Dr Ana de Mederios, from the Department of French, invites abstracts for a conference on the topic of absence and loss in the writing of prolific French author Marie Nimier. The conference is to be held at the University of Kent at Paris, on 7-8 July 2014.
Marie Nimier’s literary oeuvre to date comprises more than twenty volumes. It includes experiments in fiction, auto-fiction, children’s literature and theatre, and has garnered several prestigious prizes, including the prix Médicis for La Reine du silence (2004). Her most recent work, Je suis un homme (2013) has been extremely well received and widely reviewed. It has generated a particularly lively debate concerning its exploration of gender and sexuality. However, it also continues the author’s lifelong reflection on the overlapping themes of absence and loss.
Abstracts are invited of around 250 words, in English or French, on the topic of absence and loss in Nimier’s writing. This topics can be connected with a wide variety of motifs and themes, for instance: sexuality; childhood; gender; genre; liminality; the figure of the author and/or the act of writing; pain and suffering; psychoanalysis; humans in relation to animals; colour and/or synaesthesia; trauma.
It is hoped that the papers from the conference will be published.
Abstracts should be sent to marienimierabsence@gmail.com by 30 April 2014.
A blog has been set up for the conference here:
http://blogs.kent.ac.uk/nimier-conference/