Call for Papers:

*Thinking Alterity: celebrating Ananda Devi's and Mauritian Women's Writing=
s
*
Universit=E9 catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve/ Belgium), 30 November
2007

Keynote speakers : Ananda Devi and Fran=E7oise Lionnet

Among the most prolific and remarkable writers of the Indian Ocean, several
women writers have come to occupy a unique position in the topography of
postcolonial women's writings. Having begun to write at a very young age,
Ananda Devi, the most renowned of these writers, has now nine novels, a
collection of poems and several short stories to her name. *Eve de ses
d=E9combres*, recently awarded the Prix des Cinq Continents de la francopho=
nie
and the prix RFO, has confirmed her acknowledged talent within francophone
studies. Central to her work are questions of exclusion and alterity,
deviance, solitude and suffering. Several other talented novelists such as
Shenaz Patel, Nathacha Appanah, among others, have recently made their
voices heard. Treating themes that move eloquently between the specific and
the universal, Mauritian women's writings raise feminist, postcolonial,
political, multicultural, and nationalist issues. Furthermore, their works
have added yet another dimension to the French language enriching it with
multifarious layers of cultural, linguistic and ethnic pluralities that the
island of Mauritius presents.

The conference aims to bring together scholars in Francophone Studies
working on the new generation of Mauritian women writers. We welcome papers
on any aspect of their writings but more particularly papers that deal with
alterity. Please send in your title and a short abstract (250 words)
before March
15, 2007 to bragard_at_licg.ucl.ac.be or sravi_at_cyllene.uwa.edu.au

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Received on Sat Mar 03 2007 - 15:59:00 EST