INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
“Uprooted” Theories: When Literature Reclaims the Discourse of Ideas

Sorbonne Nouvelle University, Paris
28–29 May 2026
Organised by Sorbonne Nouvelle, East China Normal University, and the University of Göttingen

Day 1 — Wednesday, 28 May

09:00–09:20
Opening Session Welcome addresses (Sorbonne Nouvelle / ECNU / Göttingen)
09:20–10:40
Panel 1 — When Fiction Thinks: Metafiction and the Theory of Fiction. How narrative fiction theorizes fictionality from within
Chair: Matthias Freise (University of Göttingen)
Nichita Kaufman — University of GöttingenFiction as Theoretical Laboratory: Narrative Strategies and the Construction of Knowledge
Jérôme Lucereau — Sorbonne Nouvelle : Narrating the “Linguistic Turn”: The Fictionalization of Philosophical and Neuroscientific Discourses
Yue Zhuo — ECNU : Where is the Pleasure in the Text? Rereading Barthes
Françoise Lavocat — Sorbonne Nouvelle : What Do Narrative Fictions Say About Fictionality? Some Metafictional Examples from Lands of Romance (17th–18th Century) to Jasper Fforde (20th–21st Century)

10:40–11:00 Coffee Break

11:00–12:00
Panel 2 — Language, Translation, and the Circulation of Forms. How fictional works transform, invent, and circulate linguistic and translational theories
Chair: Tao Guoshan (ECNU)
Pierre-Alain Bourgoin — Sorbonne Nouvelle : Elements of Analysis for a Fictional Linguistics
Ksenia Kuzminykh — University of Göttingen : Meta Phenomena in the Global Discourse: Narratological Theories and Literary CaseStudies
Anne-Isabelle François — Sorbonne Nouvelle : Theories of Translation in Fiction, or Fictional Translators

12:00–12:30Joint Discussion — Panels 1 & 2
Chair: Philippe Daros (Sorbonne Nouvelle)

12:30–14:00 Lunch

14:00–15:20
Panel 3 — Writers as Theorists: When Authors Think. Works and authors that produce an original theory of memory, time, and literary form
Chair: Cao Jieran (ECNU)
Nina Soleymani — Sorbonne Nouvelle : The “Epic Work” (Florence Goyet): The Productive Itinerary of a Critical Notion
Wu Yuyu — ECNUThe : Temporal Mechanism of Memory in In Search of Lost Time
Alain Schaffner — Sorbonne Nouvelle : Jacques Roubaud, Theorist of Memory
Matthias Freise — University of Göttingen : A Theory of Relationship to the Past, Demonstrated Through Examples from Proust and Verlaine

15:20–15:40 Coffee Break

15:40–16:40
Panel 4 — Theories in Transit: Displacement, and LiteraryReappropriation. How literary works transplant, transform, and contest theoretical frameworks across cultural and disciplinary borders
Chair: Nichita Kaufman (University of Göttingen)
Philippe Daros — Sorbonne Nouvelle : Causality as Literary Theory: Yan Lianke’s Framework for the Novel and Its Critical Stakes
Feng Yuan — ECNULao She and the Cross-Contextual Dialogue on “Alienated Labor” — Centered on TheRickshaw Boy
Alexandre Prstojevic — Sorbonne Nouvelle : Theoretical Stakes in the Work of Danilo Kiš: Dialogue with the Nouveau Roman,Postmodernism, and the Question of Testimony

16:40–17:20 Joint Discussion — Panels 3 & 4
Chair: Alain Schaffner (Sorbonne Nouvelle)

19:00 Conference Dinner

Day 2 — Thursday, 29 May

09:00–10:20 
Panel 5 — Epistemologies in Dialogue: When Traditions Meet Literary and artistic works that bring heterogeneous systems of thought into productive encounter across cultural and disciplinary boundaries
Chair: Wu You (ECNU)
Wang Xiaojing — University of Göttingen : Echoes Across Time and Space: Bakhtinian Dialogism and Its Expression in ChineseClassical Poetry
Diane Chavalet — Sorbonne Nouvelle : V.Y. Mudimbe’s Gnosis at Work in Sami Tchak and Kossi Efoui: Novelistic Space and Epistemological Fabrications
Tao Guoshan — ECNUA : Comparison Study Between Alois Riegl’s “Kunstwollen” and “Liberal Brushwork”of Traditional Chinese Art
Claudine Leblanc — Sorbonne Nouvelle : Fictions of Interpretive Error in Classical Indian Literature: Plot and Theoretical Idea

10:20–10:40 Coffee Break

10:40–12:00 
Panel 6A — Aesthetics, Poetic Form, and The Intelligence of Form. How literary and artistic form itself constitutes an autonomous mode of thought
Chair: Alexandre Stroev (Sorbonne Nouvelle)
Zhu Guohua — ECNU : Maidens Are Made of Water: The Pure Aesthetics of Dream of the Red Chamber
Zhou Xijin — Sorbonne Nouvelle : Literature and Reason: Making Sense Beyond Theory — Contemporary Chinese Poetry as aCase Study
Philippe Met — ECNU : Lorand Gaspar’s Observation Charts: Notebook, Poetry and Surgery
Wang Jiajun — ECNU: Breathing: Rethinking a Poetic Concept through Levinas and Celan

12:00–12:30
Joint Discussion — Panels 5 & 6A
Chair: Yue Zhuo (ECNU)

12:30–14:00 Lunch

14:00–15:00 
Panel 6B — Indirect Thought: Poetic Mediation and Narrative Form.How poetic, allegorical, and narrative forms produce modes of understanding irreducible to conceptual thought
Chair: Anne-Isabelle François (Sorbonne Nouvelle)
Katja Freise — University of GöttingenWhen : Beauty Sleeps: The Metapoetic Visualisation of Literary Crises and Epochal Changein Fairy Tales of the “Sleeping Beauty” Type
Gao Rui — University of Göttingen : Idiocy and Poetry: Three Stories by Karel Čapek
Ivan Ruviditch — ECNU : Demonstrating Without Stating: Classical Chinese Fiction as an Autonomous Mode of Thought — From “The Tale of Hongxian” to the Courtesans of Guan Hanqing

15:00–15:20 Coffee Break

15:20–16:40 
Panel 7 — Futures of Theory: Utopia, Science Fiction, and Speculative Worlds. How speculative and interactive fictions become laboratories for ideological, philosophical, and political reflection
Chair: Ivan Ruviditch (ECNU)
Alexandre Stroev — Sorbonne Nouvelle : “Cosmism” in the Early Twentieth Century: Philosophy (Nikolai Fyodorov), Mystical Theories, Science Fiction, Russian and Chinese Dystopias
Wu You — ECNU : Hope as Method: Techno-Optimistic Futurism in Chinese Science Fiction
Cao Jieran — ECNU: The Future in the Making: Utopian Imagination in Procedural Narratives of Video Games
Xinchao Zhang — Sorbonne Nouvelle : Theories in Play: Narrative Integration and Ludic Reconfiguration in Text-Based Role-Playing Games

16:40–17:10 Joint Discussion — Panels 6B & 7
Chair: Wang Xiaojing (University of Göttingen)

17:10–18:00 Final Roundtable and Closing RemarksChair: Françoise Lavocat (Sorbonne Nouvelle)