Round Tables > Literature

CRISIS LITERATURES, CONSTRAINT LITERATURES

Friday, September 24th, 2:45pm-4:45pm

Centre de Colloques, room 5

Organization : Hélène Aji (CREA – Université Paris Nanterre), Fatiha Idmhand (CRLA-Archivos – Université de Poitiers)

Speakers : Valérie Beaudouin (Telecom Paris Tech, CNRS), Eduardo Berti (écrivain), Angel Esteban (Universidad de Granada), Fiona McMahon (EMMA – Université Paul Valéry), Isabelle Pouzet (Université du Littoral – Côte d’Opale), Frank Smith (poète) et Miléna Santoro (Georgetown University)

Presentation : Since the Second World War and in a context of almost permanent geopolitical crisis, world literatures, and in particular that of the Americas, have undergone radical changes. Those are noticeable along fracture lines between texts highlighting simulacra of a reality governed by laws of desire and of unbridled consumption (Baudrillard), imperialist violence and predations which are inscribed well into an art of the reproduction and misappropriation (Jameson), and more recently the integration of the proliferation of coercions in so-called democratic societies (Fitterman). The objective of this round table will be to assess contemporaneous practices which crystallize these perceptions and experiences of a collective conscience crisis. For almost a century (1940-2020), American literatures have chronicled the difficulties to overcome the diversity of successive crises (economic, social, political, local, national-global and health), and to respond to the ethical imperative that has become, since Adorno at least, the one of art.