This conference will consider the multiple manifestations of photography in contemporary French society and culture, spanning the 1990s to the present day. Photography has been the subject of ever-increasing scholarly attention over the last decade, but often in relation to other fields and topics, e.g. art, digitisation and other media, literature, (auto-)biography, journalism, popular culture, travel and urban environment. This inter-disciplinary event will bring together academics working on photography in relation to these and other subjects in order to begin to better map and assess the multi-faceted reality of the medium and its uses, as well as different critical and theoretical approaches to it.

This conference is sponsored by the Society for French Studies, Nottingham French Studies and the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies of the University of Nottingham.

Speakers and titles:

Olga Smith (University of St Andrews): ‘L’image performée’ in French Contemporary Photography

Amanda Crawley Jackson (University of Sheffield): Retour/détour: Bruno Boudjelal and the Failure of Return

Shirley Jordan (Queen Mary, University of London): Photography and the City: Thoughts on Interruption

Fabien Arribert-Narce (University College London): De la ‘notation’ à la ‘fictionalisation’ de la vie: les nouvelles tendances photobiographiques dans la littérature française contemporaine

Akane Kawakami (Birkbeck London): Diary, photojournal or journal d’écriture? Traces of Annie Ernaux in L'atelier noir and Ecrire la vie

Andy Stafford (University of Leeds): André Bazin’s ‘Ontology of the Photographic Image’ in Contemporary French Photography

Round table discussion and closing remarks (followed by Vin d’honneur)
Panel: Amanda Crawley Jackson (University of Sheffield), Shirley Jordan (Queen Mary, University of London), Joseph McGonagle (University of Manchester)

To register, please follow this link:
http://store.nottingham.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&catid=34&modid=2&prodid=126&deptid=9&prodvarid=0

For further information, contact the conference organiser Kathrin Yacavone (Kathrin.Yacavone@nottingham.ac.uk).