Du 2 au 5 mars 2022/Wednesday March 2–Saturday March 5, 2022

Université de Chicago/ University of Chicago

Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society5701 S. Woodlawn AvenueChicago, IL 60637

Pour vous inscrire aux événements ouverts au public du colloque avec envoi des liens Zoom/ Register at this link for online sessions of the symposium that are open to the public.

Programme/Program

 

Sponsors:

Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society

France Chicago Center

SIRFF/ISFFS

Department of Romance Languages and Literatures

Institut Universitaire de France

Université Sorbonne Nouvelle

WEDNESDAY MARCH 2/MERCREDI 2 MARS 2022

1:30 p.m.                     Arrival and opening remarks/Accueil des participants

Alison James, Akihiro Kubo, Françoise Lavocat

2:00–4:50 p.m.            PARALLEL SESSIONS A–C

SESSION A               Narrateurs impossibles (in French).

Panel Chair: Akihiro Kubo (Kwansei Gakuin University)

2:00 p.m.                     Camille Brun (Aix-Marseille Université), “Au seuil de la fiction: Saint-Aubin ou le préfacier impossible” (online)

2:30 p.m.                     Maxime Decout (Université Aix-Marseille/Institut Universitaire de France), “Du narrateur menteur au narrateur démembré”

3:00 p.m.                     Richard Saint-Gelais (Université Laval), “La narration impossibilisée par sa fiction” (online)

3:30–3:50 p.m.                        Break/Pause

3:50 p.m.                     Lolita Felgueiras (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle), “J’irai cracher sur vos tombes ou l’impossible énonciation” (online)

4:20 p.m.                     Franck Salaün (Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier), “Paradoxes de l’identité et impossibilités narratives”

SESSION B               Impossible Beings

Panel Chair: Mario Slugan (Queen Mary University of London)

2:00 p.m.                     Nicolas Correard (Université de Nantes), “Speaking Animals and Unthinkable Thoughts in a Pre-Darwinian Context” (online)

2:30 p.m.                     Kai Mikkonen (University of Helsinki), “Impossible Narrative Situations and the Principle of Minimal Departure”

3:00 p.m.                     Anke Sharma (Freie Universität Berlin), “We-Narration, Focalization and ‘Impossible’ Perspective” (online)

3:30–3:50 p.m.                        Break/Pause

3:50 p.m.                     Annjeanette Wiese (University of Colorado, Boulder), “Impossible Identities: An Exploration of Character and Storyworld in Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown

4:20 p.m.                     Jamie Cawthra (Bloomsbury Institute, London), “Unreliable Narration and Explaining the Impossible (Away)”

SESSION C               Ethical and Legal Issues

Chair: Thomas Pavel (University of Chicago)

2:00 p.m.                     Lena Seauve (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), “The Impossibility of the Perpetrator’s Perspective” (online)

2:30 p.m.                     Simona Zetterberg-Nielsen (Aarhus University), “Possible Dangers of Impossible Fictions” (online)

3:00 p.m.                     Christine Baron (Université de Poitiers), “Jurisfictions impossibles” (in French, online)

3:30–3:50 p.m.                        Break/Pause

3:50 p.m.                     Otto Pfersmann (EHESS, Paris), “Impossible Pseudo-Norms in Fiction, Law and Morals”

5:00 p.m.                     KEYNOTE LECTURE 1

Murray Smith (University of Kent)

“Impossibility, Fiction, and (Make-)Belief”

6:30 p.m.                     Reception

                                    Award of SIRFF/ISFFS Prize

THURSDAY MARCH 3/JEUDI 3 MARS 2022

9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. PARALLEL SESSIONS D–F

SESSION D               Temporal Distortions

Panel Chair: Chiara Nifosi (University of Chicago)

9:00 a.m.                     Kohei Takahashi (Doshisha Women’s College of Liberal Arts), “Value, Genre, Possibility: Contingency and Literature in Modern Japan” (online)

9:30 a.m.                     Kaiwei Xia (Hunan Normal University), “Symptomatic Histoire, or Don DeLillo’s Realist Imagination” (online)

10:00 a.m.                   Martin Riedelsheimer (University of Augsburg), “Fictions of Infinity: Reading Beyond Boundaries in 21st-Century Novels”

10:30–11:00 a.m.         Break/Pause

11:00 a.m.                    Katherine Weese (Hampden-Sydney College), “Somebody Telling Somebody Else that Something Did and Did Not Happen”

11:30 a.m.                    Julia Elsky (Loyola University Chicago), “Living Backwards: Elsa Triolet’s Female Sisyphus”

SESSION E               Cognition and Imaginative Resistance

Panel Chair: Murray Smith (University of Kent)

9:00 a.m.                     Alberto Voltolini and Carola Barbero (University of Turin), “How One Cannot Imagine What One Could Imagine” (online)

9:30 a.m.                     Henrik Zetterberg-Nielsen (Aarhus University), “Impossible Fantasies” (online)

10:00 a.m.                   Anne Duprat (Université de Picardie-Jules Verne/Institut Universitaire de France), “ Anomalous/Abnormal/Unnatural”

10:30–11:00 a.m.         Break/Pause

11:00 a.m.                    Edgar Dubourg (ENS Paris), “The Psychological and Evolutionary Foundations of Impossible Worlds” (online)

11:30 a.m.                    Deena Skolnick Weisberg (Villanova University), “Impossible Elements in Children’s Educational Media” (online)

SESSION F               La mimésis en question (in French)

Panel Chair: Franck Salaün (Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier)

9:00 a.m.                     Fuhito Tachibana (Waseda University), “La ‘sans-mondialité’ en tant qu’impossibilité fictionnelle” (online)

9:30 a.m.                     Claude Calame (EHESS, Paris), “Les mythes grecs: pour une pragmatique de la fiction impossible” (online)

10:00 a.m.                   Antonino Sorci (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle), “Les camélias de la fiction. Impossibilités narratives et processus interprétatif”

10:30–11:00 a.m.         Break/Pause

11:00 a.m.                    Amélie Derome (Université Aix-Marseille), “Improbabilités de la fiction et impossibilités de la traduction: les stratégies de post-rationalisation des traducteurs français de Gulliver’s Travels de Jonathan Swift de 1727 à nos jours” (online)

12:00–2:00 p.m.          Lunch/Déjeuner

12:30–1:30 p.m.           Lunchtime author event:

Laurent Binet

in conversation with Alison James (University of Chicago); Akihiro Kubo (Kwansei Gakuin University) and Françoise Lavocat (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle)

In association with the Seminary Co-op Bookstore

2:00–4:50 p.m.            PARALLEL SESSIONS G–I

SESSION G               Impossibilities on Screen

Panel Chair: Marc Downie (University of Chicago)

2:00 p.m.                     Mario Slugan (Queen Mary, University of London), “Imaginative Resistance and Objectival Imagining in Film”

2:30 p.m.                     Rami Gabriel (Columbia College Chicago), “The Heart of Darkness of Cinema: Orson Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind

3:00 p.m.                     Gretchen Busl (Texas Woman’s University), “Alternate Streams: Cognitive Desire and Counterfactual Narrative TV Series” (online)

3:30–3:50 p.m.                        Break/Pause

3:50 p.m.                     Caroline Bem (Saint Paul University), “Diptychal Thinking, Paradox, and the (Im)Possibility of Fiction in Greta Gerwig’s Adaptation of Little Women” (online)

SESSION H              Violences sexuelles aux frontières de la représentation: impossibles fictions? (in French)

Panel Chair: Charlotte Krauss (Université de Poitiers)

2:00 p.m.                     Véronique Lochert (Université de Haute-Alsace), “La fiction face au viol: (im)possibilités classiques et contemporaines”

2:30 p.m.                     Enrica Zanin (université de Strasbourg), “Sexes impossibles et invraisemblables: pourquoi à la fin de la Renaissance le viol remplace l’amour dans les fictions?”

3:00 p.m.                    Zoé Schweitzer (Université de Saint-Étienne), “Mutilations du corps et de la parole: le spectacle impossible du viol de Philomèle?”

SESSION I                Impossible Spaces

Panel Chair: Brian Richardson (University of Maryland)

2:00 p.m.                     Jérôme Pelletier (Institut Jean-Nicod), “Seeing the Impossible with Magritte” (online)           

2:30 p.m.                     Matthew McGinity (Technical University Dresden), “Impossible Worlds in Virtual Reality” (online)

3:00 p.m.                     Sladja Blažan (Bard College Berlin), “Vegetomorphism: Weird Biology in Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation” (online)

3:30–3:50 p.m.                        Break/Pause

3:50 p.m.                     Chiara Nifosi (University of Chicago), “Embracing the Paradox:  Rhetorical Strategies of the Impossible in Proust and Beckett”

4:20 p.m.                     Victoria Saramago (University of Chicago), “Geographies of Degeographication: Latin America and the Virgin Woods in Mário de Andrade’s Macunaíma

5:00 p.m.                     KEYNOTE LECTURE 2

Marie-Laure Ryan

“Are Impossible Fictions Possible?”

7:30 p.m.                     Optional Event / Spectacle 

                                    Ballet des Porcelaines

Theater East, Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts

915 E 60th St, Chicago, IL 60637

Information and Registration Link 

https://ceas.uchicago.edu/content/ballet-des-porcelaines

FRIDAY MARCH 4/VENDREDI 4 MARS 2022

9:00–11:00 a.m.           ISFFS General Assembly/Assemblée générale de la SIRFF       

11:00–11:30 a.m.          Break/Pause

11:30 a.m.–1:00 p.m.   PARALLEL SESSIONS J–K

SESSION J                Affordances des médias (in French)

Panel Chair: Khalid Lyamlahy (University of Chicago)

11:30 a.m.                    Olivier Caïra (Université Paris-Saclay, Centre Pierre Naville/CRAL), “Le paradoxe du goof – Qui a besoin de fictions possibles?” (online)

12:00 p.m.                   Alexis Hassler (Independent Scholar), “There Is No GamePony Island, le glitch vidéoludique ou la narration impossible” (online)

12:30 p.m.                   Jean-Bernard Cheymol (Université Paris Saclay/Université Sorbonne nouvelle), “Une fiction impossible à suivre? 3" de Marc-Antoine Mathieu”

SESSION K               Theory of Fiction

                                    Seminar Room

                                    Panel Chair: Larry Norman (University of Chicago)

11:30 a.m.                    Manuel García-Carpintero Sánchez-Miguel (University of Barcelona), “Against the Mere Pretense View of Fiction” (online)

12:00 p.m.                   John Pier (CRAL – CNRS/EHESS), “Competing Narratives”

12:30 p.m.                   Nicholas Paige (University of California Berkeley), “Narration, Description, Fiction”

1:00–2:30 p.m.            Lunch break/Déjeuner libre

2:30–3:30 p.m.            Fictional Worlds, Fictional Possibilities:

A Roundtable in Honor of Thomas Pavel

Chair: Nicholas Paige (University of California Berkeley)

Anne Duprat (Université de Picardie-Jules Verne)

Françoise Lavocat (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle)

Larry Norman (University of Chicago)

Marie-Laure Ryan (Independent Scholar)

3:30–3:50 p.m.                        Break/Pause

3:50–4:50 p.m.                        PARALLEL SESSIONS L–M

SESSION L               Graphic Paradoxes

Panel Chair: Kai Mikkonen (University of Helsinki)

3:50 p.m.                     Charlotte Krauss (Université de Poitiers), “ ‘...for Time is Space and Space is Time’: When Comic Books Defy the Laws of Fiction”

4:20 p.m.                     Elizabeth A. Oakes (University of Helsinki), “Ameliorative Impossibility: Thematics in Vandermeer’s Borne and Dalrymple’s The Wrenchies” (online)

SESSION M              Intermedial Extensions

Panel Chair: Patrick Jagoda (University of Chicago, online)

3:50 p.m.                     Tonguc Sezen (Teesside University), “Epistolary Paratexts at the Threshold of Both Text and Fiction” (online)

4:20 p.m.                   Annick Louis (Université de Franche-Comté/EHESS), “A Flawless Masterpiece. The Big Bang Theory, Indiana Jones, Pride and Prejudice, and fictional immersion”

5:00 p.m.                     KEYNOTE LECTURE 3

Brian Richardson (University of Maryland)

“Plotting against Probability:

Unruly Sequences, Impossible Fictions, Contradictory Worlds.”

7:30 p.m.                     Dîner du colloque

SATURDAY MARCH 5/SAMEDI 5 MARS 2022

9:00–12:00 p.m.          PARALLEL SESSIONS N–P

SESSION N              Fait et fiction/Fact and Fiction

Panel Chair: Anne Duprat (Université de Picardie-Jules Verne/Institut Universitaire de France)

9:00 a.m.                     Guido Furci (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle), “Le Rapport sur Auschwitz de Primo Levi et Leonardo De Benedetti (entre fait et fiction?): genèse/analyse d'une ‘anomalie nécessaire.’ ” (online)

9:30 a.m.                     Delphine Edy (Sorbonne Université/Université de Strasbourg), “Transfuges de classe (D. Eribon, É. Louis) : Fiction littéraire impossible vs. reconstruction fictionnelle en scène ?” (online)

10:00 a.m.                   Camélia Paquette (Université de Sherbrooke), “HHhH ou le roman sans fiction (im)possible” (online)

10:30–11:00 a.m.         Break/Pause

11:00 a.m.                    Jeppe Barnwell (Society for Danish Language and Literature/University of Copenhagen) “Impossibility in Pseudo-Factuality”

11:30 a.m.                    Dunja Dušanić (University of Belgrade, European Graduate School), “The Non-Fiction Novel as an Impossible Genre”

SESSION O               Impossibilités politiques et éthiques/Political and Ethical Impossibilities (in French and English)

Panel Chair: Maxime Decout (Université Aix-Marseille/Institut Universitaire de France)

9:00 a.m.                     Irina Holca (University of Tokyo), “The Paradox of Socialist Realism: Japan and the Orient as (Improbable) Tropes in Romanian Historical Fiction” (online)

9:30 a.m.                     Maria Anna Mariani (University of Chicago), “Catastrophe and the Historical Novel: Elsa Morante’s La Storia” (online)

10:00 a.m.                   Mathilde Zbaeren (Université de Lausanne), “Collecting the Voices of the Rwandan Genocide: Rewriting and Fictionalizing”

10:30–11:00 a.m.         Break/Pause

11:00 a.m.                    Patrick Maurus (INALCO, Paris), “Le fictif comme solution au fictionnel impossible: Des Nords-Coréens dans le cinéma sud-coréen”

11:30 a.m.                   Alexandre Gefen (CNRS/Université Sorbonne Nouvelle), “La mise en fiction du terrorisme contemporain: nécessité ou interdit? Une comparaison France-USA” (online)

SESSION P               Fantasy, the Fantastic, Science Fiction (in French)

Panel Chair: Marie-Laure Ryan (Independent Scholar)

9:00 a.m.                     Laurent Bazin (Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines), “L’âge de tous les (im)possibles? Formes et enjeux de l’im-plausibilité dans les fictions pour adolescents” (online)

9:30 a.m.                   Monique Villen (Universidad Francisco de Vitoria), “La science-fiction: imaginer l’impossible”

10:00 a.m.                    Aurore Noury (CRAL/EHESS), “Les contradictions du corpus fictif de Tolkien, ou le creuset d’un renouveau de l’imaginaire”

10:30–11:00 a.m.         Break/Pause

11:00 a.m.                    Simon Bréan (Sorbonne Université), “Faire vivre l’impossible: fonctions des protagonistes dans les récits de science-fiction” (online)

11:30 a.m.                   Tiako Djomatchoua Murielle Sandra (Princeton University), “Des fictions impossibles? Ceux qui sortent dans la nuit, Une théorisation du fantastique africain” (online)