News and Events
Upcoming events
The Global Modernisms Initiatives Presents Modernisms: Crisis and Unity
A Graduate Student Colloquium
119 O’Shaughnessy Hall
December 2, 2009
De-Centering Modernism — 2:30 pm-4:00pm
Denise Ayo “Are Women Outsiders?” Gender, Nation, and Form in Virginia Woolf and Mary Colum
Damiano Benvegnù Identity, Language, Landscape: Gian Mario Villalta and the New Dialect Poetry in Contemporary Italy
Gretchen Büsl The Displaced Modernism of Early Asian-American Novels
Modernist Spaces and the Discourse of Place — 4:15pm-5:45pm
Abigail Palko Escaping Adoption: Sylvia Wynter’s Novel of the Nation
Shan-Yun Huang Trains(portation) in Chung-Ming Huang’s Short Stories
Sean Mannion James Stephens’ The Insurrection of Dublin: Dublin as a Capital of Modernism
The Text and the Fragmented Self — 6:00pm-7:30pm
Loren Higbee Crisis and Fragmentation in the Poetry of Eliot and Pound
James Martell Modern Dialectics: on Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory
Stephanie Pocock “I have become the sea’s craft”: Authorial Subjectivity in Walcott’s Omeros and Dabydeen’s “Turner”
Chris Bongie (Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada)
“Politics, Memory, Literature: The ‘Divisive Universality’ of Nineteenth-Century Haiti”
December 3, 2009 5:00 PM
119 O’Shaughnessy Hall
Politics, Memory, Literature: The “Divisive Universality” of Nineteenth-Century Haiti" Prof. Chris Bongie, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Prof. Bongie is professor of English and author of Friends and Enemies: The Scribal Politics of Post/Colonial Literature (Liverpool UP, 2008)and editor of Adonis, suivi de Zoflora et de document inédits, by Jean-Baptiste Picquenard (L’Harmattan 2006), among others.
Prof. Bongie is Professor of English and author of:
- Friends and Enemies: The Scribal Politics of Post/Colonial Literature (Liverpool UP, 2008).
- Editor of Adonis, suivi de Zoflora et de documents inédits, by Jean-Baptiste Picquenard (L’Harmattan 2006). Critical edition of the first two novels about the Haitian Revolution.
- “‘Monotonies of History’: Baron de Vastey and the Mulatto Legend of Derek Walcott’s Haitian Trilogy,” Yale French Studies (2005).
- “Victor Hugo and the ‘Cause of Humanity’: Translating Bug-Jargal (1826) into The Slave-King (1833),” The Translator (2005).
- Editor and translator of Bug-Jargal, by Victor Hugo (Broadview 2004). Critical edition and translation of Victor Hugo’s second novel.
- Islands and Exiles: The Creole Identities of Post/Colonial Literature (Stanford UP 1998)
- Exotic Memories: Literature, Colonialism, and the Fin de Siècle (Stanford UP 1991)
Past events
Symposium: The Place of Islam in Contemporary European Literature
McKenna Hall, University of Notre Dame
November 16 – 17, 2009
The purpose of this symposium is to enrich our understanding of contemporary European literature by addressing how Muslim and Muslim-born writers address the place of Islam in their work. Thematically, we will use the word “place” in reference to its different meanings: location, role, status, etc. Where do writers place Islam geographically, spatially, and in memory? What role do its concepts and cultural practices play in literature? How large is its role as a shaping force in literature, and what power does this literature have?
In focusing on these literary themes at the conference, we seek to move beyond the hot-button controversies and turn our attention to categories that transcend them. We will begin our discussions with individual literary processes; then we will turn to the unique contexts of individual writers, raise questions about generational dynamics and identities, and finally reflect on the largest questions about the power of literature itself, and its relationship to other powers. The symposium will be structured around four panels, which we will use to pose questions of individual participants and then promote group discussion.
Symposium Schedule
Keynote address, panel sessions, and film are open to the public.
Keynote Address: Azouz Begag
French Minister for Equal Opportunities (2005), Chevalier de L’Ordre National du Mérite, Chevalier de La Légion d’Honneur
Participants
Salim Bachi, novelist, author of Le Chien d’Ulysse (2001, Prix Goncourt for the best first novel),
Azouz Begag, novelist, film director, sociologist, statesman, author of Le Gone du Chaâba (1986)
Ismaïl Ferroukhi, film director, script writer, writer and director of Le Grand Voyage (2004)
Hafid Gafaïti, poet, editor, scholar, Transnational Spaces and Identities in the Francophone World (2009)
Laila Lalami, novelist, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (2005), Secret Son (2009)
Malika Mokkedem, novelist, The Forbidden Woman (1994), My Men (2005), Century of Locusts (2006)
Zahia Rahmani, novelist, Musulman: roman (2005), France: récit d’une enfance (2006)
Leila Sebbar, essayist, Sherazade (2000), L’arabe comme un chant secret (2008), Mon cher fils (2009)
Youssef Seddik, poet, scholar, translator, Le Coran (2002), Nous n’avons jamais lu le Coran (2004), Qui sont les barbares? (2007)
Muneeza Shamsie, editor of An Anthology of Pakistani Writing in English (1997) and Contemporary Stories by Pakistani Women (2005)
Alek Baylee Toumi, scholar, playwright, Madah-Sartre (1996), Maghreb Divers (2002), De Beauvoir à beau voile (2005)
Robin Yassin-Kassab, novelist, The Road from Damascus (2008)
We are awaiting confirmation from several additional participants.
For more information on this conference, please email Dr. Anthony Monta, Assistant Director of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies.
Sponsored by the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, the College of Arts and Letters, the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, and the Kellogg Institute for International Studies.
Zahia Rahmani (writer)
“On Writing the War and World After the Empire”
November 20, 2009 1:00 PM
335 DeBartolo
Born in Algeria in 1962, Zahia Rahmani lives in Paris.
With her novel Moze (finalist of the Prix Femina), Zahia became one of France’s most recognized writer in 2003. She then wrote « Musulman » roman, (Prix Wepler, 2005) et France, récit d’une enfance en 2006 (Sabine Wespieser éditeur).
She is also in charge of a research program at the Institut national d’Histoire de l’art. At this institution, she is especially in charge of a transdisciplinary research project and database on “art, literature, theory and globalization”.
About her first novel:
In the days of colonial Algeria, many natives were conscripted and enlisted in the French army. “Supplétifs” was the official term to designate them, and “harkis” in common language. After independence (1962), there was no place for them anywhere: considered as traitors in the new Algeria, many were massacred; they were also abandoned by the treacherous French authorities. The author relates the story of her own father. Moze escaped from the massacre, and finally managed to come to France with his family, only to know humiliation on humiliation. One 11th of November, he salutes the monument to the dead of the Great War and kills himself, silent and desperate. Moze is an outcry of rage, of revolt—a plea too, in order to rehabilitate a courageous man who was destroyed by colonization, ignorance, and scorn. A shattering, upsetting narrative. Jean-Luc Douin. Le Monde des Livres, Mar. 28, 2003: 4.
Emily Apter (NYU)
“Comparative and World Literature Today”
September 25, 2009 1:00 PM
209 DeBartolo
Emily Apter is professor of French and Comparative Literature at New York University. Her research’s interest goes from the 19th- and 20th-century French and comparative literatures to Francophone studies, cultural studies and critical theory. She is the editor of a book series, “Translation/Transnation”, at Princeton University Press, and serves on the editorial boards of PMLA, Comparative Literature, October and Signs. Her most recent works is entitled The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature (Princeton University Press, 2006). She also wrote Continental Drift: From National Characters to Virtual Subjects (University of Chicago Press, 1999), Fetishism as Cultural Discourse, ed. with William Pietz (Cornell University Press, 1991), Feminizing the Fetish: Psychoanalysis and Narrative Obsession in Turn-of-the-Century France (Cornell University Press, 1991), André Gide and the Codes of Homotextuality (Stanford French and Italian Studies 48, Anma Libri, 1987).
Prof. Françoise Lionnet (UCLA)
“French Global.”
With an Introduction by Prof. Alison Rice (Romances Languages, N.D.)
April 24, 2009
Françoise Lionnet is Professor of French and Francophone Studies UCLA. Author of “Autobiographical Voices: Race, Gender, Self-Portraiture” (Cornell, 1989), and “Postcolonial Representations: Women, Literature, Identity” (Cornell, 1995), she is also co-editor of a special double issue of Yale French Studies entitled “Post/Colonial Conditions: Exiles, Migrations, Nomadisms”, and a special issue of Signs on “Postcolonial, Indigenous, and Emergent Feminisms.” Professor Lionnet is currently working on a book entitled “Dissonant Echoes: Seduction and Disavowal in Postcolonial Novels”, which is a study of Francophone Caribbean and Indian Ocean writers’ re-appropriation of 19th- and 20th-century British and American classics.
Prof. Paul Bové (University of Pittsburgh)
Friday, April 17th from 1-3 pm
Paul Bové
Paul A. Bové is distinguished professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh and editor of the journal boundary 2, an international journal of literature and culture published by Duke University Press. The author of several books on culture, modernity, poetry, and the intellectual, Professor Bové is now completing a book on Henry Adams as well as a collection of essays called, “The End of Thinking.” His current research interests are “globalization,” “emergence,” “intellectuals,” and problems of truth in relation to literature, criticism, and philosophy.
Marc Crépon
Wednesday, April 8th 8:00 pm
Prof. Marc Crépon’s (CNRS, Paris, France), Distinguished European Lecture, an initiative of the Ph. D. in Literature Program, sponsored by the Nanovic Institute for European Studies.
“The Culture of the Enemy: Wars, Civilizations and Religions.”, “A Critique of Huntington.”
Marc Crépon is a philosopher who works at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France). As a specialist of the German and French philosophies from the Eighteen Century to the present time, Marc Crépon’s area of interest deals with the relationship between language and community, language and philosophical discourse, language and terror. In this context, he also addresses the challenges Europe is facing today. Marc Crépon’s recent publications attracted a high level of attention, especially his reflection on the “Clash of Civilization.” His growing influence on the intellectual scene includes the United State were he teaches at Northwestern University. He wrote “L’imposture du choc des civilizations” Nantes, éditions pleins feux, 2002, “Terreur et poésie”, Galilée, 2004.
“Langues sans demeure”, Paris, Galilée, 2005.
“Altérités de l’Europe”, Galilée, 2006.Ananda Devi
Monday, March 30th (Time and room to be announced).
Ananda Devi, Writer, French-Mauritian.
“A Question of Engagement.”
Ananda Devi was born March 23, 1957, in Trois-Boutiques (Île Maurice). At the age of 15 Ananda Devi won a literary prize for a short story. It was the beginning of a long career, during which she progressively has become a prominent figure in French-language literature from the Indian Ocean. She has received several literary award, in particular for her 2006 novel “Eve de ses Décombres”. Books by Ananda Devi have been translated into several languages. Perfectly trilingual in French, English, and Creole, she did her own English translation for her novel “Pagli”. Her most recent novel, “Indian Tango”, takes place in New Delhi.
Li Zhimin
February 13, 2009
“The Globalization of Modern Chinese Poetry and Poets”.
Li Zhimin, Associate Professor at the School of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou University, Director of the Foreign Languages Training Center and the Chinese and Western Cultural Study Institute, fellow of the British and American Language and Literature Studies Institute of Sun Yat-sen University, and of the English Poetry Studies Institute at Sun Yat-sen University, Li Zhimin is also Secretary-General of the English Poetry Studies Association of China and has been the prime mover of The Pearl River Poetry Conference, a gathering of Chinese and English poets held in Guangzhou in 2005 and 2008.
Igor’ Pilshchikov
January, 16 2009
“Translation and Culture Relocation: Hermeneutical, Aesthetical and Linguistic Aspects.”
Igor’ Pilshchikov, Editor-in-chief of Philologica, leading Researcher at the Institute of World Culture, M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University. Editor-in-chief of the Fundamental Digital Library “Russian Literature and Folklore”, Editor-in-chief of the Russian Virtual Library.
Uta Degner
November 14, 2008
“Play the Border – Mind the Gap, Intermedia-Poetics and the Transformation of Esthetic Experience in Brecht and Jelinek”
Uta Degner, Doctor, Freie Universität Berlin.
Anna Moï
September 9, 2008
Vietnamese Francophone writer.
“On Immigration and ‘World-Literature’ in Contemporary France”.
