The Department of French at Rutgers University
Announces:
Encountering the Other
In French and Francophone Literature, Arts and Culture
An interdisciplinary Graduate & Post-Graduate Conference

Saturday, March 24, 2018
New Brunswick, NJ

Keynote speaker:
Dr. Nathalie Debrauwere-Miller
Opposing Narratives of Victimhood: Jewish and Arab Muslims in Contemporary France

“La relation à autrui est asymétrique : je ne dois pas attendre de réciprocité.”
Emmanuel Levinas.
An interest in the Other is omnipresent throughout French and Francophone literature and
literary theory. From Montaigne’s Les Cannibales to Colette’s Le pur et l’impur, the literary
world has long sought to encounter and unmask the Other. Indeed, the history of literature itself
could be considered an encounter with the Other, be it other humans, other species, or other
“things” altogether.We would like to reflect upon the animosity between the established norms and the
representations of the Other in French literature. Are the Self and the Other complementary or
conflicting terms? Can literature write about the Self without writing about the Other? Does
literature diffuse false representations of the Other or bring readers closer to radical otherness?
We would like to consider the binary between Self and Other at various historical moments in
France and throughout the francophone world. Can literature speak for, or perhaps speak to, the
Other?
Possible topics for papers could include but are not limited to:
• Hospitality
• Representations of alterity
• Colonial/Postcolonial otherness
• Representations of gender and sexuality
• Writing identity
• Thing theory
• Travel writing
• Imprisonment
• Immigration
• The animal other
• Open and closed spaces
• Doppelgängers and schizophrenia
• The struggle for literary recognition
• Jacques Lacan’s ‘Other’ and ‘other’
• Levinas’ ethics of the other
• The “bon sauvage” and cultural relativism
• Translation
• Ventriloquism
This conference will have a panel format. We welcome papers in both French and English. We
particularly welcome papers that address multiple art forms and the relationship between them.
Abstracts of approximately 250-500 words should be submitted to the following email address –
[email protected] before the 31st of January. Abstracts should be preceded
by a cover page with the following information:
Ø Name (last, first)
Ø Academic affiliation
Ø Title (PhD, Masters candidate, Post-Doc, Visiting Professor, etc.)
Ø Title of paper
Ø Telephone number
Ø Address
Ø Email address
This information should not appear on your abstract.
CFP Rutgers – Encountering the Other