Call for paper
FABLE LAWS :
THE MARTYR(DOM) AND THE SCRIPTURAL EXCHANGE

9 and 10 May 2007, Universit=C3=A9 Laval, Qu=C3=A9bec, Canada
International conference organized by
Katarzyna Basta et Vincent Bruy=C3=A8re
With the help of
The International Association for Visual Semiotics
The Canada Research Chair in African Literature and Francophonie
and the CELAT (Universit=C3=A9 Laval)
Keynote Speakers
Tom Conley (Harvard University)
Eric M=C3=A9choulan (Universit=C3=A9 de Montr=C3=A9al)
Following the work of Michel de Certeau, "Fable Laws" refers less to the ru=
les of a literary genre than to the device of a discursive formation throug=
h which the Occident has ground its scriptural empire at the dawn of the Mo=
dernity. The fable indicates at the same time a speech (fari) without an ut=
terable subject and the authorization process of Western historiography on =
the very speech of the other (whether s/he is woman, child [infans] savage =
or mystic) from the caesura, or (epistemological) cut of his/her writing pl=
ace. In such a way, inscribing amounts therefore to instituting a proper pl=
ace, a lieu-tenant providing to an extinct voice a screen which occults it =
and nevertheless gives place to it. By inscribing its history on a body-fab=
le, enactment called "sciences of fables" by de Certeau makes speak without=
 their knowledge figures of otherness in order to constitute a corpus of he=
terological disciplines embodying these discourses on Others.=20
This potency of "Fable Laws" could not be summarized into a strictly unidim=
ensional hegemonic logic because. It brings through the textual production =
a both scriptural and figural complex contract which represents the unspoke=
n of the institution of the real, but also the unformulated of "captures of=
 speech". Founding the scenography of martyrdom, the violence which inevita=
bly accompanies this inscription process is indissociable from screaming im=
possible to reabsorb and from a pleasure of writing and to be written, plea=
sure of signifying and to be represented in a system which remunerates the =
confabulated inconsistency just as language games do it with the linguistic=
 sign arbitrary. Functioning like a capital of pain, the body of the martyr=
 is made available to rhetorics of real. It becomes the trope of a discours=
e to which it has to testify and in which it makes believe by conjuring in =
blood its peremptory nature. It consequently consists of determining a cred=
ibility contract which entangles a "screening" ideological economy, and in =
which fable laws are made visible (that is credible) through its incarnatio=
n, the body-fable made glorious through its inscription.
The conference proposes to revisit a vast corpus of academic disciplines an=
d artistic practices through the fables of a witnessing-body (martyr in Gre=
ek). Therefore it will question the avatars of these authorization enactmen=
ts in contemporary cultures, especially problematics of its renewal, reorie=
ntation, instrumentalization from new foucaldian anatomo-political and biop=
olitical "mechanisms of incarnation", or even of its embezzlement by the po=
stcolonial project.
Fields: Literary and film studies, cultural studies, postcolonial and subal=
tern studies, women studies, visual culture, art history, cultural theory a=
nd critic psychoanalysis, semiotic.

Suggested submission topics:
I
Mythologies and mythographies of contemporaneous artistic practices
The martyrdom as a legitimization tactic of "capture of speech" and works a=
uthorization
Contemporary imaginaries of the "glorious body"
Passions of reading, literature and picture
II
Mechanism, persistence and deconstruction of the martyr device in postmoder=
n ages
Screens of the ideology
Economy of "captures of speech" in the order of the representation and the =
discourse
Martyr(dom) and identitarian rhetorics occurring in oppositionnal situation=
s (postcolonial context, popular culture, subaltern studies=E2=80=A6)

III
Diagramatic and semio-political inscription
Fetishism and "imaginary institution" (Corn=C3=A9lius Castoriadis) of the t=
heoretic and the theory
Speech imaginaries and fantastic anatomies of enunciation=20
The belief and the body: the corporal hexis (Pierre Bourdieu)=20
Martyrdom and the paradigm of Generative Anthropology (Ren=C3=A9 Girard, Er=
ic Gans)

The deadline for submission is 30 November 2006. Please send proposals (300=
 words) in English or in French, with a title and a short bio-bibliographic=
al notice to vincent.bruyere.1_at_ulaval.ca or by mail :
Chaire de recherche du Canada=20
en Litt=C3=A9ratures Africaines et en Francophonie
DKN 1403
Universit=C3=A9 Laval
Qu=C3=A9bec (Qc) G1K7P4

Scientific board
Justin K. Bisanswa (Literary Studies, U. Laval)
Marie Carani (Art History, U. Laval)
Bernadette Hoefer (Literary Studies, Harvard U.)
Sarah Rocheville (French Studies, U. of Manitoba)
Lucie Roy (Film Studies, U. Laval)

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Received on Wed Jul 12 2006 - 16:31:07 EDT