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"Indochina", India and France: Cultural Representations.
"L'Indochine", l'Inde et la France : représentations culturelles.
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE to be held at the
UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE
5 - 7 SEPTEMBER 2003
CALL FOR PAPERS
This conference will seek to examine both French perceptions of
"Indochina" and India and reciprocally these countries' perceptions
of France, through a variety of media including cinema, literature,
art and historical or anthropological writings.
"Indochina" - or the countries once subsumed under that name by the
French colonial administration - has touched "l'imaginaire français"
in various ways through colonialism, war and more recently
immigration. Imagined "Indochina" was associated with opium, cruelty
and sensual pleasure paradoxically coexisting with a mysticism that
denied the senses and a philosophy of life that was not without its
French devotees. Between India and China, "Indochina" was constantly
defined by what itwas not, a place of curious ambiguities. It was
also a land of danger, of legendary piracy, tigers and treacherous
"natives"; it was a territory in which resistance against colonialism
had to be constantly belittled, yet where such resistance
nevertheless obstinately made its presence felt. And as quite recent
films attest, to French ears the word "Indochine" retains a certain
power to evoke past colonial grandeur. From myth to the discourse of
colonial domination, from nostalgia to post-colonial guilt, these
imagined "Indochinas" have now to be re-read in the light of new
links with the erstwhile colonies due to the presence of Vietnamese,
Cambodian and Laotian immigrants in France itself.
India was central to Romantic myths of Origin, and presented its own
distinctive topos of exotic mysticism. Long remembered with nostalgia
for a lost, earlier French Empire, the French presence in India has
received less critical attention than it merits; now, with growing
awareness of the range of travel writing as well as fiction and of
the attempts to forge a different colonial policy from that of the
British, it is timely to explore this area.
Suggested topics for this interdisciplinary conference are:
French cinema and "Indochine" or India
Marguerite Duras
André Malraux
Colonial identity and gender
Travel writing and colonial literature
Memory and the French presence in India
The "expositions coloniales"
Writing in French by authors of Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian or
Indian origin
Visions of "Indochina" or India in anthropological writings and
journalism
Photographic/graphic representations
Wars of decolonization
Proposals on other topics related to the theme are of course welcome.
Organizing Committee, from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne: Dr
Kathryn Robson, Professor Brian Stimpson, Dr Jennifer Yee.
Advisory Committee: Dr Nicola Cooper (Bristol), Professor Panivong
Norindr (Southern California), Dr Rachel Edwards (Newcastle upon
Tyne).
Proposed papers, with an outline of around 300 words, should
be sent to the address below by May 15 2002
(or electronically to: Jennifer.Yee@ncl.ac.uk).
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