International conference "‘ Change life ", 100 years later: Surrealism from the origins till now" (December 9 and 10, 2024)

This year marks the centenary of the publication of the surrealist manifesto. The surrealist movement, itself derived from Dada, has since experienced internationalization and rebirths. In recent years, the movement has benefited from new insights while literary and artistic criticisms have sought to highlight figures and aspects hitherto neglected: the essential place of women in movement, its international dimension, its Relations with negritude and the criticism of colonialism, its intermediality, the multiplicity of its artistic practices.

The French Department in Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China is organizing a conference on December 9 and 10, 2024 to commemorate this anniversary and revisit the foundations of the Surrealist movement. Specialists of Surrealism around the world who have contributed to the redefinition of the movement will take stock and reflect on the future orientations of research on surrealism.

We invite the proposals (about 200 words) of twenty-minute papers which can explore the following themes:

• Reread the manifesto: what was forgotten, what has deviated, what has reemerged, what has inhabitedcovertly the movement from the start

• Intermediality, the place and the relationship of different artistic practices: role of painting, importance of cinema and theatre, exchanges between these different arts, neglected arts (fashion, design, architecture, etc.)

• Surrealist women: the place of women in the movement, their role, their contribution and their criticism of the movement

• Surrealism and postcolonial criticism: the contributions and the limits, the relationship with the artistic movements critical of colonialism such as negritude

• The artists and writers still overlooked or who maintain, have maintained a relationship with surrealism

• The influences of Surrealism and its theoretical and philosophical foundations

• The internationalization of the movement: a global Surrealism? Influences and transformations, between nations and internationalization, are there Surrealisms? What place in the world?

• The heritage of Surrealism: role in the second half of the twentieth century, place in contemporary literature and art

Deadline for submission: November 14, 2024

Contact person: Maxime Philippe

E-mail: philippe3@mail.sysu.edu.cn

Guest speakers

1. Dong Qiang: Professor, Department of French, Peking University, member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of the Institut de France

2. Philippe Met: Professor in French and cinematographic studies (University of Pennsylvania), Chair Professor in Comparative Literature (East China Normal University)

3. Yue Zhuo: Professor,  Department of Comparative Literature, East China Normal University

4. Jean-Michel Rabaté: Professor, Department of English and Comparative Literature, University of Pennsylvania, member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

5. Efthymia Back: French professor, director of the European Cultural Studies Program, Princeton University

Languages of the conference: French, Chinese, English

Registration fees

Prices: 800 RMB per person; Master students and full -time doctorate (with student card) 400 RMB per person. Meals are included. You are responsible for round-trip and accommodation transport costs. Please see the attachment to find out the payment methods.