Women, Memory & Transmission
Postcolonial Perspectives from the Arts and Literature
Conference, 18 October 2021
Maison Française d’Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
Keynote Speaker :
Prof. Deborah Willis (Tisch School of the Arts of New York University)
Contact Information :
Justine Feyereisen, jfeyerei@gmail.com
In collaboration with Photo Oxford Festival 2021, hosted by the Maison Française d’Oxford, and supported by TORCH (The Oxford Research Centre for the Humanities), the international and interdisciplinary Conference “Women, Memory & Transmission: Postcolonial Perspectives from the Arts and Literature” will explore what it means for women to transmit memories in postcolonial contexts. What strategies do women develop to tackle postcolonial issues? What are the issues to address and the struggles to lead to be heard and valued as tellers of History? What ethical and political issues does the reception of their works raise? The conference will bring together art-world figures and scholars in the fields of gender studies, memory studies, postcolonial studies, and Global South studies to adequately contribute to show how the Humanities can lead to a better awareness of the key social and political role of women in reinterpretation of colonial History as acts of resistance and empowerment.
The conference will coincide with a photographic exhibition by Elisa Moris Vai, showcased during the 2021 Festival at the Maison Française d’Oxford (15 Oct. – 15 Nov.). The French photographic artist Elisa Moris Vai will present her series Catherine, Kiambé, Surya. The exhibition shows her photographic response to three female characters in La Quarantaine (1995) and Révolutions (2003), set in Mauritius, by Nobel Prize J.M.G. Le Clézio. The images closely intertwine fiction and reality, literature and photography, to better understand how the transmission of memory can be a tool of resistance and empowerment by women in postcolonial contexts.
Paper proposals, in English, in .doc format, should include a title, a 300-word abstract that clearly specifies the corpus studied, a short critical bibliography, and a 4-5 line bio-bibliographic note (including name, institutional affiliation and e-mail address).
They should be sent by email to jfeyerei@gmail.com by 25 August 2021.
Convenors
Dr. Justine Feyereisen, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Oxford (Wolfson College), Université libre de Bruxelles, Wiener-Anspach Foundation, United Kingdom
Elisa Moris Vai, Artist, France.