Call for papers: Southern Studies Forum: Southern Trans/Formations

Call for Papers: Southern Studies Forum, 21-23 September 2023

Southern Trans/Formations

The conference will be held on two campuses: in Amiens (Université de Picardie Jules Verne) and in Arras (Université d’Artois).

Guest writers:             Edward P. Jones

                                   Jill McCorkle

Keynotes speakers:    Tom Rankin (Duke University)

                                   Michał Choinski (Jagiellonian University)

In the word “trans-formations,” the prefix “trans-” invites us to reflect on changes (from one place to another, from one medium to another, from one genre to another...). The notion of transformation thus prompts us to examine borders, boundaries, limits, even crossings that lead to new experiences, new ways of considering the world from a common heritage—questioning it, re-evaluating and re-imagining it. We will be particularly interested in the processes through which the American South has constantly changed its face (the Old South, the Reconstruction South, the Modern South, the New South) in order to adapt (or not) to a world that is constantly moving, constantly changing. To what extent can it be said that the South has continually renewed its identity, the way it presents itself to the rest of the nation and the world? Is the intertwining of myth and reality a constant feature in the representations of the South? How is the South (trans)formed thanks to myth and storytelling?

The “Southern enigma,” to use the title of a book by Fred Hobson, will be at the heart of our symposium: what transformations has the South undergone? Have some states been more exposed to change than others? What are the most visible transformations and those that remain marginal, and sometimes even invisible? How can we explain the inexhaustible prolixity of Southern writers over the generations? Writing about oneself at different stages of life has always been central to Southerners. How they “tell about the South,” as a Faulkner character puts it, may lead us to reflect upon Southern identity and the “Many Souths,” which Waldemar Zacharasiewicz invited forum members to discuss some years back. Alain Montandon notes that “[t]o write about growing old is to write about the passing of time, metamorphoses, alterations...” (Preface to Écrire le vieillir, p. 7). Through their life stories, Southern writers keep pondering on and wondering about this time Faulkner relentlessly tried to capture by evoking (and invoking) a past that remains forever present, a heavy heritage from which it is difficult to escape.

Discussing the South today invites us to assess the relevance of New Southern Studies, to reflect upon the evolution of Southern studies. Ecological criticism, gender and queer studies, race and class studies, are now called upon to speak of another South and to bring the margin to the center. It is, in fact, impossible to forget how much the South is also, as Michel Bandry observes, “a land of exclusion.” We will also draw our attention to questions of translation—both in the sense of translation (from one language to another) and adaptation (from one medium to another, from one self to another). Is there a French South if we think of Faulkner’s French discoverers, of the privileged relationship between the Nouvelle Revue Française and many southern writers, or of Baudelaire translating Poe? By being constantly revisited and recreated, does the South initiate new forms of heritage? Can we see in the concern for revision or revisionism, the threat of erasure that weighs on certain polemical writers? For Etienne de Planchard, “It is through literature that an image of southern society is drawn, not only as it is, but also as it perceives itself, perceives others and is perceived by them.” By extending this idea to other fields of study than literature, this conference aims to highlight the transformations generated by these various manipulations, and to evaluate the place of this trans/formed South. Topics may include (though they are not restricted to) the following:

• Old South/New South: The ever-changing South; what keeps transforming, what doesn’t change
• In what respect has the South renewed its identity, the way it is perceived, the way it presents itself across history?
• The forever renewed histories of the South: how academics need to transform their tools and approaches to the South (New Southern Studies?)
• Transforming the language, the transformative power of language; the South and its multiple poetic metamorphoses
• Translation—adapting the South?
• Textual transformations: from short story to novel, novel to play, fiction to film…
• New Heritages? Revisiting/recreating the South? Revision? Revisionism (the threat of erasure weighing upon certain writers?)
• Trans-cending/forming the historical burden of the past into forever new artistic objects
• Transmission: What story? Passing on stories from generation to generation. The South and its oral tradition.
• Southern ecocriticism / ecopoetic: how the South, parts of it at least, were changed / altered / transformed by successive environmental crises, either generated by socioeconomic evolutions (industrialization, deforestation, mining, the textile industry, etc.) or natural catastrophes (Hurricane Katrina, the Deep Horizon Oil Spill)?
• The impact of the drug crisis on the South
• Margins and Centers (what is shaped in the margins…)
• Cross-cultural Studies
• LGBTQ+/ Trans studies
• Migrations / transforming populations of the South
• Transforming landscapes (urban/rural life)

Proposals for papers in English (300 words + short bibliography) and a brief biographical note should be sent jointly to Frederique Spill (frederique.spill@u-picardie.fr) and Gerald Preher (gerald.preher@univ-artois.fr) before 1 May 2023.

Registration fee: 150€ (covering coffee breaks and all meals over the three days + the train from Amiens to Arras).