Australian Society for French Studies Conference 2022

MOVEMENT(S)/MOUVEMENT(S)

13-14 December 2022 (12 December: Postgraduate Day)

Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

After two years of restricted movement, we have the pleasure to announce that the annual conference of the Australian Society for French Studies will take place, for the first time, in New Zealand, in a hybrid format (online and in-person). Such a singular, exciting, and unprecedented excursion has prompted the organisers to propose movement as this year’s theme.

Our choice reflects a series of fundamental and pressing contemporary questions tied to migration, transitions, translations and upheavals which shape (and have been shaped by) French-language cultures.

It seems necessary to re-evaluate the multiple meanings of “movement” in the context of a world struck by the pandemic. On the individual level, the experience of travel was radically altered, while the closure of national borders has underscored the tensions between the local and the global.

We are also led to rethink the forces in motion in current societies. Stagnation and change clash at a time in which citizens are driving new, collective movements which embody political and socio-cultural concerns (Gilets Jaunes, Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, #BalanceTonPorc, Anti-Feminicide Collages, Youth Climate Strikes, Extinction Rebellion). For better or worse, the notion of movement encapsulates our era.

In that context, the long-canonical category of “movement” in the realms of literature and art is likewise worth revisiting. Which movements might we identify in the present day? Which movements from the past should be questioned or revived?

An approach to movement invites consideration of:

• Exchanges and contact between genres, languages, populations;
• Exile, asylum, and the conditions of refugees;
• Theory and practice of translation;
• Physical and bodily dimensions of movement (performance, dance, spoken word, gestures, writing, reading, sight);
• Evolution and changes in language, cultures and cultural objects;
• New collective, social, political and artistic trends;
• The capacity for culture and language to “stir” and move individuals and societies;
• The role of physical and abstract means of circulation, as applied to people, culture and ideas (vehicles, media, social networks, languages, traditions)

The conference will include three keynotes, details of which will follow this announcement.

We invite proposals – in French or in English – for:

• Individual research papers: presentations of 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of discussion.
• Panels: three x 20-minute papers, followed by discussion.

Submit your proposals (by 20 July 2022) by clicking here.

Please contact ASFS2022@vuw.ac.nz with any questions.

* Note: The conference will strictly follow COVID/public health practices according to New Zealand guidelines as well as rules established by Victoria University of Wellington for in person gatherings. Please refer to the Unite Against COVID-19 website for general information. Detailed information will be available in the future on the ASFS/conference website.

Registration: please complete the below membership form and submit your payment via the relevant link below or bank deposit (as per the details in the form).

ASFS Membership Form

The nominal conference fee will contribute to the costs of administrative and technical support. The Australian Society for French Studies will also sponsor the conference and you are therefore encouraged to renew your membership or become a member.

Organizing committee:

Yuri Cerqueira dos Anjos, Jean Anderson, Charles Rice-Davis