 January 2010, Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, University of London.
Rosemary Jackson says that “Fantasies, image the possibility of radical cultural transformation through attempting to dissolve or shatter the boundary lines between the imaginary and the symbolic.” Sylvie Germain uses the mythmaking possibilities of Fantastic Literature to recreate ancient myths while, at the same time, the surface reality created in this fiction can suggest alternatives to our present reality – a reality which, the author often reveals, is in conflict with the explanations offered by the rediscovered ancient myth. This conference will focus on the following principal themes: Myths across history and cultures; the role of the witness / of witnessing; cultural memory; youth and purity.
Organizer: Ana de Medeiros (Kent); for further information, please contact flo.austin@sas.ac.uk
CWWF Seminar Spring term 2010
Saturday, 13 March 2010, 2.30 - 4.30, at the University of Reading, Building L4 Room G01 on the London Road Campus (NOT on the main Whiteknights campus)
Co-ordinator: Julia Waters (Reading)
Topic: Ananda Devi
Speakers Pat Corcoran (Roehampton); ‘Derisory differences: gender and animality in the works of Ananda Devi’
Amaleena Damlé (Exeter College, Oxford), ‘Ordinary monstrosity: violence, sexual politics and narrative voice in Ananda Devi’s Le Sari vert'
Julia Waters (Reading), ‘Cooking, Feeding, Eating: the gender politics of food in Devi’s Le Sari vert’
All speakers will be discussing Le Sari vert (Gallimard, 2009), so it would be helpful if participants could read this text beforehand. Moi, l'interdite (Dapper, 2000) and Pagli (Gallimard, 2001) will also be referred to.
Reasonably priced informal lunch at a local restaurant (at 12.30) for those who wish to meet up before the seminar. If you wish to be included in the table booking, please contact Julia Waters at j.waters@reading.ac.uk
With thanks to the Cassal Trust Fund, some small travel bursaries will be available to postgraduate students wishing to attend this meeting. To apply, please contact Gill Rye, gill.rye@sas.ac.uk , by 28 February 2010
COLLOQUE INTERNATIONAL
'Les feministes, d'une vague a l'autre (France, XXe siecle)', Angers, les 20-22 mai 2010
organisé par le CERHIO (Centre de recherches historiques de l'Ouest) et le Centre d'histoire de Sciences Po (Paris) a la Maison des Sciences humaines, 5 bis Bd Lavoisier, Angers
En partenariat avec : Archives du féminisme, Musea, Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand, Bibliothèque Universitaire d’Angers (Centre des archives du féminisme), Bibliothèque de Documentation internationale contemporaine (BDIC), EFiGiES, Women in French - Grande-Bretagne.
Retrouvez sur le site http://www.archivesdufeminisme.fr (rubrique « Colloques ») le texte de présentation de ce projet.
Les propositions doivent être envoyées avant le 1er octobre 2009 à Christine.Bard@univ-angers.fr et se présentent sous la forme d’un résumé en français ou en anglais d’une demi-page accompagnée d’un CV d’une page maximum. Elles seront transmises au comité scientifique du colloque.
Elizabeth Fallaize - An Academic and Personal Tribute Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, University of London, Saturday 2 October 2010
This day will be held in memory of and as a tribute to Elizabeth Fallaize. The first part of the day, lasting from 9.30 to 3.30, will be an academic tribute composed of three panels devoted to the three principal fields of Elizabeth’s research. The second, opening with tea at 3.30, will be a personal tribute to Elizabeth, attended by Elizabeth's family as well as friends, colleagues and current and former students. All are welcome to attend both parts of the day – or to join us from 3.30 for the ‘Remembering Elizabeth’ session.
The President and Fellows of St John's College are providing financial support for the event and particularly encourage their alumni to join them there. The French Sub-Faculty and the Modern Languages Faculty in Oxford would also like it to be known that a memorial lecture and reception are planned in Oxford for early 2011, at which all who knew Elizabeth will be very welcome.
For catering purposes, we do need to know numbers for October 2nd in advance. Please email igrs@sas.ac.uk by 10 September 2010 to advise whether you will attend the whole event or join it at 3.30 for the Remembering Elizabeth’ part of the day.
PROGRAMME
9.30-3.30 Elizabeth Fallaize - French Scholar
9.30 Introduction: Margaret Atack
9.45-11.15 Contemporary French Women's Writing - chaired by Paddy O'Donovan
- Gill Rye
- Judith Still
- Diana Holmes
11.15-11.30 Coffee
11.30-1 Short Fiction - chaired by Carrie Tarr
- Colin Davis
- Alison Finch
- Diana Knight
1-2 Lunch
2-3 Simone de Beauvoir - chaired by Sian Reynolds
- Michele Le Doeuff
- Ursula Tidd
- Suzanne Dow
3-4 Tea
4-6 Remembering Elizabeth
Opened by Michael Sheringham
6 Wine Reception funded by the Society for French Studies
(organisers: Margaret Atack, Diana Holmes, Diana Knight, Judith Still and Alan Grafen) Back to top
A Decade of Women’s Writing in France:
Trends and Horizons 2000-2010
10th anniversary conference of the Contemporary Women’s Writing in French Seminar
14-16 October 2010
Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies,
University of London, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU, U.K.
Programme Accommodation Registration
This international conference will celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Contemporary Women’s Writing in French (CWWF) Seminar. As such, it aims to identify the main trends and horizons in women’s writing in France in the first decade of the twenty-first century. The conference will look both back, in order to highlight what is new about new women’s writing, and forwards, in order to evaluate which trends are likely to be trendsetting and to identify those that are emerging as new horizons. Trends and horizons may relate to content or literariness, themes or issues, as well as to style, genre, language and writing.
Book Launch:'Narratives of Mothering: Women's Writing in Contemporary France'(Newark: Delaware, 2009)by Gill Rye
2 February, 6 pm - Room 274/275, Stewart House
With presentations by Prof. Gill Rye (IGRS) and Dr Shirley Jordan (QMUL)
Followed by a wine reception. All welcome! Read more
CWWF conference
The Memory of Myths: Sylvie Germain’s Narratives
Friday 22 January 2010, Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, University of London. Read more
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