40th Annual Congress of the French General and Comparative Literature Association/
Société Française de Littérature Générale et Comparée
26–28 November 2015
organised by the Comparative Literature section of the Centre de Recherches sur le Roman et le
Romanesque (CERR- CERCLL) – EA 4283
Location: Université de Picardie-Jules Verne (Pôle Cathédrale) and Logis du Roy, Amiens
NOUVEAUX MONDES, NOUVEAUX ROMANS? / NEW WORLDS, NEW NOVELS?
Scientific committee: Pr. Anne Duprat, Pr. Marie-Françoise Montaubin, Pr. Marie-Françoise
Lemonnier-Delpy, Catherine Grall (AP), Carlo Arcuri (AP), Christian Michel (AP) and
Olivier Kachler (AP), Irène Gayraud (teaching and research attaché); and Pr. F. Lavocat,
president of the French Society of General and Comparative Literature.
Introduction
New worlds, new novels? By exploring the connection between narrative creation and the
perception of the new, the Centre for Research into the Novel and Novelistic Fiction of the
Université de Picardie-Jules Verne will centre the 40th congress of the French General and
Comparative Literature Association around the notion of emergence as a literary phenomenon
unto itself. We will examine how it is manifested throughout the history of the genre of the
novel, from its Hellenistic origins to its most contemporary developments – both in the
adaptation of novelistic forms to real-world changes and in the novel’s invention of new
worlds.
This exploration will involve an analysis, or rethinking, of the long-established
capacity of narratives to declare, describe, animate and explain perceived states of affairs
(however much or little these are based on reality), as well as to conjure up or extinguish
others. Beyond this, however, we also invite comparative reflections on the vocation of the
novel to imagine and project worlds, and on the evolution of this aim which is attributed to
novelistic narratives, as suggested by the evocation of the journey of the French nouveau
roman in the title of this congress. In contrast to this, participants might also consider the
retrospective illusion via which the nouveau roman was conceived in opposition to the ‘old
world’ of Balzacian realism, a realism which was largely artifactual. Of equal interest to the
topic at hand is the ability of the world as it is perceived to itself modify the nature of the
novel, whether by stretching the horizons of the latter towards the infinite via the perception
of an ever-expanding universe, or by concentrating it into micro-fictions or diluting it into the
many connected and neighbouring forms of narration in existence.
Finally, we hope to obtain a more precise definition of ‘novelty’, taking into account:
— the rejection of, or the radical rupture with, the world of ancient or outdated
references, or those defined as such (but also their persistence in the nouveau roman in the
form of traces, counter-examples, fragments, ruins, etc.);
— the transformation, evolution and adaptation of forms which merit being given a
new lease of life; `
— and the recourse to forgotten, relegated or marginal forms, or the evolution of new
forms or aesthetics which can also be studied via their theorization in theoretical writing or
via fiction itself.
Papers submitted to the conference might focus in particular, but not necessarily
exclusively, on the three areas below.
Suggested areas of study:
I. Reflections
a. New spaces, new novels?
b. Modern and post-modern features of the novel
c. New spaces and processes of uncentring
…
Papers within this first category could present overviews of the topic, or case studies
built around the schools of analysis (e.g. historicism, socio-criticism, Marxism) which
establish a link between the emergence of new societal states and literary works themselves,
which are conceived as consequences, effects, reflections, translations, transpositions,
analogies (etc.) of the former.
The causal relationship which has always existed between the world and its novel(s)
may thus be re-examined; or, indeed, one might instead describe a simultaneous, joint
construction of reality and its representation, and explore the time-delay effects
(foreshadowing, retrospection, retroaction, etc.) between the emergence of new worlds and
their transposition into the world of the novel. Beyond the specific question of the novelistic
representation of socio-economic changes, papers in this category could reflect on all the
various transformations of the subjective, sensory, intellectual and aesthetic experience
contained within the discovery of new worlds, new representations of the world, or indeed
new genres, arts, forms of writing, etc.
It will be worth paying particular attention to the manners in which the appearance of
new worlds and their representation in the novel are distinguished. The epistemological
suppositions implied by this perspective – theories of rupture, aesthetic or formal revolution,
paradigm shifts, etc. – may thus be brought into question, both with regard to the world being
represented and to the modes of representation being used. The question of genre, and of
cohesion between the nature of the newly emerging world and the specific form of those
novels intended to represent it, may also be a fruitful one for studies within this category; as
may be the specific function of the novel as a heuristic tool used to obtain knowledge of the
world, in that representation and elucidation are often difficult to distinguish.
II. Projections
a. The novel as a creator of new worlds
b. Innovation in novels and the theory of fiction
c. The possible worlds of the novel
The novel is not only able to provide a literary form to that which already exists or is already
perceived: it can also illustrate parallel, alternative or potential worlds (the utopia, the
dystopia, the Ur-chronie, etc.), allowing it to displace, and make more complex, the juncture
between the real and the fictional.
In parallel to this, papers in this section might investigate the relationship between
creation within novels and the perception of the world, as well as the novel’s capacity to
create new worlds thanks to its specific generic characteristics and modes of expression.
We are calling here, on the one hand, for an exploration of theories of reception, and
more broadly, studies of the relationship between the novel and the imagination; and on the
other hand, for analyses of the novel’s capacity for invention and for illustrating that which is
yet to come (foreshadowing), that which is not possible (the fantastic), that which is difficult
to express (personal accounts, memoirs), etc.
In addition, the novel has an intrinsic reconfigurational force whose nature and effects
are not yet well defined, and which can enable the transformation – whether real, desired or
imagined – of the world and/or of the sensitivities of those within it.
Finally, papers might examine how the emergence of new forms inevitably transforms
older forms via retrospection, and how these older forms become redefined in the light of this
novelty.
III. Metamorphoses and transformations
a. Emerging landscapes and forms
b. The state of the novel itself
c. After the novel: what next?
Malleable, polymorphous, polyphonic: the novel seems not only to be the genre par
excellence for the exploration of new worlds, both known and unknown, or yet to discover
(we refer in particular here both to emerging forms of writing and to the post-colonial
reconfiguration of the relationship between literature and geography), but also the principal
space in which the novel itself is reconfigured. We therefore welcome studies on related
narrative forms which have participated, and continue to participate (to an increasing extent),
to this permanent redefinition of the novelistic: micro-fiction, short stories, scenic writing,
graphic novels, etc.
Considered in its own right, the novel presents itself as a world, and can be
experienced as such. Whilst this has for a long time been seen as one of its strengths, might
this capacity for self-representation threaten the existence of the novel, as it is brought into
question by the fragility of the very worlds that it imagines?
The death of the novel and the potential forms that may be taken by its renaissance,
resurrection or reinvention, its mutations or its reformation into hybrids – as well as the
questions surrounding its history, its future, its aims, its end, etc. – may present a topic worthy
of consideration for studies that also explore the genres and arts with which the novel
resonates, those which it integrates, or those in relation to which it defines itself, either
positively or negatively.
Proposals for papers should be sent to the scientific committee. Deadline: 30 April
2015. Email: Anne Duprat anne.duprat@u-picardie.fr, Catherine Grall
grallthecat@gmail.com, and Christian Michel chmichel@free.fr.
For administrative queries or issues: email the CERCLL secretariat at the University
of Picardy Jules Verne: marie-france.thibaut@u-picardie.fr