The 2012 North American Society for Seventeenth-Century French Literature (NASSCFL) conference will be hosted by Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, May 25-27. The theme of the conference is: Life.
According to Richelet, life is the union of the soul and the body. For Furetière, it is a principle of heat and movement present in all animated bodies. Life is also the span of time between birth and death. By extension, life refers to a specific narrative form. The many idiomatic expressions listed in Richelet's and Furetière's dictionaries attest to the many meanings of the term "life" such as "faire petite vie" (to live sparingly). In this conference, we'll investigate the different meanings life took on in the seventeenth century. All research areas and theoretical approaches are welcome.
Possible paper or panel topics include:
Foetuses, miraculous birth, abortion
Twins
Great Chain of Being
Humans and other animals
Medicine, surgery, remedies, elixirs of life
Automatons
Resurrections
Power over another life
Suicide
Soul and body
Fictitious life
Public/private lives
Saints' Lives
Movement/motion
Proposals for papers, including a 300 word summary, the academic affiliations, and contact information, should be submitted no later than December 1, 2011 at the following email address: nasscfl2012@gmail.com Please check for updates on the conference website: http://my.vanderbilt.edu/nasscfl2012
Scientific Committee:
Hall Bjørnstad (Indiana University)
Jérôme Brillaud (Vanderbilt University)
Juliette Cherbuliez (University of Minnesota)
Henriette Goldwyn (New York University)
Nicolas Paige (University of California-Berkeley)
Christopher Semk (Yale University)
Holly Tucker (Vanderbilt University)