International and Interdisciplinary Symposium

Endorsed by the European Cultural Season (ue2008.fr) and supported by the European Commission’s “Europe for Citizens” program.

“Elle affermit de ses pucelles mains des fleurs de lys la tige gallicane, sauva son roi de la rage anglicane, et le fit oindre au maître autel de Rheims. Jeanne montra sous feminin visage, sous le corset et sous le cottillon d’un vrai Roland le vigoureux courage. J’aimerais mieux le soir pour mon usage une beauté douce comme un mouton; mais Jeanne D’Arc eut un cœur de lyon: vous le verrez, si lisez cet ouvrage. Vous tremblerez de ses exploits nouveaux, et le plus grand de ses rares travaux fut de garder un an son pucelage”.

– La Pucelle d’Orléans

In the presence of the author

6 – 8 March, 2008

Organized by the Institute for Research in European Languages and Literatures (ILLE – EA 3437) at the University of Haute-Alsace (Mulhouse) in collaboration with the Institute for Modern Texts and Manuscripts (CNRS/ENS)

– FOR FLSH STUDENTS in their third year of undergraduate studies, first and second years of graduate studies, and doctoral programs (all fields)
– FOR CREL members and faculty members at FLSH

Changes in the concept of time in 20th-century European novels

Who will speak of the virtues of the man who reads? From Don Quixote to Julien Sorel — not to mention Emma Bovary or the characters of Borges, Cortázar, Umberto Eco — how many heroes thus enjoy placing themselves in the company of books, in the company of a Book, as if to take the reader by the hand, this fellow being, this brother, and lead him into the universe of diegesis?

From the Knight of the Sorrowful Figure to Guglielmo di Baskerville, the Franciscan of Il Nome della Rosa, how many also seem pursued by this fabulous ideal: to have read all books — even if it means discovering to what extent “the flesh is sad, alas!”, to what extent the world of poetry or fiction can act as a substitute, eclipsing the everyday world and replacing it with a more harmonious, more logical order, an order in which our actions — perhaps our life — finally seem to find meaning.

But the world of the book, as it is represented in literature, the visual arts, chronicles, or cultural history, is not always thus condemned to solipsism. It can open itself to life, and the printed object can assert itself as the true mirror of reality.

The printed object: its paper, the smell of fresh ink or that of dust and mildew mixed together, which emanates from the depths of the antiquarian bookseller’s shop; the printed object with its entourage of contributors: the writer, the publisher, the journal editor, the printer, the foreman, the peddler or bookseller, the librarian, the book-lover, the bibliophile, or the simple reader… In short, the printed object in all its materiality and unfolding all its potential then imposes itself not only as a central figure of our imagination, but also as a revealing element of the whole of European history.