CfP: Masculine Wars, Feminine Exterminations: Between Experiences, Traumas and Revolts (Event, 03/2022, Baltimore); by: 30.09.2021

Panel at the 53rd annual Convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA 2022) (Web)

Time: 10.-13.03.2022
Venue: Baltimore, MD
Proposals by: 30.09.2021

  • Opening Event Speaker: Valeria Luiselli
  • Keynote Speaker: Judith Butler

In general, war implies the use of force that could be declined in automatic, arbitrary and excessive violence. War is being used as a strategy to conquer territories and subjugate people in order to safeguard interests, be it strategic or not (Pius Ngandu Nkashama: Guerres African and historical writings).

Today, war is no longer reduced to murderous combats where victories are proclaimed at the cost of blood (Jacqueline Ching: Cyberterrorism). In addition to military wars, symbolic, ideological, mediatic and even institutional wars where bodies, and more precisely female bodies, serve as sites of confrontation and places of extermination have been notorious (Christina Lamb: Nos corps, their field of battle – What war does to women). In African and Caribbean literature, the connection between masculine wars and feminine bodies reveals inequalities and stereotyped representations of the feminine experience of wars in which women are mostly vulnerable (Koulsy Lamko: La phalène des Collines).

However, taking into account masculine and / or feminine works (literary and/or artistic), or even their intersections, gives rise to imaginaries at the confluence of passivity and revolt (Emmanuel Dongala: Johnny chien méchant; Ahmadou Kourouma: Allah is not obligated; Tanella Boni: Curfew Mornings; Léonora Miano: The Interior of the Night). This dichotomy between passivity and revolt inherent in women’s experiences of conflict proposes striking scenarios and complex avenues for research. What are these new / modern forms or expressions of masculine wars? Where is the violence against women located? What imaginaries do French and French-speaking authors build around the female experience of wars?

Encouraging multidimensional and interdisciplinary analyzes of the poetics of female bodies in a context of conflict, this panel opens the debate on the traditional and contemporary representations and imaginaries of wars in literature and arts with an emphasis on the place occupied by the female(s) character(s), the abuses, exploitations, and martyrdoms of her/their body(ies), as well as her/their responses and complex reactions to war, oppression, arbitrariness, and extermination attempts.

Possible and non-exhaustive questions:

  • Vulnerability, Rape, Violence
  • Imaginary, Biopolitics, Agency
  • War, Resistance, Revolt
  • Experience, Witness, Memory, Trauma
  • Culture, Tradition, Society
  • Ideology, Institution, Media
  • Female Bodies in Image: Cinema and BD
  • Imperialism, (post) colonization, terrorism

Abstracts in English or French (250 words) should be submitted to the NeMLA platform (Web) by September 30, 2021.

For questions, please contact Murielle Sandra Tiako Djomatchoua (Graduate Student in Romance Languages at the Princeton University, Department of French and Italian, Web): mt2200@princeton.edu

RESPONSIBLE: Northeast Modern Language Association (Web)

ADDRESS Baltimore, Maryland; Hotel: Baltimore Marriott Waterfront, Baltimore, MD; Contact: Murielle Sandra Tiako Djomatchoua: mt2200@princeton.edu

Source: H-Net Notifications