MLA Commons | LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French | Activity

Hannah Freed-Thall started the topic call for nominations: MLA Delegate Assembly Representative in the forum LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 20:37:03 -0500

Please send nominations (including self-nominations) for 20th/21st-c French forum representative to the MLA Delegate Assembly to freedthall@nyu.edu, by March 9, 2026. The elected representative serves a 3-year term and must attend the annual Delegate Assembly meeting, held during the MLA convention. Learn more about the Delegate Assembly here:…[Read more]

Hannah Freed-Thall started the topic MLA 2027 CFP: Aesthetics and Politics of Resistance in the forum LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 01:15:04 -0500

This panel explores the aesthetics and politics of resistance in modern and contemporary French-language contexts. Possible topics include: conditions of control, surveillance, capture, and repression; fascism/antifascism; refusal, fugitivity, emancipation, or revolution. This is a non-guaranteed session. Send a 250-word abstract and bio by March…[Read more]

Hannah Freed-Thall started the topic MLA 2027 CFP: Literature and the News in the forum LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 17:55:07 -0500

This panel explores intersections between literature and journalism in modern and contemporary French-language contexts. Topics include, but are not limited to, the fait divers, truth and disinformation, politics and aesthetics, fact and fiction. This is a guaranteed session. Send a 250-word abstract and bio by March 15, 2026 to sk130@wellesley.edu

Hannah Freed-Thall started the topic MLA 2027 CFP: Reproductive Justice in the forum LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 02:30:10 -0500

On the centenary of the birth of Simone Veil (namesake of the landmark 1975 French law legalizing abortion), this panel explores sexual autonomy, gender freedom, decolonial feminism, and reproductive dignity in modern and contemporary French-language contexts. This is a guaranteed session. Send a 250-word abstract and bio by March 15 to freedthall@nyu.edu.

Johanna Montlouis-Gabriel started the topic Call for Nominations: LLC 20th-and 21st Century French Forum Executive Committee in the forum LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 15:54:18 -0500

Dear Colleagues, The LLC 20th 21st Century Forum Executive Committee is seeking (self)nominations from our membership for one colleague (must be an MLA member) willing to serve a term of five convention years (from January 2027 through the close of the January 2031 convention). Responsibilities of the committee members also include serving as…[Read more]

Johanna Montlouis-Gabriel started the topic MLA 2026 CFP: "Queer Creoles in French and Francophone Contexts" in the forum LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 12:56:50 -0500

Title: “Queer Creoles in French and Francophone Contexts.”

This panel explores queer language use across borders and cultural contexts, which includes, but is not limited to creolization, language accumulation, and translanguaging. This is a guaranteed session. Send 250-word abstract and bio by March 13, 2025 to Denis Provencher: dmproven@ncsu.edu

Johanna Montlouis-Gabriel started the topic MLA 2026 CFP: "Metropolitan Relations" A Guaranteed Session in the forum LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 12:52:32 -0500

Title: “Metropolitan Relations: Diasporic & Indigenous Perspectives in Contemporary Cities.”

This panel explores French and Francophone representations of place-making, cultural memory, and spatial justice in urban environments. This is a guaranteed session. Send 250-word abstract and bio by March 13, 2025 to jmontlo@emory.edu

Johanna Montlouis-Gabriel started the topic Call for Nominations: LLC 20th-and 21st Century French Forum Executive Committee in the forum LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Sat, 11 Jan 2025 16:00:26 -0500

Dear Colleagues,

The LLC 20th 21st Century Forum Executive Committee is seeking (self)nominations from our membership for one colleague (must be an MLA member) willing to serve a term of five convention years (from January 2026 through the close of the January 2030 convention). Responsibilities of the committee members also include serving as…[Read more]

Frank Pfost deposited Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy and Emile Zola on the Meaning of Life in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Mon, 17 Jun 2024 04:01:08 -0400

Two great contemporary writers of the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Lev
Tolstoy of Russia and Émile Zola of France, were haunted by the same problem, the individual’s
relation to God and the universe and the purpose of his relatively short life in it. Although Tolstoy
and Zola took different approaches to this problem in th…[Read more]

Nathan H. Dize started the topic CPF: Ecologies of Enslavement, Ecologies of Abolition, MLA 2025 in the discussion LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Sun, 11 Feb 2024 03:36:57 -0500

How have enslavement, incarceration, and other colonial confinements shaped more-than-human circum-Caribbean ecologies? How have Black culture-makers confronted these ecologies with abolitionist aesthetics? Send 150-word abstracts to this co-sponsored panel (Caribbean & Ecocriticism and Environmental Humanities).Deadline for submissions: Friday,…[Read more]

Nathan H. Dize started the topic CFP: Édouard Glissant: Still A Caribbean Theorist? (MLA 2025, in-person panel) in the discussion LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Sun, 11 Feb 2024 03:34:07 -0500

Michael Dash’s translation and abridgment of Le discours antillais into Caribbean Discourse raises the question of how we situate Glissant within Caribbean Studies. Send 150-word abstracts that consider how we deploy Glissant’s literary-creative-artistic thought today.Deadline for submissions: Friday, 8 March 2024 Nathan H. Dize, Washington Univ…[Read more]

Johanna Montlouis-Gabriel started the topic MLA 2025 CFP: Unscripted Performances in the discussion LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 14:11:43 -0500

Exploring the intersections of jazz, performance, and literary studies from diverse perspectives, this panel delves into the art of spontaneous storytelling, poetic play, and improvised narrative. A non-guaranteed session. 250-word abstract and bio due by March 8 2024 at montlouis-gabriel.1@osu.edu

Hannah Freed-Thall started the topic MLA 2025 CFP: Entomological Turns in the discussion LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Wed, 24 Jan 2024 17:04:06 -0500

From Proust’s queer bumblebee to Deleuze and Guattari’s tick, insects play an outsized role in 20th/21st-century literature, art, and critical thought. Speakers will explore the French/Francophone entomological imagination, examining concepts from swarm to camouflage, pollination, and beyond.

This is a guaranteed 2025 MLA panel. Please send 250…[Read more]

Gerald Joseph Prince started the topic Call Nominations LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French Forum Executive Committee in the discussion LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Tue, 09 Jan 2024 13:01:51 -0500

Dear Colleagues,The LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French Forum Executive Committee is seeking (self-)nominations from our membership for one colleague willing to serve a term of five convention years (from January 2025 through the close of the January 2029 convention) as member of the executive committee. Responsibilities of the committee members…[Read more]

Marisa Verna deposited « Proust et l’odeur de son temps » in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Thu, 24 Aug 2023 01:30:52 -0400

Until now, critics have shown little interest in the bouquet of aromas and scents that permeate the linguistic fabric of À la recherche du temps perdu , to the point of forming an olfactory (and cognitive) underlay. The aesthetic impact of these odors warrants further investigation, starting with a reconstruction of the “problem of smell” in Prou…[Read more]

Marisa Verna deposited "L’indicible dans la Recherche du temps perdu. Proust et le silence du corps " in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Fri, 14 Jul 2023 03:48:43 -0400

Death, as well as sleep, seem to leave us facing the category of the unspeakable. This paper aims at studying Proust’s novel from this point of view, examining the paradox of a writing that crosses the threshold between what can be said and “what cannot be said but must nevertheless be heard” (Blanchot). We intend to analyze the discursive and r…[Read more]

Priya Wadhera started the topic CFP: Afrofuturisme/Afropessimisme in the discussion LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Tue, 21 Feb 2023 18:03:23 -0500

This panel seeks to examine contemporary Francophone cultural productions (broadly defined from comics to novels and films) which provide a rich ground for imagining Blackness in the future. Is there a future after anti-Blackness? How do these cultural productions imagine collective liberation? Papers are invited to discuss joy and sorrow in…[Read more]

Priya Wadhera started the topic CFP: Disgust in the discussion LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Tue, 21 Feb 2023 17:45:34 -0500

This roundtable explores the rhetoric of disgust—along with its conceptual cousins (spleen, nausea, informe, abjection, etc.)—as generative forces for 20th- and 21st-century French/Francophone thought. Speakers will examine dégoût as a complex, historically situated feeling that connects and binds even as it repels, drawing attention to margins,…[Read more]

Nathalie Dupont started the topic Call for Nominations LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French Forum Executive Committee in the discussion LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Tue, 24 Jan 2023 07:20:45 -0500

Dear colleagues,

The LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French Forum Executive Committee is seeking (self-)nominations from our membership for one colleague willing to serve a term of five convention years (from January 2024 through the close of the January 2029 convention) as member of the executive committee. Responsibilities of the committee members…[Read more]

Morgane Cadieu started the topic TOMORROW SUNDAY: Panel "Words on Food" in the discussion LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Sun, 08 Jan 2023 06:29:14 -0500

Please join us tomorrow Sunday for a session sponsored by the LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French Executive Committee, “Words on Food.” Proust’s madeleine conjures pleasure and memories. What of food in French literature and thought since then, especially in times of scarcity or hunger? How to interpret food that is odd, inedible, absent?

Sunday, J…[Read more]

Morgane Cadieu started the topic TODAY: Panel "French Eyes on California" in the discussion LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Sat, 07 Jan 2023 18:45:25 -0500

Please join us today for a session sponsored by the LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French Executive Committee. Panelists will examine the role, symbol, and landscapes of California in 20th- and 21st-century French literature and thought.

Saturday, January 7

3:30pm – 4:45pm

Marriott Marquis – Nob Hill C (Lower B2 Level)

Nathalie Dupont started the topic TODAY: Roundtable on Démission/resignation in the discussion LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 14:38:48 -0500

Please join us today for a roundtable on démission/resignation as a multifaceted motif and a critical stance in 20th- and 21st-century French and Francophone cultural and literary imagination, and on the conceptual, verbal, and formal tools and strategies at stake in this dual phenomenon, whether it proceeds from the stasis of discontent or as an…[Read more]

Marisa Verna deposited Des “parasites précieux’: impureté et antinationalisme dans le roman proustien”, in Labours of Attention: Work, Class and Society in French and Francophone Literature and Culture, Adam Watt ed. in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Wed, 21 Sep 2022 03:48:43 -0400

Contrary to the “populist linguistic purism” of Remy de Gourmont, who believed in a “native” and primal language, as well as in a literature that “does not receive neither borrow anything” (Roussin), Proust moulds his novel in a “gloriously impure, lumberfilled” linguistic matter (Malcolm Bowie). Proust’s idea of language is radically opposed…[Read more]

Marisa Verna deposited “Sacrificio, forza e debolezza ne La peste di Camus” in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Thu, 12 May 2022 03:48:43 -0400

In this essay we reinterpret Camus’s novel The Plague in light of the urgency of history, that with Covid 19 pandemia made us face a real pestilence, thus allowing us to read reality and fiction as even. Our rereading relativizes the traditional allegoric interpretation of critics, while at the same time it widens its perspectives. It is in fact i…[Read more]

Marisa Verna deposited E|C Rivista dell’Associazione Italiana di Studi Semiotici in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Tue, 26 Apr 2022 03:48:43 -0400

Thisarticleaims at a better comprehension of the series of lectures that Joseph Czapski gave in the Soviet camp of Grazovietzbetween 1940 and 1941. The case of Czapski is well known, but his exceptional performance (of memory, and critical inquiry) deserves further investigation. Not surprisingly, the Polish painter…[Read more]

Nathalie Dupont started the topic CFP – 2023 MLA Convention – LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French in the discussion LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Thu, 03 Feb 2022 15:23:40 -0500

Words on Food

Proust’s madeleine conjures pleasure and memories. What of food in French literature and thought since then, especially in times of scarcity or hunger? How to interpret food that is odd, inedible, absent? Please submit a 250-word abstract and short bio to Priya Wadhera at wadhera@adelphi.edu by March 15, 2022. (Guaranteed s…[Read more]

Nathalie Dupont posted an update in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French: The LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French Forum Executive […]

Tue, 18 Jan 2022 13:44:20 -0500

The LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French Forum Executive Committee is seeking (self-)nominations from our membership for one colleague willing to serve a term of five convention years (from January 2023 through the close of the January 2028 convention) as member of the executive committee. Responsibilities of the committee members also include…[Read more]

Marisa Verna deposited Proust à l’écoute de Senancour. Du silence des montagnes au silence de la musique. Questions de style in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Fri, 02 Jul 2021 02:24:42 -0400

The tunefulness of Proust and Senancour. From the silence of mountains to the silence of music

For Proust, great books are the “children of silence” (CSB, p. 309), and his novel endeavors to express what could not, in principle, be formulated: nature, sensations, in brief the physical and psychic existence as a whole. In his vision, lan…[Read more]

Marisa Verna deposited « Des images en quête de sens. Par les écrans du monde de Fanny Taillandier » in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Wed, 23 Dec 2020 03:48:43 -0500

This paper analyses the category of space in Fanny Taillandier’s last novel Par les
écrans du monde. We argue that Taillandier tries to “make sense” of 9/11 terrorist attack
through a stylistic recomposition of the dimension of space, while situating it in a
“geometry of words” that makes it meaningful and human again. In effect, in Taillandie…[Read more]

Marisa Verna deposited "Proust politique : De l’Europe du Goncourt 1919 à l’Europe de 2019" in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Sat, 31 Oct 2020 03:48:43 -0400

Le livre constitue les actes du colloque qui s’est tenu en mai 2019 à la Università Cattolica du Sacré-Coeur de Milan.
Ce livre examine les relations que l’œuvre de Proust entretient avec l’histoire, avec la société de son temps et du nôtre, les conflits ouverts ou souterrains qu’elle révèle ou recèle, et, plus contemporainement, se demander s’i…[Read more]

Katina Rogers deposited Translations from ALLADA and EXPERIENCE D'EDWARD LEE, VERSAILLES by Gérard Gavarry in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 02:25:34 -0400

At the heart of Gérard Gavarry’s writing are the questions of what power language holds, and what remains beyond the reach of expression. The two translations included here, excerpts from Allada (P.O.L, 1993) and Expérience d’Edward Lee, Versailles (P.O.L, 2009), share little with each other in terms of setting or structure, but explore simil…[Read more]

Marisa Verna deposited Proust une langue étrangère in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Wed, 10 Jun 2020 03:49:45 -0400

Proust was strongly opposed to the idea of a naturally “clear” national language whose directives would be inherent in thought itself. This book questions Proust’s style from the point of view of its theorization and the implementation of diffuse sensory rhetoric in À la recherche du temps perdu.

Natalie Berkman deposited Italo Calvino's Oulipian Clinamen in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Tue, 19 May 2020 03:48:43 -0400

The Oulipo has claimed that foreign member, Italo Calvino, was a key proponent of the clinamen, a purposeful deviation from the strict constraints in which the group specializes. However, upon closer inspection, Calvino’s Oulipian production during his Paris period does not seem to advance a formalized definition of this tool of constrained w…[Read more]

Leigh A. Neithardt started the topic Membership Suggestions for 2020 Forum Delegate Election in the discussion LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Thu, 19 Sep 2019 15:32:59 -0400

The next election for this forum’s Delegate Assembly representative will be held in the fall of 2020, and the forum’s executive committee will take up the matter of nominations for this election when it meets during the January 2020 convention in Seattle. Though the executive committee is responsible for making nominations, it is required to nom…[Read more]

May Spangler deposited Paris in Architecture, Literature, and Art in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Sat, 22 Dec 2018 16:27:42 -0500

“Notre-Dame in Jean Fouquet’s Hours of Etienne Chevalier, ca. 1452-52” is a book excerpt of May Spangler’s “Paris in Architecture, Literature and Art,” recently published at Peter Lang. Designed for an interdisciplinary course in Cultural Studies, the book capitalizes on the little exposure liberal arts students have to architecture, and the wid…[Read more]

Marisa Verna deposited Il giardino, la nebbia e il cioccolato. Un inverno con Proust, in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Fri, 21 Dec 2018 03:49:52 -0500

La poesia dell’inverno (del letargo, dice Proust) è materia della Recherche che coniuga arte e vita, o piuttosto impasta i materiali della vita, per farne arte. In un passo del Côté de Guermantes l’eroe del romanzo si trova a trascorrere una notte nella guarnigione di Doncière. L’associazione di diverse sensazioni fisiche (il freddo, la luminosit…[Read more]

Marisa Verna deposited Review of Anne Simon, Trafics de Proust. Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Deleuze, Barthes in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Sat, 08 Dec 2018 04:12:21 -0500

Review of the recent book of Anne Simon, about Proust and / with philosophers

Marisa Verna deposited Pour une pédagogie créative de la littérature. Enseigner la littérature au musée, « La Nuova Secondaria », 3 Novembre 2018, pp. 87-89. in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Sat, 08 Dec 2018 03:48:43 -0500

This article describes a pedagogical project that took place between 2015 and 2016, and involved my students of the French Literature class, third year of Bachelor of Arts (foreign languages). The intersection and interrelation between figurative art and poetry were at the centre of the theoretical insight, whereas the necessity of adapting our…[Read more]

Marisa Verna deposited Ces traîtres qui affament notre peuple. Argent et antisémitisme dans la « Recherche » proustienne in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Thu, 17 May 2018 04:02:09 -0400

The Jewish ‘question’ is treated in the Recherche by way of the Dreyfus Affaire, which is not spoken of but scattered in the discourses of different characters. Definitions, opinions, even facts are, therefore, spread in the ubiquity of social instability, so that it is impossible for the reader to identify any of Proust’s ideologies.In our paper…[Read more]

Annabel Kim deposited The Riddle of Racial Difference in Anne Garréta's Sphinx in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Wed, 21 Mar 2018 03:57:53 -0400

This article examines Sphinx, the debut novel of the French novelist Anne Garréta, which was recently published in English translation in 2015. The reception of Sphinx in both French and English has focused primarily on Garréta’s virtuosic removal of gender from a love story, passing over a caricatural and crude rendering of racial difference tha…[Read more]

Natalie Berkman deposited Digital Oulipo: Programming Potential Literature in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Wed, 10 Jan 2018 05:36:30 -0500

To understand the Oulipo’s forays into computer science and more importantly, why they abandoned them, I designed and carried out one of the inaugural projects of the Princeton Center for Digital Humanities. The goal was twofold: first, through exploratory programming, I intended to create interactive, digital annexes to accompany my doctoral…[Read more]

Marisa Verna deposited Art and poetry in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Wed, 11 Oct 2017 20:10:00 -0400

Teaching material online course

Steven Ridgely deposited Terayama's "China Doll" (in Japanese) in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Wed, 11 Oct 2017 01:09:01 -0400

This is an analysis of Terayama Shūji’s 1981 film “Shanhai ijin shōkan,” a French co-production which was marketed in the Anglosphere as “China Doll” and in France as “Les Fruits de la passion,” invoking both Ōshima Nagisa’s 1978 “L’Empire de la passion” (the sequel to his notorious “Empire of the Senses” / “L’Empire des sens,” 1976) as well as Ro…[Read more]

Xiaofan Amy Li started the topic CFP - interdisciplinary conference 'Play, Recreation, Experimentation' in the discussion Twentieth-Century French Literature

Sat, 15 Jul 2017 09:53:12 -0400

Call For Papers: ‘Play, Recreation, and Experimentation: Literature and the Arts since the Early Modern Times’, 8-9 Dec 2017, University of Kent, Canterbury. (details of dates and venue tbc)

Invited speakers: Professor Peter Dayan (Edinburgh), Professor Ulrike Zitzlsperger (Exeter), Dr Thomas Karshan (UEA)

This inte…[Read more]

Marisa Verna deposited Corps connaissant(s) et pensée matérielle chez Proust. Les sens du Temps”. in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Wed, 12 Apr 2017 20:10:00 -0400

This paper aims to define the concepts of “material thought” and “material time,” as they are theorized by Proust in the Preface of his Ruskin’s Amiens Bible translation, and as they are developed throughout the Recherche. In Proust’s oeuvre ‘material thought’ manifests itself mostly in linguistic and stylistic features, or in concrete images,…[Read more]

Jennifer Cazenave started the topic CFP: "La France est en guerre" (MLA 2018) in the discussion Twentieth-Century French Literature

Wed, 25 Jan 2017 01:58:53 -0500

“La France est en guerre” : Witnessing War in Contemporary French Culture
Engaging with the 2018 Presidential theme “States of Insecurity,” this special session seeks cross-disciplinary papers addressing the rhetoric of war in recent French film, literature, and thought.
Send 200-word abstract and one-page CV to Jennifer Cazenave…[Read more]

Carol Zuses started the topic Membership Suggestions Needed for Next Forum Delegate Election in the discussion Twentieth-Century French Literature

Thu, 03 Nov 2016 16:00:33 -0400

When it meets during the upcoming convention in Philadelphia, this forum’s executive committee will take up the matter of nominations for the fall 2017 election of a new forum representative in the Delegate Assembly. Though the executive committee is responsible for making nominations, it is required to nominate at least one candidate who has b…[Read more]

Francesco Ardolino deposited L’urlo. Del furor destructor a la afirmación de sí in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Sun, 16 Oct 2016 17:35:50 -0400

The “Urlo”. From the deconstructive rage/fury to the ‘yes’ assertion.
In this article we offer a series of tableaux belonging to contemporary Romance literatures written by women, through a focus on a common feature which is that of the “urlo” (scream). Based on a selection of works mainly Italian, but also taken from other literatures of the Rom…[Read more]

Jorge Calderón started the topic Appel de communications Feeling Queer / Queer Feeling Colloque international in the discussion Twentieth-Century French Literature

Tue, 13 Sep 2016 18:48:33 -0400

Appel de communications

Feeling Queer / Queer Feeling

Colloque international

Université de Toronto, Canada

24–26 mai 2017

L’affect est avant tout, dans l’ordre du corps, un phénomène physique et psychique, à la fois en-deçà et au-delà de la représentation, qui mobilise l’expérience concrète de soi, celle de l’autre et celle du monde. En t…[Read more]

Natalie Berkman deposited Exercices de Style Activity in the group LLC 20th- and 21st-Century French

Wed, 13 Jul 2016 08:07:29 -0400

This PowerPoint can be used to accompany a creative writing workshop in an intermediate or advanced French language class. It serves as an introduction to French literature and notions of style, which will be important once the students have satisfied their language requirements, as well as a tool for creative student production in the target language.