CfP/CfA events

Transcultural Perspectives in Language, Literature and Culture in the 21st Century / Perspectives transculturelles en langue, littérature et culture au XXIe siècle

Beginning

19.05.2021

End

20.05.2021

Abstract submission deadline

15.11.2021

International Conference at Le Mans University in association with the University of Latvia.

The concept of transculturality, which has greatly evolved since its coinage by Fernando Ortiz in 1940, and its theorization by Wolfgang Welsch, and by Mikhail Epstein in the late 1990s, has been gaining ground as a new field of study in the humanities and social sciences. It has allowed for a fresh rethink of the idea of cultural globalization less from the angle of standardization but in terms of multiple intersections and an exponential development of diversities. “The “transcultural era is upon us,” Richard Slimbach proclaimed in 2005, and traced “transculturalism” as “the quest to define shared interests and common values across cultural and national borders.” Transculturality involves the deconstruction of concepts such as “society,” “class,” “nation,” “culture,” or “civilization” and the analysis of phenomena from various angles insisting “on the multipolarity, multiple perspectives, and transformative dynamics inherent to the research subject” (König, and Rakow).

Centers for Transcultural Studies have been created internationally, and in particular in Europe and the US, such as at the University of Heidelberg, Lancaster University, the University of Jean Moulin 3 in Lyon, or the University of Pennsylvania, each having a special focus or/and offering degrees. The Transcultural Studies Track is offered as an option in BA programs (e.g. American University in Washington) while the University of Michigan offers an accelerated MA program in Transcultural Studies. Obviously, there has been a transcultural rush which can make us wonder how the transcultural perspective has been transforming anglophone studies, and in particular American studies as the transcultural outlook has been eagerly adopted not only in the study of literature but also in linguistics and translation studies.

The works of writers in exile, im(migrants), colonized or from mixed unions have often represented in their relation to language this phenomenon of moving from one linguistic and cultural period to another; this shift was conducive to a singular language, specific to each author. Can we then talk of a transcultural literature or are the linguistic recreation processes too personal to be approached from this angle? How can their specificity fit into cultural studies? Doesn’t it immediately challenge patterns of thought? If Steven G. Kellman theorized literary translingualism, “the phenomenon of writers who create texts in more than one language or in a language other than their primary one,” the shift of focus to culture brought forth the theorization of transculturality in literary studies. While Ariana Dagnino’s study of transcultural writers, in Transculural Writers and Novels in the Age of Global Mobility, seems to be based on a sort of individual elitism, Elke Sturm-Trigonakis finally uses the term of transcultural literature for “hybrid texts” of “minorities literatures” within a new frame of reference, namely New World Literature (NWL). Should im(migrant) literature also be addressed under a transcultural perspective? What are the processes that lead from a multicultural perspective to a transcultural one? And should transcultural literature be studied within the frame of NWL, “a separate subsystem within the superordinate literary system, Literatures of the World”? What are the characteristics of transcultural literature? To what extent should it be differentiated from the translingual literature? What is the impact of translingual/transcultural literature on society? Does the “postmonolingual condition” (Yildiz), with its emphasis on the creative interaction between languages, and transcultural literature involve a clean break from the paradigmatic dichotomies of the North and the South,” “the West and the rest” or “the colonized and the colonizers”? What theoretical framework does the teaching of transcultural literature make necessary?

Not only in literary studies but also in translation studies the transcultural turn seems to be the successor of the cultural turn that gained recognition in the 1990s and raises several questions, and in particular the transcultural expertise of a translator. In linguistics, transculturality was adopted and a transcultural communication perspective was associated with English as a lingual franca (ELF) research. Moreover, transcultural communication, as noted by Andeas Hepp, “is part of a continuing academic discussion of globalization and mediatization. We could also address such issues as the role of linguistics in the study of transcultural communication.

This two-day conference, which explores transculturality with a special focus on the US, in two languages, English and French, invites papers on topics related but not limited to:

Genealogies of transculturality and Transcultural Studies
Transculturality and transnationalism
Transcultural theory
Translingual/transcultural literature
Transcultural literature and book industry
Transculturality and translation
Transcultural communication

We accept proposals for panels (3-4 speakers) or individual 20-min papers.

300-word abstracts, accompanied by a 100-word biographical note, should be sent as email attachments to

Aristi Trendel Aristie.Trendel@univ-lemans.fr

Indra Karapetjana indra.karapetjana@lu.lv

François Thirion francois.thirion@univ-lemans.fr

All the papers with positive reviews will be published in the conference proceedings.

Abstract submissions deadline: 15 November, 2021

Notification of abstract acceptance: by 17 December, 2021

Conference venue: Le Mans University, France

Conference date : May 19-20, 2022

Conference Website: http://perspectives.sciencesconf.org/

KEY NOTE SPEAKERS

Redouane Aboueddahab

Theodora Tsimpouki

Theodora Tsimpouki is Professor of American Literature and Culture at the Faculty of English Language and Literature, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. She holds degrees in English Language and Literature, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (BA), in Linguistics from the Sorbonne-Paris V (Maitrise), and in American Literature from New York University (M.A. and PhD.) She specializes in American realism, modernism and contemporary literature, the 1960s, theories of space and contemporary literary theory. She is co-editor of Conformism, Non-Conformism and Anti-Conformism in the Culture of the US,Culture Agonistes: Debating Cultures, Rereading Texts and The War on the Human: New Responses to an Ever-Present Debate (2017). Her work has also appeared in edited volumes abroad and in Greece. Her recent published research includes articles on Edgar Allan Poe, Edith Wharton, Stephen Crane, Henry James, Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth, E. L. Doctorow, American Exceptionalism, American ideology of space and literary waste studies. She has also edited a special issue of the e-journal EJAS on “Sustainability and the American City.” Her recent publication includes, “Agency in Complicity: The Aesthetics of Trauma in Constance Fenimore Woolson’s ‘Miss Grief’, (Literature and Psychology: Writing, Trauma and the Self, 2019), “There Must Be No Ruins”: Ruinophobia and Urban Morphology in Turn-of the-Century New York. (Ruins in the Literary and Cultural Imagination, 2019), “Henry James’s “‘The Aspern Papers’: Between the Narrative of an Archive and the Archive of Narrative” (The Henry James Review 39.2.2018). She was the Book Reviews editor of the European Journal of American Studies from 2001 to 2021.

Redouane Aboueddahab

ORGANIZERS

The conference is organized by Le Mans University Le Mans Université (uni-lemans.fr) in association with the University of Latvia University of Latvia (lu.lv)

Funded by Le Mans University (3L.AM – Langues, Littératures des Universités du Mans et d’Angers -Equipe d’Accueil 4335)

The University of Latvia

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Aristi Trendel (Le Mans University)

François Thirion (Le Mans University)

Indra Karapetjana (University of Latvia)

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

Aristi Trendel (Assoc. prof. Le Mans University), Francois Thirion (PRAG-Doctor, Le Mans University), Indra Karapetjana (prof. University of Latvia), Delphine Letort (prof. Le Mans University), Gunta Roziņa, (prof. University of Latvia), Xavier Lachazette (Assoc. prof. Le Mans University), Elisabeth Lamothe (Assoc. prof. Le Mans University), Clara Sarmento (prof. Porto Accounting and Business School,Giovanni Lamartino (prof. University of Milan), Lee Trepanier (prof. Samford University), Nicole Ollier (prof. Bordeaux Montaigne University)

Venue<

Le Mans University, France

Le Mans University is a state University located in Le Mans.

It is accessible by tram T1 (about 10 min from the city center; tram stop: Campus Ribay or Université).

Accommodation and Travel

Travel

The city is easily accessible from Paris.

There are direct trains from Charles de Gaulle airport; 1h40 min ride (https://www.oui.sncf/)

There are several trains a day from Montparnasse train station: 1h by the fast train (TGV), 2h by the local train (TER).

About 2h20 min from Paris by car.

Accommodation

The participants are expected to book their own accommodation.

There are several hotels in Le Mans, a rather inexpensive city.

The information in this section will be updated. Suggestions are coming soon.

Useful sites:

https://www.lemans-tourisme.com/en/practical-information/our-commitments.html

https://thegoodlifefrance.com/where-to-eat-out-in-le-mans-france/

Registration

Registration Fee