Le Centre International de la Mer (Rochefort) et avec le soutien du Framespa-UMR 5136, du Centre de recherches en histoire internationale et Atlantique, du Laboratoire des Sciences Sociales du Politique, de l’Université Toulouse-Jean Jaurès, de Sherbrooke (Québec), de Poitiers, de La Rochelle et de l’IEP de Toulouse (Web)

Time: May 11-13, 2017
Venue: Corderie Royale de Rochefort
Proposals by: July 1, 2016

Women with absent husbands are a common literary theme, from Penelope waiting for Ulysses for 20 years to Marthe, the unfaithful wife of a soldier in Raymond Radiguet’s Diable au Corps. Between the virtuous wife venerated as a model and the adulterous woman scorned as scandalous, there exists a world of possibilities that show the need to go beyond the strictly sentimental notion of the “virtuous sailor’s wife.”

It is important to take a comprehensive look at the effects of the husbands’ absence and their implications at the level of the individual, the couple, and the community, and to view the women involved as active agents rather than victims suffering the torments of separation. The question of the autonomy and independence of women in patriarchal societies stands at the core of the conference and justifies the focus on the marital relationship. Especially as the departure of the men (sailors, merchants, migrants, settlers, soldiers, etc.) allowed women to partially find their voice, which Michelle Perrot discusses so well. Read more and source … (Web)