Caryl Phillips Crossing the River : “the many-tongued chorus”

This international conference will offer new perspectives on Caryl Phillips’s fifth novel Crossing the River, which is part of the syllabus for the Agrégation. Published in 1993 and the recipient of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1994, Crossing the River weaves together four narratives of forced displacement and throws light on the slave trade in Africa in the 18th century, the journey back from America to Africa of emancipated slaves in the 19th century, the ordeal of a former slave turned frontierswoman and defeated pioneer in the American Wild West and the alienation of an Englishwoman and a black GI in England during the Second Word War. Spanning three centuries and criss-crossing three continents, the novel raises questions relating to identity, belonging, uprootedness, responsibility, loss and nostalgia.

Scientific committee
Catherine Delesalle-Nancey, University of Lyon 3
Vanessa Guignery, ENS de Lyon and IUF
Christian Gutleben, University of Nice Sophia Antipolis

Organising committee
Catherine Delesalle-Nancey, University of Lyon 3
Diane Gagneret, ENS de Lyon
Vanessa Guignery, ENS de Lyon and IUF
Christian Gutleben, University of Nice Sophia Antipolis
Mathilde Le Clainche, ENS de Lyon
Julia Siccardi, ENS de Lyon

Program

6th Thursday October

Site Descartes (building formation), Room F008

09.30 : Registration and coffee
09.50 : Welcome address by Vanessa GUIGNERY (ENS de Lyon, IUF) and Christian GUTLEBEN (Nice - Sophia Antipolis)

Morning Session
Chair : Catherine PESSO-MIQUEL (Lumière University - Lyon 2)
10.00 : Kerry-Jane WALLART (University of Paris 4 Sorbonne) : “‘Saving Bodies’ – Theatricality in Caryl Phillips’s Crossing the River”
10.35 : Oriana PALUSCI (University of Naples “L’Orientale”, Italy) : “‘Race Matters’ : the Languages of Slavery in Caryl Phillips’s Crossing the River”
11.10 : Vanessa GUIGNERY (ENS de Lyon, IUF) : “The Newton-
Hamilton Dialogue in Caryl Phillips’s Crossing the River : Navigating between Appropriation and Creation”
11.45-13.30 : Lunch Break

Afternoon session
Chair : Kerry-Jane WALLART (University of Paris 4 Sorbonne)

• 13.30 : Jee H. AN (Seoul National University, South Korea) : “The Sounding(s) of Countermodernity in Caryl Phillips’s Crossing the River”
• 14.05 : Hubert MALFRAY (Lycée Claude-Fauriel Saint Etienne - IHRIM) : “Une poétique de la précarité : économie(s) d’écriture dans Crossing the River de Caryl Phillips”
• 15.10 : Catherine LANONE (University of Paris 3) : “Repetition and Reckoning in Caryl Phillips’s Crossing the River”
• 15.45 : Coffee Break
  Chair : Vanessa GUIGNERY (ENS de Lyon, IUF)
• 16.15 : Kathie BIRAT (University of Lorraine) : “Embodied Voices : Literacy and Empathy in Caryl Phillips’s Crossing the River”
• 16.50 : A Conversation with Caryl PHILLIPS (with Vanessa GUIGNERY, recorded at Yale University and the ENS de Lyon on 27 September 2016)

7th Friday October

Site Buisson (building D6), Conference Room 1

Morning Session
Chair : Catherine DELESALLE-NANCEY (University of Lyon 3)

• 9.30 : Nicole TERRIEN (University of Rennes 1) : “‘The answer is blowing in the wind’ : Emotion and the Rewriting of History in Caryl Phillips’s Crossing the River”
• 10.05 : Christian GUTLEBEN (University of Nice - Sophia Antipolis) : “Écriture noire, écriture blanche : esthétique du (mé)tissage dans Crossing the River de Caryl Phillips”

10.40:Coffee Break

Chair : Judith MISRAHI-BARAK (University Paul Valéry - Montpellier 3)

• 11.10 : Catherine PESSO-MIQUEL (Lumière University - Lyon 2) :
  “Dit et non dit : ruptures et reprises dans Crossing the River de Caryl Phillips”
• 11.45 : I. Murat ÖNER (International Burch University in Sarajevo) : “Caryl Phillips and Rhizomorphous Gaze : A Geophilosophical Reading of Crossing the River”

12.20-14.00 : Lunch Break

Afternoon session
Chair : Christian GUTLEBEN (University of Nice - Sophia Antipolis)

• 14.00 : Mélanie JOSEPH-VILAIN (University of Bourgogne) :
  “‘For beyond this trading community lies family life’ : filiation et écriture dans Crossing the River de Caryl Phillips”
• 14.35 : Eleanor BYRNE (Manchester Metropolitan University) : “Queering the Black Atlantic in Jackie Kay’s Trumpet and Caryl Phillips’s Crossing the River”
• 15.10 : Josiane RANGUIN (University of Paris 13 - Sorbonne) :
  “The ‘High Anxiety’ of Belonging” in Caryl Phillips’s Crossing the River (1993) and Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave (2013)”

16.00 : End of the conference

conferences.vanessaguignery.com
Contact : Vanessa Guigneryvanessaguignery wanadoo.fr