Fictions transfuges. La transfictionnalité et ses enjeux. Entretien avec Richard Saint-Gelais.

Sur le site Vox Poetica:

Fictions transfuges. La transfictionnalité et ses enjeux

Entretien avec Richard Saint-Gelais. Propos recueillis par Frank Wagner

Entretien publié le 20 avril 2012

Dans Fictions transfuges (Paris, Ed. du Seuil, novembre 2011, « Poétique ».), vous travaillez sur un objet, « la transfictionnalité et ses enjeux » qui, pour n’avoir « rien de marginal » (p. 532), n’en paraît pas moins original. Pourriez-vous, dans les grandes lignes, évoquer « l’archéologie » de vos travaux sur la notion de transfictionnalité, et plus précisément la genèse même du projet qui a abouti à l’écriture de cet ouvrage ?

« Archéologie » en effet car, à m’interroger sur les débuts de ce projet qui m’aura occupé quelques années, je retrouve, justement, des débuts, superposés comme des strates dont les implications ne sont parfois apparues que longtemps après. Comme bien des bambins (et plusieurs adultes sans doute), j’ai été marqué par ce qui m’apparaît maintenant comme des phénomènes de « traversée » des frontières encadrant la fiction : une visite au salon de l’auto de la ville voisine où l’on exposait la voiture de Batman ; des jeux d’enfant basés sur des objets dans lesquels je vois, rétrospectivement, des artefacts transfictionnels, comme les modèles réduits des vaisseaux des Sentinelles de l’air. Ces matérialisations de ce qui ne se trouvait jusque-là que sur l’écran d’un téléviseur exerçaient une fascination que j’éprouve encore ; conceptualiser la chose, comme je m’y emploie aujourd’hui, a moins visé à dissiper cette fascination, à y substituer un discours théorique, qu’à la prolonger à travers ce dernier.

Lire la suite.

Lire un extrait de l’ouvrage dans l’Atelier de théorie littéraire de Fabula.

Campaigning for a Conan Doyle Museum and Centre for British and Irish Crime Writing

Mission Statement

To save Undershaw for the Nation by relaunching it as the Conan Doyle Museum and Centre for British and Irish Crime Writing, thus affirming its cultural value and Conan Doyle’s place in the literary heritage of Great Britain and Ireland, and beyond.

Dear Colleagues,

We now have only a little time left before the High Court hearing (23rd May) to rally support for saving Undershaw as a Conan Doyle Museum / Centre for British & Irish Crime Writing, establishing and furthering the cultural and social value of the house.

UNDERSHAW & CONAN DOYLE

Undershaw was built to Conan Doyle’s own designs in 1897, one of the very few writers’ houses with this input. During the ten years that he lived there he wrote many of his most popular stories including fourteen Sherlock Holmes adventures, and ten Brigadier Gerard tales. This has recently been documented by Alistair Duncan in his An Entirely New Country – Arthur Conan Doyle, Undershaw and the Resurrection of Sherlock Holmes (MX Publishing 2011). When Conan Doyle sold Undershaw in 1927 it became an hotel. This closed its doors in 2004 and the property was sold to a development company, Fosseway Ltd.

Now Undershaw may be turned into maisonettes, its gardens built over. Planning permission for this was granted by Waverley Borough Council, a decision which should be overturned at judicial review at the High Court in London on 23rd May 2012. But what better or more appropriate place could there be for a Conan Doyle Museum and Centre for British and Irish Crime Writing, thus affirming its cultural value and Conan Doyle’s place in the literary heritage of Great Britain and Ireland, and beyond, open and accessible to the public all year round (including school visits), with a library, conference facilities, crime writing courses and a writer in residence?

THE UNDERSHAW ALLIANCE

Many heritage houses have been lost, but many more have been saved: why should Undershaw not be one of them? To campaign for its conservation as a Conan Doyle Museum and Centre for British and Irish Crime Writing, two supporters’ groups have been set up, Academics for Undershaw and Crime Writers for Undershaw , the first as a body of authoritative opinion affirming the cultural value of Undershaw, the second honouring Conan Doyle’s place as an ancestor of to-day’s detective fiction. These two groups form the UNDERSHAW ALLIANCE, more than 500 strong, and working to enlist opinion formers and professionals.

The Undershaw Alliance believes that Undershaw can and must be saved for the nation, for the enjoyment of the nation: indeed, in the context of cultural tourism, of all the nations. Our task now is to appeal to a broader public and enlist greater international public support for this.

More information at  www.undershawalliance.com.

Best wishes,

David Charles Rose

Appel à contribution pour Télévision n°4: L’appel du divertissement (15 juin)

Appel à contribution

Télévision n°4: L’appel du divertissement

(CNRS éditions)

Dans la Crise de la culture, Hannah Arendt montre que les objets culturels sont inexorablement entraînés sur la pente du divertissement et que consommer s’identifie assez rapidement, dans notre société, à se divertir.

Cet « appel » du divertissement est particulièrement observable dans un média comme la télévision et il n’est pas loin de dominer la fameuse trilogie « informer, cultiver, divertir », soumettant les deux premières missions à sa loi. Ce numéro se propose donc d’explorer les glissements qui en résultent dans tous les genres télévisuels en suivant plusieurs pistes :

• l’utilisation du terme : quels genres regroupe-t-on aujourd’hui sous l’étiquette « divertissement » ? L’examen des journaux de programmes révèle que cet étiquetage est mouvant. Ainsi, certains programmes naguère classés dans la catégorie « télé-réalité » sont aujourd’hui considérés comme divertissement. À l’intérieur d’un même genre, les thèmes ou le répertoire retenus peuvent aussi révéler cet « appel » (par exemple, le choix des pièces faisant l’objet d’une retransmission théâtrale).

• la relation de l’information au divertissement, notamment au travers de « l’infotainment » : les talk shows, les journaux télévisés. Quelles sont les nouvelles formes des mélanges des genres qui font se côtoyer les stars du petit écran, les « people » et les politiques ? Quelles transformations ludiques ont subi, au cours de la dernière campagne présidentielle, les débats politiques ? etc.

• l’évolution des formules et des dispositifs : loin d’être fixés une fois pour toutes, les dispositifs et les formules des programmes subissent des évolutions importantes au cours de leur histoire. Dans cette perspective, il semble fructueux de confronter la promesse de certains programmes à leurs transformations progressives. Par exemple, les premiers numéros d’ On a tout essayé (de Laurent Ruquier) affichait une ambition culturelle (invitation d’intellectuels, critiques de livres, etc.), qui s’est diluée au fil des mois. L’étude chronologique de certains programmes peut faire ressortir les mécanismes par lesquels le divertissement s’insinue dans des émissions dites « culturelles ».

• Arendt note que le stade ultime de cet appel du divertissement est le moment où, pour faire « passer » un objet culturel, on le déforme « en vue de persuader les masses qu’Hamlet peut être aussi divertissant que My Fair Lady » et, pourquoi pas, tout aussi éducatif ». Cette remarque trouve de nombreuses confirmations aussi bien dans « l’actualisation » de fictions du patrimoine littéraire que dans la façon de présenter la science. On pourra s’intéresser aux adaptations « modernes » de classiques.

Ces pistes ne sont pas limitatives, pas plus que les angles adoptés. On évitera seulement les critiques générales de la télévision, ainsi que les discours de déploration. Seront bienvenues en revanche les contributions qui se pencheront sur un genre ou un programme en s’interrogeant sur le sens qu’ils donnent au terme « divertissement ».

Les projets sont à envoyer avant le 15 juin au responsable du numéro :

françoisjost@ceisme.fr

Les auteurs des articles retenus seront prévenus début juillet et les articles seront à rendre pour le 15 novembre 2012.

Call for papers : CFP Flashbacks – Nostalgic Media and mediated forms of nostalgia

Call for papers – International conference

Flashbacks – Nostalgic Media and mediated forms of nostalgia

13-14 September 2012

Institute of Communication, Media and Journalism studies

University of Geneva – Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences – Department of Sociology

Deadline for proposals: May 6, 2012

Send abstracts of max. 500 words, bibliography and biographical statement to:

flashbacks2012@gmail.com

Confirmed speakers: Prof. Daniel Dayan, Prof. Ute Holl, Prof. Andrew Hoskins

Media are time machines. They remember and forget. Media screen and record parts of memory and history as well as they maintain collective memories and contribute to historical narratives by (re)shaping events, happenings or other incidents. Media also tend to remind their own past by re-using archive-images in the present, for example. In this sense, media seem to be nostalgic of the past as well as of their own one. Nostalgiaas a concept, feeling or expression is not new. The notion has been introduced by a doctor in Switzerland (17th century) to describe the phenomenon of homesickness. Related to nostalgia is also the idea of melancholia or yearning. These days, there seems to be a BOOM of nostalgiaThe Artist (revival of the silent film) or television series like Mad Men – exploring aesthetics and social life of the sixties – are examples of what we could name nostalgic media (makers). Digital photography on cell phones gets a polaroid-touch; the retro design becomes digitized. Advertising for watches or cars is linked to nostalgic forms of family tradition. Fans of the fifties organise parties and fashion events to feel like being part of the past in the present. Being nostalgic and remembering pieces of the past also includes forgetting. What kind of memories are discriminated? Can media really be nostalgic? Which specific forms of nostalgia appear in contemporary society and why? Can people be nostalgic if they did not experience the past they pretend being nostalgic of? What kind of politics of nostalgia exist? What is the impact of nostalgia on the media market and its influence on economy? Finally, given the arbitrary (?) use of the past in all its imaginable variations and cultural systems, is it still possible to use the wordnostalgia or should there be a neologism describing the transformation of the past in(to) the digital era? Could it even be possible to be simply nostalgic of nostalgia; finally describing the eternal research for (lost) identity?

This international conference aims to explore nostalgia as a (mass) media phenomena and also seeks forcontributions that treat any other mediated forms of nostalgia.

Topics may include, but will not be limited to, the following:

nostalgia and (mass)media

  • publics, web- and fan-communities
  • audiovisual narratives, screening, recording
  • seriality, flashbacks and temporality
  • news, journalism, (printed) press
  • broadcast revivals, archive discoveries
  • political past, political systems, (n)ostalgia, institutions
  • special nostalgic broadcast (home country, culinary traditions etc.)
  • photography, comics, video games and new technologies

mediated forms of nostalgia

  • architecture, (product)-design and fashion
  • psychological aspects and history of nostalgia
  • migration, home-comers, homesickness
  • geographical maps, tourist attractions and villages
  • folklore, traditions, regional nostalgia
  • museums, exhibitions and contemporary art
  • flea markets, vintage stores and fairs, parties, concerts

economy, marketing and nostalgia

  • Vintage-retro branding
  • retro-design (cars, watches, furniture)
  • advertising, marketing and luxury products
  • music and arts business

theories and methodologies

  • nostalgic media studies and critical approaches
  • the come-back of philosophers and thinkers “of the past” in
  • science, arts and other research domains

Deadline for proposals: May 6, 2012

Send abstracts of max. 500 words, bibliography and biographical statement to:

flashbacks2012@gmail.com

Participants will have to cover their own travel and accommodation expenses. Travel information as well as a list of affordable hotels and other accommodations will be posted on the conference-website in June.

Participation fees will be announced but will not exceed 100 CHF (and less for students).

For any other inquiries feel free to contact Katharina Niemeyer (Katharina.Niemeyer@unige.ch /katharinaniemeyer@gmail.com).

Colloque: Fantastic Narratives and the Natural World April 27-28, 2012 (Dalhousie)

Fantastic Narratives and the Natural World

April 27-28, 2012

A Bilingual, Interdisciplinary Conference

hosted by Dalhousie’s Department of French and the Italian Studies Program

Organizers: Elisa Segnini and Vittorio Frigerio

fantasticnarratives@gmail.com

April 27th, 2012

University Hall, Dalhousie University

8:30 – 9:15am

Registration and Coffee

9:15 – 9:30am

Welcome

Robert Summerby-Murray, Dean, FASS

9:30 – 10:50am

Session I

Allegorical, Mythical and Poetical Readings of Natural Landscapes

Chair: Diana Pifano- Dalhousie University

Christopher R. Austin – Dalhousie University

The Raising of Govardhana Mountain: Krsna’s Divine Intervention in the Braj Landscape

Elisa Segnini – Dalhousie University

‘This place is almost too strange to believe’: Words and Blood in the Forest of the Suicides

Adleen Crapo – University of Toronto

The Interaction of Non-normative Bodies and Landscapes in Paradise Lost

10:50 – 11:05am

Coffee Break!

11:05 – 12:45pm

Session II

Ecology and the Fantastic

Chair: Nelleke Strik- Dalhousie University

Alexander E. Pichugin – Rutgers University

La nature et le fantastique dans le concept écologique d’Ernst Kreuder

Bruce Wyse – Wilfrid Laurier University

Uncanny Ecology and the Memento Mori Vision in Bulwer’s Kosem Kesamim, the Magician

Brian Noble – Dalhousie University

Animating T. Rex, Modeling the Perfect Race:  Osborn, Doyle and the Phantasmatics of Lost Ecologies

Michael House – Dalhousie University

Novalis and the Romantic Vision of Nature

12:45 – 2:00pm

Lunch!

2:00 -3:00pm

Keynote Speaker

Francesca Biliani  – University of Manchester

Oneiric Sexuality and Destabilised Social Personae

3:00 -5:00pm

Session III

Uncanny, Magical and Imaginary Spaces

Chair: Patricia DeMeo – Dalhousie University

Mathieu Lauzon-Dicsö – Université de Montréal

Les natures mortes de Catherine Dufour

Amy J. Ransom – Central Michigan University

Le sublime naturel dans le ‘Cycle de Neubourg’ de Daniel Sernine

Catherine d’Humières – Université de Cergy-Pontoise

Lorsque peinture, littérature et musique suivent la piste des sirènes.

L’imaginaire océanique dans De Profundis¸ album interactif de Miguelanxo Prado

April 28th, 2012

University Hall, Dalhousie University

8:30 – 9:15am

Registration and Coffee

9:15 11:00am

Session IV

Nature and Cultural Identity

Chair: Christopher Austin – Dalhousie University

Robert Summerby-Murray – Dalhousie University

The Fantastic Black Panther in the Writing of Charles G. D. Roberts: Forging Canadian

National Identity from Primeval Nature

Vittorio Frigerio – Dalhousie University

The Great North as Heaven and Hell. John Buchan’s Sick Heart River

Goh Sook Yi (Jaymee) – McMaster University

Pangolin Bear: Pinning Down the Real in Nickleodeon’s Avatar The Last Airbender

Paolo Matteucci – Dalhousie University

Fantastic Landscapes, Phantasmatic Contours: The Un-doing of Italy in Pasolini’s Petrolio

11:00 – 11:15Am

coffee break

11:15 – 12:40Am

Session V

Metamorphoses

Chair: Irène Chassaing- Dalhousie University

Walter Geerts – University of Antwerp, Belgium

Primo Levi’s Outlook for Man. A Reading of the Fantastic

Matthew Reza – Pembroke College Oxford

Tracing Changes: Metamorphosis in Kafka, Tutuola, and Calvino

Sophie Beaulé – St. Mary’s University

Monde végétal et devenir-intensité

12:40 – 2:00pm

Lunch!

2:00 – 3:30pm

Session VI

Enchanted Lands

Chair: Anne Bérubé, Dalhousie University

John Barnstead – Dalhousie University

Towards a Dendropoetics of Science Fiction

Dana Mount – Cape Breton University

The Spirited Forest in Salman Rusdhie’s Midnight Children: Entirely Other

Diana Pifano – Dalhousie University

The Role of Fantasy in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Gina Beltràn – University of Toronto

The Rainforest as a Locus of Obscurity in Horacio Quiroga

3:30 – 4:00:pm

Coffee Break!

4:00 – 5:00pm

Keynote Speaker

Arnaud Huftier – Université de Valenciennes

‘Death by Landscape’ de Margaret Atwood: la représentation de la nature canadienne tue

5:00pm

Closing Remarks

Vittorio Frigerio

Parution : "Sociologie des super-héros" de Thierry Rogel

Sociologie des super-héros
Thierry Rogel

PRÉSENTATION :

Ces dernières années, les super-héros ont envahi nos écrans de cinéma et semblent durablement installés dans l’univers de la culture populaire : cette nouvelle génération, portée essentiellement par le groupe Marvel, est née en 1961 avec notamment la création des « Fantastic Four ». Ces personnages tranchaient sur les Batman et Superman de la génération précédente par leur plus grande humanité et leur plus grande fragilité. Les jeunes lecteurs ne s’y trompèrent d’ailleurs pas et le succès des super-héros de « l’âge d’Argent » (1961-1973) a tenu au fait que ceux -ci « disaient quelque chose » sur la société des années 1960 et 1970. Mais nous disent-ils encore quelque chose en 2011 sur ce que nous devenons ?
Objets littéraires, les histoires de super-héros tiennent des contes d’antan et des récits mythiques mais également de la littérature populaire apparue aux xixe et xxe siècles. Objets sociologiques, ils nous informent sur les rêves et les tabous d’une société, sur notre rapport à la science et notre vision de l’individu dans la société contemporaine.

AUTEUR :

Thierry Rogel, agrégé de sciences économiques et sociales et amateur de comics, s’est spécialisé dans la vulgarisation des sciences sociales en général et de la sociologie en particulier.

http://www.editions-hermann.fr

ISBN : 9782705682590

Collection « Sociétés et pensées » dirigée par Gérald Bronner

254 pages – 14 x 21 cm – 2012

CFP: Contemporary Japanese Media Cultures: Industry, Society and Audiences Symposium (30 avril 2012)

CFP Deadline Approaching:

Contemporary Japanese Media Cultures: Industry, Society and Audiences

Symposium: 5th September 2012

This one-day Symposium on Japanese popular media investigates the significance of contemporary Japanese media to the wider industries and cultures that they serve. Although access to Japanese media cultures has never been better for those living outside Japan, there remains a dearth of analytical engagement with how the Japanese media industries function, and only patchy coverage exists of the media texts produced within Japan. Therefore, this Symposium seeks to unpack some of the complexities within the Japanese media landscape, by considering how differing media industries work in collaboration as well as in competition with one another. In doings so, the aim is to bring together speakers utilising a wide range of approaches and specialist knowledge to discuss the interconnectivity of Japan’s media industries, visible in phenomena such as cross-media adaptations, franchising practices, remakes of texts and international distribution. We also aim to complicate the notion of Japanese media industries as “national” by investigating the regional, transnational and global reach of their texts.

We seek papers examining how Japanese media, including (but not limited to) manga, anime, video games, television, magazine publishing and film operate within and beyond Japanese borders. The aim is to bring together experts able to discuss how Japanese media products get made, and why, who gets to see them (legally or otherwise) and what it is that academic explorations of Japan’s media might be able to offer the industries and cultures they study.

Topics might include (but are in no way limited to):
• Japanese media franchising
• National, regional, transnational and/or global distribution of Japanese media
• Japanese media industries
• Cross-media adaptation
• Transmedia storytelling
• Media production techniques and systems
• Cross-media genres
• New media texts
• Ancillary industries (e.g. Japanese special effects houses, animation outsourcing, voice acting, stars and their agents)
• Translation of media from Japanese to other languages
• Invisible media (e.g. texts or genres popular in Japan, but not often exported or studied)
• Popular cross-media franchises (e.g. Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Atom Boy, Bayside Shakedown)
• Reception of Japanese media texts
• Audiences, fans and subcultures

Symposium to be held in Norwich, UK in conjunction with the University of East Anglia, the British Association of Japanese Studies and the Arts and Humanities Research Council

Papers proposals of no more than 300 words should be sent to mangamoviessymposium@gmail.com by Monday 30th April 2012. If you would like more information, please contact r.denison@uea.ac.uk.

CFP: Leisure! Enjoyment! Fun! (Deadline: October 1, 2012)

Leisure! Enjoyment! Fun!

INCS 2013 Conference, University of Virginia

March 14-17, 2013

full name / name of organization:
Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies
contact email:
ksc3j@virginia.edu

“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” It was the age of pleasure. It was the age of atonement. It was any place in the nineteenth century. The scope is global, the approaches, cross-disciplinary. What pleased the palate and tickled the nose? What roused the senses and deepened joy? What thrilled the body and inspired the mind? What did they do besides work? What diversions (respectable or otherwise) did they seek? How did they think about the enjoyments they sought? These are some of the questions to address at INCS 2013, which is devoted to ‘Leisure, Enjoyment, and Fun.’

Consider all forms of enjoyment desired, sought, anticipated, or suppressed. Of course what constitutes enjoyment was widely contested ‘then’ as it is ‘now,’ and just what the relation between enjoyment and happiness is has never been clear. The task we set ourselves this year is an examination of various pleasures, thoughts about fun and leisure, expressions or reports of enjoyment, and what these experiences tell us about the nineteenth century. Definitions of enjoyment are themselves numerous and contrasting, and we will keep the field broad so as to draw a wide catch. Enjoyment may be associated with entertainment, amusement, comfort, satisfaction, happiness, absence of pain, etc. We are interested in how enjoyment is experienced, what function it serves, how it can be legislated or monitored, if it can be exhausted, repeated, repelled, and whether individual enjoyment differs from enjoyment shared.

Topics are not limited to, but might include:

Ambivalence towards . . .
Theories of leisure
Enjoyment, guilt, atonement
License and restraint
Sport, games, and races
Music, music halls, music boxes
Festivals, street entertainments
Pleasure gardens
Illicit fun
Design, fashion, shopping
Gustatory delights
Trade in exotics
Hobbies
Weddings, parties, picnics
Spectacle
Dance
Cartoons, comics, periodicals
Sunday papers and other popular reading
Pets, animal fighting
Experimentation, invention
Gardens and horticulture
Collecting
Museums, exhibitions
Training for fun
Medical Tourism

Deadline: October 1, 2012. For individual papers, send 250-word proposals; for panels, send individual 250-word proposals for each paper plus a 250-word panel description. Please include your name, affiliation, and e-mail address on your proposal. Send questions and proposals to Karen Chase (ksc3j@virginia.edu). Website (under construction): http://incs2013.wordpress.com/

CFP: The Adventures of Tintin (essay collection) (deadline: 30 April, 2012)

CFP: The Adventures of Tintin (essay collection)

Abstracts are now being accepted for possible inclusion in an anthology on “The Adventures of Tintin.” Proposed essay topics should creatively engage with the critical, philosophical, and social issues explored in the Tintin universe and intended to appeal to the intelligent lay reader.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• Tintin and Hergé
• Tintin and comic book history
• Tintin and detective fiction
• Tintin and the adventure story
• Tintin in translation
• Censorship of Tintin
• Tintin’s spinoffs
• Tintin in adaptations
• Tintin in films
• Tintin clubs
• Tintin and geography
• Tintin and travel
• Travel and colonialism
• Treatment of race in Tintin
• Snowy as sidekick
• Animal welfare
• EcoTintin
• Tintin and gender
• Tintin and masculinity; homosocial relations
• Tintin in criticism

Submission Guidelines:

1. Submission deadline for abstracts (100-500 words) and (one-page) CVs: 30 April, 2012
2. Submission deadline for first drafts of accepted papers: 15 September 2012.
3. Submission deadline for final papers: 1 December 2012

Kindly submit abstracts (as Word Document attachment) to BOTH Tyler Shores (tyler.shores@gmail.com) and Tom Ue (ue_tom@hotmail.com).

La « culture populaire » : une référence absente de l’élection présidentielle

Etant donné que la question du « populisme » a été au cœur des polémiques publiques au cours des derniers mois, on aurait pu penser que la « culture populaire » serait un objet de débat pendant la campagne des élections présidentielles. Mais force est de constater qu’il n’en a rien été, pas même à gauche. Les propositions sur la culture de François Hollande n’y font pas allusion…

Lire la suite sur le blog noiriel.over-blog.com