L'ASIFF/SIRFF décernera un prix au meilleur article rédigé par un jeune chercheur ou une jeune chercheuse (doctorant/doctorante ou chercheur/chercheuse ayant obtenu son doctorat au cours des trois dernières années), qui sera remis lors de la conférence. Le lauréat ou la lauréate recevra une récompense de 1 000 € (euros). Si vous souhaitez être pris en considération pour ce prix, veuillez envoyer votre article complet (3 500 mots maximum/20 000 caractères) avant le 28 février 2026 à fictionlies26@gmail.com. L'article doit être inédit.

Références

Currie, Gregory. 1990. The Nature of Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Davies, David. 2012. ‘Fictionality, Fictive Utterance, and the Assertive Author’. In Mimesis: Metaphysics, Cognition, Pragmatics, edited by Gregory Currie, Petr Kot’átko, and Martin Pokorný. College Publications.

Dixon, Daisy. 2022a. ‘Lies in Art’. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 100 (1): 25–39.

———. 2022b. ‘Novel Assertions: A Reply to Mahon’. The British Journal of Aesthetics 62 (1): 115–24.

Duprat, Anne, and Lavocat, Françoise, eds. 2010. Fiction et cultures. Nîmes: Lucie éditions.

Fludernik, Monika, and Stephan Packard, eds. 2021. Being Untruthful: Lying, Fiction, and the Non-Factual. Baden-Baden: Ergon Verlag.

García-Carpintero, Manuel. 2013. ‘Norms of Fiction-Making’. The British Journal of Aesthetics 53 (3): 339–57.

James, Alison, Akihiro Kubo, and Françoise Lavocat, eds. 2023. The Routledge Handbook of Fiction and Belief. New York: Routledge.

Lamarque, Peter, and Stein Haugom Olsen. 1994. Truth, Fiction, and Literature: A Philosophical Perspective. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Lavocat, Françoise. 2016. Fait et Fiction. Pour une frontière. Paris : Le Seuil.

Macdonald, Margaret. 1954. ‘The Language of Fiction’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes 28:165–84.

Mahon, James Edwin. 2019. ‘Novels Never Lie’. British Journal of Aesthetics 59 (3): 323–38.

Marsili, Neri. 2024. ‘Fictions That Don’t Tell the Truth’. Philosophical Studies 181 (5): 1025–46.

Nielsen, Henrik Skov, James Phelan, and Richard Walsh. 2015. ‘Ten Theses about Fictionality’. Narrative 23 (1): 61–73.

Pepp, Jessica, Rachel Sterken, and Eliot Michaelson. 2023. ‘Fake News and Fictional News’. In The Routledge Handbook of Fiction and Belief. Routledge.

Searle, John R. 1975. ‘The Logical Status of Fictional Discourse’. New Literary History 6 (2): 319–32.

Stock, Kathleen. 2017. Only Imagine: Fiction, Interpretation and Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Stokke, Andreas. 2023. ‘Fictional Force’. Philosophical Studies 180 (10): 3099–3120.

Walsh, Richard. 2007. The Rhetoric of Fictionality: Narrative Theory and the Idea of Fiction. 1st edition. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.

Walton, Kendall L. 1990. Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Zetterberg Gjerlevsen, Simona. 2019. ‘Fictionality’. In The Living Handbook of Narratology, edited by Peter Hühn et al. https://www-archiv.fdm.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/node/138.html.

English version

CALL FOR PAPERS - ASIFF/SIRFF Fourth International Congress: Fiction and Lies

The Association for Studies in Fiction and Fictionality / Société Internationale des Recherches sur la Fiction et la Fictionnalité 

invites submissions on the theme of Fiction and Lies, for the ASIFF/SIRFF Fourth International Congress.

10-12 June 2026

University of Edinburgh, UK

Organization: Stacie Friend

Supported by the British Society of Aesthetics

Keynote Speakers

-Professor Eileen John (Philosophy, University of Warwick)

-TBD

From Plato’s indictment of the tragic poets as misrepresenting the truth, to Sir Philip Sidney’s famous claim in the Defence of Poesy that ‘the Poet, he nothing affirms, and therefore never lieth’, to current debates about fictionality and factuality, the relationship between fiction and lies has been a focus of scholarly attention. Both fiction-makers and liars make things up and misrepresent the truth. But it is traditionally assumed that with fiction, the invention is non-deceptive. As Margaret Macdonald (1954, 170) put the point, ‘The conviction induced by a story is the result of a mutual conspiracy, freely entered into, between author and audience. A storyteller does not lie, nor is a normal auditor deceived’. Macdonald proposed that instead, fiction-makers engage in a non-deceptive pretence of assertion (see also Searle 1975); but other approaches also distinguish between fictionality and deception, from philosophers who associate fiction with an invitation to make-believe rather than to believe (Walton 1990; Currie 1990; Lamarque and Olsen 1994; Davies 2012; García-Carpintero 2013; Lavocat 2016; Stock 2017) to narratologists who treat fictionality as a rhetorical mode of communication that overtly signals fabrication (Walsh 2007; Nielsen, Phelan, and Walsh 2015; Zetterberg Gjerlevsen 2019). If lies are assertions aimed at deception, perhaps fictions are incapable of lying (as some have argued, e.g., Mahon 2019; Stokke 2023; Marsili 2024; see Dixon 2022a; 2022b for a reply).

Yet a sharp distinction between fictionality and deception confronts numerous challenges. Scholars across disciplines have considered the many ways in which fictions can affect our beliefs, for good or ill (see James, Kubo, and Lavocat 2023). Even if fictions cannot lie in some technical sense, they can certainly mislead, insinuate, obfuscate and so on (for a detailed overview, see Fludernik and Packard 2021). Works of fiction may be instances of propaganda which misrepresent the facts; think of Oliver Stone’s film JFK (1991) or Michael Crichton’s novel State of Fear (2004). And the distinctions between the fictional and factual are under increasing pressure in the current culture of disinformation and ‘fake news’ – a category not so easy to distinguish from ‘fictional news’ (Pepp, Sterken, and Michaelson 2023).

This three-day international conference aims to explore the relationship between fiction and lies from a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives, including philosophy, literary history and theory, narratology, film and media studies, psychology and cognitive science. Proposals may address fiction in general, or any historical period or cultural tradition. We also encourage studies of fictional works in a variety of media (including video games, comics, film, and television series).

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

·      The possibility of lying in/through fiction

·      Other modes of deception and dissimulation in fiction (in particular works, in different media, etc.)

·      Fiction and fictionality as (tools for) propaganda

·      The relationship between fiction and fake news

·      Differing historical or cultural conceptions of the relationship between fiction and lies

·      Representations of deception within fiction (e.g., unreliable narrators, lying protagonists, forgers)

·      Fictions that (seem to) deceive about their own status (e.g., mockumentary), and more generally, questions of ‘framing’

Please note: There may be a conference registration fee (discounted for students) depending on the outcome of grant funding applications.

Submission guidance

·      All submissions should be sent by attachment in Word or pdf to fictionlies2026@gmail.com by 15 December 2025.

·      Papers: Abstracts should be no longer than 350 words, in English or French. Bear in mind that sessions scheduled for paper presentations will be 30 minutes (20 minutes presentation, 10 minutes questions and answers).

·      Symposia: Proposals, in English or French, should be no longer than 500 words and should include a description of the topic/theme, the names/affiliations of participants and brief abstracts of the papers. Sessions for symposia will be 1.5 hours or 2 hours depending on the schedule and thus should typically have no more than three speakers.

·      We encourage submissions from, and symposia including, members of groups underrepresented in their disciplines, including women in philosophy. Symposia in philosophy should ensure that the proposal follows the Good Practice Policy of the British Philosophical Association and the Society for Women in Philosophy (see bpa.ac.uk/resources/women-in-philosophy/good-practice). Please also take note of the BPA’s Environment/Travel Guideline Scheme (bpa.ac.uk/policies).

·      Funding may be available towards the cost of arranging childcare for speakers who may require it. Please ask for details.

·      Participants in the conference will be expected to become members of the Association if they are not already (www.fictionstudies.org).

Early career prize

The ASIFF/SIRFF will offer a prize for the best paper by an early-career scholar (doctoral student or scholar who has received their PhD within the last 3 years), to be presented at the conference. The winner will receive a monetary award of €1,000 (euros). If you would like to be considered for this award, please submit your completed conference paper (no more than 3,500 words/20,000 characters) to fictionlies2026@gmail.com by 28 February 2026. The article must be unpublished.

References

Currie, Gregory. 1990. The Nature of Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Davies, David. 2012. ‘Fictionality, Fictive Utterance, and the Assertive Author’. In Mimesis: Metaphysics, Cognition, Pragmatics, edited by Gregory Currie, Petr Kot’átko, and Martin Pokorný. College Publications.

Dixon, Daisy. 2022a. ‘Lies in Art’. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 100 (1): 25–39.

———. 2022b. ‘Novel Assertions: A Reply to Mahon’. The British Journal of Aesthetics 62 (1): 115–24.

Duprat, Anne, and Lavocat, Françoise, eds. 2010. Fiction et cultures. Nîmes: Lucie éditions.

Fludernik, Monika, and Stephan Packard, eds. 2021. Being Untruthful: Lying, Fiction, and the Non-Factual. Baden-Baden: Ergon Verlag.

García-Carpintero, Manuel. 2013. ‘Norms of Fiction-Making’. The British Journal of Aesthetics 53 (3): 339–57.

James, Alison, Akihiro Kubo, and Françoise Lavocat, eds. 2023. The Routledge Handbook of Fiction and Belief. New York: Routledge.

Lamarque, Peter, and Stein Haugom Olsen. 1994. Truth, Fiction, and Literature: A Philosophical Perspective. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Lavocat, Françoise. 2016. Fait et Fiction. Pour une frontière. Paris : Le Seuil.

Macdonald, Margaret. 1954. ‘The Language of Fiction’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes 28:165–84.

Mahon, James Edwin. 2019. ‘Novels Never Lie’. British Journal of Aesthetics 59 (3): 323–38.

Marsili, Neri. 2024. ‘Fictions That Don’t Tell the Truth’. Philosophical Studies 181 (5): 1025–46.

Nielsen, Henrik Skov, James Phelan, and Richard Walsh. 2015. ‘Ten Theses about Fictionality’. Narrative 23 (1): 61–73.

Pepp, Jessica, Rachel Sterken, and Eliot Michaelson. 2023. ‘Fake News and Fictional News’. In The Routledge Handbook of Fiction and Belief. Routledge.

Searle, John R. 1975. ‘The Logical Status of Fictional Discourse’. New Literary History 6 (2): 319–32.

Stock, Kathleen. 2017. Only Imagine: Fiction, Interpretation and Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Stokke, Andreas. 2023. ‘Fictional Force’. Philosophical Studies 180 (10): 3099–3120.

Walsh, Richard. 2007. The Rhetoric of Fictionality: Narrative Theory and the Idea of Fiction. 1st edition. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.

Walton, Kendall L. 1990. Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Zetterberg Gjerlevsen, Simona. 2019. ‘Fictionality’. In The Living Handbook of Narratology, edited by Peter Hühn et al. https://www-archiv.fdm.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/node/138.html.

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 

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 Game, Pony 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)

Abstracts/résumés des communications

jeudi 28 novembre à l’EHESS (105 Bd Raspail, 75006 Paris), vendredi 29 novembre à La Maison de la Recherche de La Sorbonne Nouvelle (4 rue des Irlandais, 75005 Paris), samedi 30 novembre à l’Université de Chicago à Paris (6 rue Thomas Mann, 75013 Paris).

Jeudi 28 novembre, EHESS

La Fiction, différents sens, différents mots ? / Fiction: different meanings, different words?

MATIN / MORNING

Amphithéâtre Furet8h45 : Accueil des participants / Arrival and WelcomeDiscours de bienvenue / Introduction : Françoise Lavocat, Alison James, Akihiro Kubo

9h15 – 10h10 : Keynote address / conférence plénière (présentation : Alison James)Richard Walsh : Premises for the Diachronic and Comparative Study of Fictionality

ATELIER A : Différents mots pour une même chose

SESSION A: Different words for the same thing

Amphithéâtre Furet

Présidence : Anne Duprat

10h30 : Claude Calame : Formes poétiques de la fiction et pragmatique: poêin - pláttein - práttein

11h : Daniel Struve : Les mots de la fiction dans le Dit du Genj

11h30: Judit Arokay  : The Fiction of Factuality  (Pre-modern Japanese Perspectives) 

12h : Veronika Altashina : Les notions de “fait littéraire” et de “liternaturnost” chez les formalistes russes.

ATELIER B : Un même mot pour différentes choses

SESSION B: One word for different things

Salle 7

Président Akihiro Kubo

10h30 : Marion Renaud : Une fiction, en quel(s) sens ?

11h00 : Simona Zetterberg Gjerlevsen : Interpreting  “fiction” and inventing  “the novel”

11h30 : Larissa  Muravievna: La mise en abyme figure de la fiction

12h : Iwamatsu Masahiro : Chô-kyokô (sur-fiction) et méta-mystery : Deux notions métafictionnelles dans les années 1980-90 au Japon

Atelier C: Perspectives diachroniques, transculturelles, interdisciplinairesSession C : Transcultural, Diachronic and Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Amphi Furet

Président : John Pier14h00: Otto Pfersmann : Is a Revolutionary Change of the Legal System Able to Change the World?

14h30 : Henriette Korthals Altes : A Few Remarks on the ‘Law and Literature’ Movement or How to do Law with Fiction

15h00 : Frank Zipfel : The Role of Imagination in Fiction. Diachronic and TransculturalReflections

Atelier D : Intermedialité et performanceSession D intermediality and Performance

Salle 7

Président Emmanuel Bouju 14h00: Raphaël Baroni : De quoi les bandes dessinées sont-elles capables ? Médiagénie et pouvoirs de la fiction.

14h30 : Oura Yasusuké : Pour une théorie de la fiction comme show, performance,entertainment

15h00 : Alexander Bareis : The Margins of Fiction in an Intermedial Perspective

PAUSE

Amphi Furet, 15h45-16h40 : Conférence plénière/Keynote Address (présentation Pascal Engel) :

Gregory Currie, "A Promise of Knowledge: Literature as Thought Experiments"

17h- 18h30 : ASSEMBLEE GENERALE / GENERAL MEETING : Françoise Lavocat, Alison James, Akihiro Kubo, Charlotte Krauss, Anne Besson, Otto Pfersmann

Vendredi 29 Novembre/Friday 29 NovemberMaison de la recherche, 4 rue des Irlandais, 75005 Paris

La Fiction change-t-elle le monde?

Does Fiction Change the World?

MATIN/MORNING

ATELIER E (salle Athéna)Modification des idées collectives

SESSION E: Modification of collective ideas

Présidente: Tiphaine Samoyault 

9h00 : Simone Mueller : Etiquette to Change the World ? Fiction and Reality of Temporal Procedures at the Imperial Court in Medieval Japan

9h30 : Nicolas Correard : Lucianic fictions and the development of unbelief (XVth-XVIIIth centuries)

10h : Charles Vincent: Fiction politique des années 1770: Mercier, Diderot, Marmontel

PAUSE

10h45 : Anne Duprat : Fiction et modélisation du hasard

11h15 : Nathalie Kremer : De l’Eve future au “Geminoid HI” de Ishiguro : le cas d’une métalepse réelle ?

11h45 : Monique Villen :  Cyberespace: De la science fiction à l’informatique avec Neuromancien de William Gibson.

ATELIER F: (Salle du conseil ) Fiction et action politique

SESSION F: Fiction and political action

 Président : Frank Zipfel 

9h00 : Victoria Garcia : The potentialities and limits of fiction. Patricio Pron's narrative in the context of Argentine post-dictatorship

9h30 : Victoria Saramago : Mario Vargas Llosa and the Amazon: Fiction, Ecology, Politics

10h00 : Annick Louis : La fiction ou la mort

PAUSE

10h45 : Anne Isabelle François : Résistances féministes et pouvoirs de la fiction

11h15 : Charlotte Krauss : La construction de la nation par la fiction théâtrale

11h45 : Anne Besson : Engagement et enchantement : usages éthiques et politiques des fictions de l’imaginaire contemporaines

12h15-13h45 : pause déjeuner / lunch break

APRES-MIDI / AFTERNOON

14h00-14h55 : Conférence plénière/Keynote Address (Salle Athena). Présentation : Jérôme Pelletier  

Anna Abraham : The World in My Mind

PAUSE

ATELIER G , salle Athéna : Fiction et non-fiction, connaissances et culture

SESSION G: Fiction/nonfiction, knowledge and culture

Présidence : Michèle Bokobza Kahan

15h : Manuel Garcia-Carpintero Sanchez-Miguel  : Acts of fiction-making : can fiction convey knowledge ?

15h45 : Nancy Murzilli : La fiction comme instrument d’action

16h15 : Maja Djikic: Effect of Fiction on Self-Change:  On how Beauty Breaks into the World

PAUSE

17h00 :  Erika Fülöp : Towards an Ontology of Social Media

17h30: Nir Evron : Fragile Fictions : The Rise of Culturalism and the Novel

18h: Mario Slugan: Revisiting the Solution to the Paradox of Fiction: An Alternative to Thought Theory

ATELIER H: Représentation des effets de la fiction dans la fiction

SESSION H: Fictional representations of fiction’s effects

Président : Richard Walsh 

15h15 :   John Pier : The Theory of Fiction and Modeling of Plot

15h45 : Alberto Voltolini : Real Authors and Fictional Agents (Fictional Narrators,Fictional Authors)

16h15 : Alexandra Effe: Literary Accounts of Fiction as (Self-)Transformation

PAUSE

Présidente : Florence Olivier 

17h00: Yen-Maï Tran Gervat: Le donquichottisme comme réflexion sur les effets de lafiction (littérature et cinéma)

17h30: Maxime Decout : Peut-on tuer le lecteur ? A propos de quelques effetssecondaires regrettables de la lecture

18h : Frank Wagner : Quand la fiction change le monde... de la fiction

20h00 : Dîner du colloque / Conference Dinner

Samedi 30 Novembre/Saturday 30 NovemberUniversity of Chicago Center in Paris, 6, rue Thomas Mann, 75013 Paris

9h00 : AccueilPrésentation des projets collectifsPresentation of collective projects

Président : Arnaud Colombel

09h15 : Alberto Voltolini: Projet COST: Applying a Sort of Imagination in Fiction10h00 : Takahashi Kohei : Seminar of Japanese Literature and Fictionality

PAUSE

11h00 : Gregory Currie, Heather Ferguson, Stacie Friend and Lena Wimmer : Learningfrom Fiction11h45 : Anne Duprat, Alison James, Sébastien Wit : Projet ALEA

12h30-14h : Déjeuner (sur place)/ Lunch break (on site)

Présidente : Alison James

14h00 : Monika Fludernik : The Freiburg Graduate School Factual and FictionalNarration (GRK 1767) and the Collaborative Research Centre (SFB 1015) Otium14h45 : Françoise Lavocat: Populations of Characters: Statistics and Demography

PAUSE

15h45 : Sylvie Patron : Optional-Narrator Theories: Attempts at Unification16h30 : Henrik Skov Nielsen: Centre for Fictionality Studies – Past, Present and FutureResearch

17h15-18h00 : Conclusions