NeMLA’s 50th Anniversary Convention, Washington, DC, March 21-24, 2019.
Abstracts may submitted by September 30, 2018 in English or French via the links provided. Please disseminate this invitation and send any questions to the organizers (erin.a.myers@gmail.com and bastink@eckerd.edu). Thank you for your consideration! Kate Bastin & Erin Myers
Innovative scholarship is advancing knowledge of the non-human in fields such as animal studies, material culture, environmental studies, food studies, biopoetics, ecopoetics, and geocriticism. Peter Sahlins investigates animals at the court of Louis XIV in 1668: The Year of the Animal in France, Jeffrey Peters studies geography and environmental studies in The Written World: Space, Literature, and Chorological Imagination in Early Modern France, and Alison Calhoun analyzes stage machines, automata, and androids in her work on the mechanics of the passions on the French baroque stage. This panel aims to bring together a variety of scholars studying non-human questions during the Renaissance through the late eighteenth century that investigate intersections of cultures, languages, and peoples through their work. Questions to consider include: how does the animal, vegetable, and mineral permeate transnational spaces and cross French borders during this time period? How does the non-human operate in cross-cultural spaces of early modern France and its territories? How does the non-human encourage intercultural contact in Old Regime France? How can the non-human contest traditional notions of history, territory, and identity during this time period? We welcome papers from a variety of disciplines and fields and aim to pursue cross-disciplinary fields of study that underline interaction between literature, visual culture, and other forms of cultural artifacts.