Call for papers

Trace(s), fragment(s), remain(s)

“Fragments emit flames that are just as bright as they are short lived.”
“Fragmentation is the soul of art.”

-Pascal Quignard

The question of fragments is by nature one of enigmas. In the work of many contemporary writers, remains, or traces, are what guides our understanding of the world, bringing about writing and haunting the literary space. It is of course the real, which is discontinuous and fragmentary, that leads us to hermeneutics. Is not every narrative also, and a priori, a montage of fragments whose author has sought to interrupt its interrupting, erase its limits ? Writing would therefore be a thinking of forgetting, of interruption, of broken orders, of misunderstandings, of dislocations, of that which has come undone, of what the author remembers, the dream of the original and unique trace, which (s)he would seek to bring back, despite the trace’s resistance. The goal of this colloquium is thus to question the trace, the fragment, remains, as well as the relationships that they maintain with the imaginary. We propose to reflect upon the originary trace, the unique and enigmatic trace that motivates the very gesture of writing, and to see exactly what might open up in this interval of writing where this trace remains irreducible and unnamable. What brings the artist to write, paint, film, to pursue the invisible ? Is literature itself a means of traveling through these remains ? In what way might the text be conceived of as a passageway, a trace, a vessel for something that has come to pass, or that is already past ? Might every text necessarily be a march of specters ? From what position does one write ? Is the writing of fragments also a writing of loss, of the intangible ? What might be the heuristic value of the trace, of remains, of the fragment and of inscription, in their relation to the question of origins and of absence ?

Multiple axes of analysis are possible, including but not limited to :

Ways of knowing, ways of doing
Systems, methods, processes
Paper, palimpsests
Impressions, inscriptions, recordings
Photography, analog and digital
Secrets, enigmas, decoding
Bodies : materiality/ spectrality
Screens, digital traces
Accounts, eyewitness and otherwise
Marks, tracks, signs
Style, stylus, pen
Death, steles, tombs
Hyphens / parentheses / blanks
Past / present
Reality / virtuality
Unity / diversity
Events / accidents / crises
Nature / destiny
Continuity / discontinuity
Memory / forgetting
Transmission, passing, surpassing
Voices, subjects, presence
Sites of passage, sites of passages
Trails, wakes, furrows, lines
Proposals in the following areas (and / or in interdisciplinary perspectives) are welcome : French Literature, Francophone Literatures, Comparative Literature, Literary Theory, Cultural Studies, History, Gender Studies, Linguistics, Translation, Art, Cinema/ Film Studies, Photography.
Please send proposals for papers or panels (proposals as well as papers may be in French or in English), to traces@modlangs.gatech.edu , attaching 1.) your contact information (name, institutional affiliation, email address), and 2.) an abstract of your paper in 200-250 words or a panel proposal. Deadline : August 31, 2012.
Conference web site : http://frenchconference2013.gatech.edu/

This year's colloquium is hosted by the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, a division of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Georgia Tech is a large, public university offering instruction in the humanities, social sciences, engineering and architecture among other disciplines. It is located in central Atlanta, a cosmopolitan city of over 5 million featuring the High Museum of Art, the Museum Of Design Atlanta, the Fox Theatre, Olympic Park, various concert halls and award-winning restaurants, as well as the world's largest aquarium, all within walking distance of the conference hotel. The Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library & Museum, and the Atlanta Botanical Garden are also less than ten minutes away by taxi.