70 years of Lolita: (Re)reading Lolita after #MeToo

Organizing committee: Morgane Allain-Roussel (Université de Rouen), Marie Bouchet (Université de Toulouse 2), Ana Bumber (Université de Toulouse 3), Julie Loison-Charles (Université de Lille), Agnès Edel-Roy (Université de Paris Est-Créteil), Julie Lesnoff (Université Aix-Marseille), Léopold Reigner (Université de Rouen).

The conference will take place over two days in France on the Mont-Saint-Aignan campus of the University of Rouen-Normandy in November 2025

Ten years have passed since the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the publication of Lolita in France in September 1955, an important commemoratoin which produced various events in its wake, including a conference entitled “Les soixante ans de Lolita”, organized in 2015 by the French Vladimir Nabokov Society. This conference focused on the circumstances surrounding the publication of Lolita, as well as the events surrounding the scandal it caused.

Ten years after, the reception of Lolita, which was recently the focus of Olivia Mokiejewski's documentary Lolita, Méprise sur un fantasme (A French documentary broadcast on the French television channel Arte in 2021 showing how Lolita, following its publication, was twisted into a disturbing fantasy), ought to be reviewed and questioned, notably and particularly due to the possibilities opened up by the #MeToo wave. Lolita is frequently named in the context of #MeToo, including in accounts such as Vanessa Springora's Le Consentement and Neige Sinno's Triste Tigre.

On the eve of the commemoration of the novel's 70th anniversary, it seems undeniable that the study of Lolita's reception by generations of readers, as well as the analysis of the historical reasons for the misunderstandings of which Nabokov's novel has been the victim, cannot be done without putting our collective thinking within this contemporaneous context.

Proposals may follow these lines of thinking, although the list is by no means exhaustive:

I. Historicizing the critical reception of Lolita :

- Women's and/or feminist criticism since the 1980s, rarely studied as a gendered critical corpus.

- Ultra-contemporary readings of Lolita on TikTok (especially Booktoks), or of works such as Vanessa Springora's Le Consentement and its film adaptation, Neige Sinno's Triste Tigre, dark romances, etc.

- The ability of literature, like storytelling, to prevent racist, sexist and sexual violence: alerts and educational and pedagogical values, teaching Lolita for the #MeToo era.

- Contemporary influences, adaptations and rewritings of Lolita

II. Lolita as a pioneering novel :

- The description of sexist and sexual violence, the patterns and stages of abuse and domination

- The case of Humbert Humbert and the figure of the predator and his social undetectability

- Putting Dolores into words in Humbert's narrative: fragmented presence in the narrative fabric, control of the heroine's voice and thoughts by the narrator

- Lolita (novel and/or film): travelogue, road novel/movie, displacement and the car as prison device and space of sexual abuse

- Body/text: theory of empathic readings (Pierre-Louis Patoine) of Lolita and stories of sexual abuse.

III. Nabokov and gender / and women:

- The study of Nabokov's many protagonists in the light of the author's views on women (particularly his translators or female authors).

- Nabokov's Lolita vs. Humbert's Lolita

- The figure and role of Véra Nabokov in the writing and reception of Lolita

- The narrative fluidity of gender : the case of Humbert Humbert

IV. Lolita and pop culture:

- The “lolita” figure in popular music, fashion, cinema and advertising

- The “Lolita” phenomenon in Japan, and what it means for fashion and culture, notably the use of the term “lolicon”.

- The figure of the “lolita” on social networks.

Proposals for papers, written in French or English and not exceeding 300 words, together with a short biographical note, should be sent by February 20, 2025 to nabokov.lolita2025@vladimir-nabokov.org.

The scientific committee will make its decision at the end of March 2025.