{"id":286,"date":"2010-10-17T13:06:02","date_gmt":"2010-10-17T13:06:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/annualconference\/french-association-for-american-studies\/afea-conference\/previous-conferences\/2011-conference-brest-the-truth\/workshop-list\/286\/"},"modified":"2010-10-17T13:06:02","modified_gmt":"2010-10-17T13:06:02","slug":"workshop-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/afea.fr\/annualconference\/french-association-for-american-studies\/afea-conference\/previous-conferences\/2011-conference-brest-the-truth\/workshop-list\/286\/","title":{"rendered":"Workshop List"},"content":{"rendered":"

Please find below the list of workshops in alphabetical order of their coordinators.
<\/em> <\/strong> <\/p>\n

-1. La vie \u00e0 l\u2019\u0153uvre<\/em><\/p>\n

R\u00e9douane Abouddahab (Universit\u00e9 Lyon 2 \u2013 Lumi\u00e8re)
\nElisabeth Bouzonviller (Universit\u00e9 de Saint-Etienne)<\/p>\n

Cet atelier s\u2019int\u00e9ressera aux liens multiples entre la vie et l\u2019\u0153uvre, dans le sens non pas d\u2019un rep\u00e9rage d\u2019\u00e9l\u00e9ments biographiques dans la fiction, mais d\u2019une exploration des formes que prend la fiction en tant que masque et marque d\u2019un v\u00e9cu d\u00e9terminant. C\u2019est donc la question de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 \u00e0 l\u2019\u0153uvre<\/em> qui importe ici, en tant que force \u00e0 la fois affront\u00e9e et d\u00e9jou\u00e9e. Hemingway le sait bien qui dit dans une lettre adress\u00e9e \u00e0 Scott Fitzgerald le 28 mai 1934 : \u201cForget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it\u2014don\u2019t cheat with it. Be as faithful to it as a scientist\u2014but don\u2019t think anything is of any importance because it happens to you or anyone belonging to you.\u201d (Selected Letters, 1917-1961,<\/em> ed. Carlos Baker, New York, Scribner\u2019s, 1981)<\/p>\n

Le propos d\u2019Hemingway laisse entendre que l\u2019\u00e9crivain doit d\u2019abord identifier son mal ou son sympt\u00f4me avant de t\u00e2cher de lui donner forme, comme un artisan travaillant la mati\u00e8re. Il fait avec cette mati\u00e8re et en m\u00eame temps il en fait autre chose. On peut ainsi rep\u00e9rer dans la vie des \u00e9crivains les \u00e9l\u00e9ments (traumatiques) qui ont d\u00e9clench\u00e9 ou impos\u00e9 le d\u00e9sir d\u2019\u00e9crire, et voir ce que l\u2019\u00e9crivain en fait dans la fiction, que ce soit au niveau de l\u2019histoire ou du discours.<\/p>\n

Cette question est d\u2019autant plus int\u00e9ressante quand les causes semblent \u00eatre id\u00e9ologiques ou culturelles. N\u00e9anmoins, l\u2019analyse des textes et du v\u00e9cu r\u00e9v\u00e8le souvent d\u2019autres d\u00e9terminismes. Dans ce cas, que devient la \u00ab v\u00e9rit\u00e9 \u00bb id\u00e9ologique d\u00e9voil\u00e9e (al\u00e8theia<\/em>) lorsque l\u2019\u00e9criture m\u00eame impose des \u00e9preuves de v\u00e9rit\u00e9 insoup\u00e7onn\u00e9e (tuch\u00ea<\/em>), ce que Morrison appelle pertinemment becoming <\/em>? (Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination<\/em>, New York, Vintage Books, 1993, 4) On peut dire dans cette perspective que l\u2019\u00e9criture met en jeu un double principe, de lib\u00e9ration et de r\u00e9p\u00e9tition : <\/p>\n

Mostly, we authors must repeat ourselves\u2014that\u2019s the truth. We have two or three great and moving experiences in our lives\u2014experiences so great and moving that it doesn\u2019t seem at the time that anyone else has been so caught up and pounded and dazzled and astonished and beaten and broken and rescued and illuminated and rewarded and humbled in just that way ever before. Then we learn our trade, well or less well, and we tell our two or three stories\u2014each time in a new disguise\u2014maybe ten times, maybe a hundred, as long as people will listen. (F. Scott Fitzgerald, \u201cOne Hundred False Starts\u201d (1933), Afternoon of an Author<\/em>, New York, Scribner’s, 1957, 132)<\/p>\n

– Life at Work
<\/em><\/p>\n

This workshop will focus on the numerous links between life and work, not by spotting out biographical elements in fiction but by exploring the forms fiction can present as a mark and mask of a determining life experience. What matters here is truth at work, truth as a force that is simultaneously confronted and thwarted. Hemingway was well aware of this when he wrote to Scott Fitzgerald on May 28th 1934: \u201cForget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it\u2014don\u2019t cheat with it. Be as faithful to it as a scientist\u2014but don\u2019t think anything is of any importance because it happens to you or anyone belonging to you.\u201d (Selected Letters, 1917-1961<\/em>, ed. Carlos Baker, New York, Scribner\u2019s, 1981)<\/p>\n

Hemingway’s words suggest that the writer must first identify what hurts, his symptom, before giving it a form, like a craftsman working from his material. He works with this material and at the same time transforms it into something else. Thus, one may find in writers’ lives the (traumatic) elements that have launched or entailed their desire for writing, and see what they make out of these determining elements in their fiction whether in narrative or in discourse. <\/p>\n

This question is all the more interesting when ideological or cultural causes seem to be at stake. Yet, analyzing texts and life often reveals other determining factors. In that case, what becomes of unveiled ideological \u201ctruth\u201d (aletheia) when writing itself entails instances of unexpected truth (tuche), what Morrison appropriately calls becoming?<\/strong> (Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination<\/em>, New York, Vintage Books, 1993, 4) In that respect, one may say that writing involves a double principle of liberation and repetition:<\/p>\n

Mostly, we authors must repeat ourselves\u2014that\u2019s the truth. We have two or three great and moving experiences in our lives\u2014experiences so great and moving that it doesn\u2019t seem at the time that anyone else has been so caught up and pounded and dazzled and astonished and beaten and broken and rescued and illuminated and rewarded and humbled in just that way ever before. Then we learn our trade, well or less well, and we tell our two or three stories\u2014each time in a new disguise\u2014maybe ten times, maybe a hundred, as long as people will listen. (F. Scott Fitzgerald, \u201cOne Hundred False Starts\u201d (1933), Afternoon of an Author<\/em>, New York, Scribner’s, 1957, 132)<\/p>\n

Contacts: R\u00e9douane Abouddahab<\/a> et Elisabeth Bouzonviller <\/a><\/p>\n

– 2. O\u00f9 trouver la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 du po\u00e8me am\u00e9ricain ?<\/p>\n

<\/em>H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Aji (Universit\u00e9 de Paris Ouest Nanterre)<\/p>\n

Bien avant et apr\u00e8s l’obsession d’Ezra Pound pour le “mot juste”, la mise en conformit\u00e9 du po\u00e8me avec une r\u00e9alit\u00e9 ext\u00e9rieure s’est pos\u00e9e et impos\u00e9e aux po\u00e8tes. Avec la po\u00e9sie am\u00e9ricaine, c’est une mise en conformit\u00e9 avec des exp\u00e9riences individuelles et collectives am\u00e9ricaines per\u00e7ues comme exceptionnelles qui prend forme, en affectant au premier chef les formes m\u00eames du po\u00e8me.<\/p>\n

De l’irruption dans le po\u00e8me d’objets et de th\u00e9matiques non conventionnels \u00e0 l’hypotypose du langage (des cadavres de la Guerre de S\u00e9cession chez Walt Whitman, l’\u00e9conomie et la politique chez Ezra Pound, le jazz de Langston Hughes, la sinc\u00e9rit\u00e9 objective de Louis Zukofsky, les accrostiches de John Cage, \u00e0 la syntaxe chez certains Language Poets), le po\u00e8me am\u00e9ricain cherche sa v\u00e9rit\u00e9 dans la r\u00e9flexion sur le monde et la r\u00e9flexivit\u00e9 du texte.<\/p>\n

Cet atelier souhaite encourager les communications qui mettront en r\u00e9sonance les diverses acceptions que la notion de v\u00e9rit\u00e9 peut prendre en po\u00e9sie am\u00e9ricaine.<\/p>\n

– Where to find the American poem’s truth?<\/p>\n

<\/em>Since before and after Ezra Pound’s obsession with the “mot juste”, writing a poem which would adequately respond to an outer reality has remained the poets’ (self-)assigned task. With American poetry, the issue is to adhere to both individual and collective experience, with the awareness of the American experience’s specificity: as this questioning takes shape, it changes the very shape of the poem.<\/p>\n

From the insertion in the poem of unconventional objects to the foregrounding of language (in Walt Whitman’s Civil War bodies, Ezra Pound’s economy and politics, Langston Hughes’s Jazz, Louis Zukofsky’s objective sincerity, John Cage’s acrostichs, or some Language Poets’ syntax), the American poem is seeking its truth in reflections about the world, and a reflexive text.<\/p>\n

This workshop aims to encourage papers articulating and contrasting the various meanings the notion of truth may imply in American poetry.<\/p>\n

Contact: H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Aji<\/a> <\/p>\n

– 3. Bodily Truths: Brain, Form and Meaning in Contemporary Art and Theory<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/strong>Jennifer Ashton, Associate Professor of English, UIC<\/p>\n

This workshop stages a debate over the extent to which the body \u2013 and particularly recent theories of art and literature that build themselves on the neurophysiological workings of the body \u2013 can serve as an adequate framework for understanding the meaning of the work of art. The claim that understanding how our bodies work is essential to understanding the meaning of art has been a staple of recent literary and art theoretical discourse in the U.S., including the work of Mark Turner, Lisa Zunshine, Blakey Vermeule, Whitney Davis, Brian Massumi, and Mark Johnson.<\/p>\n

– V\u00e9rit\u00e9s du corps: le cerveau, la forme et le sens dans l’art et la th\u00e9orie contemporains<\/p>\n

<\/em>Cet atelier pr\u00e9voit une discussion sur la mani\u00e8re dont le corps, et les th\u00e9ories r\u00e9centes de l’art et de la litt\u00e9rature qui se fondent sur fonctionnement neurphysiologique du corps peuvent servir de cadre ad\u00e9quat pour comprendre la signification de l’\u0153uvre d’art. La revendication selon laquelle la compr\u00e9hension du fonctionnement de corps est essentielle \u00e0 la compr\u00e9hension de l’art est un des points principaux du discours litt\u00e9raire et th\u00e9orique r\u00e9cent aux \u00c9tats-Unis, en particulier chez Mark Turner, Lisa Zunshine, Blakey Vermeule, Whitney Davis, Brian Massumi et Mark Johnson.
\nContact: Jennifer Ashton<\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

– 4. La v\u00e9rit\u00e9 en fiction<\/p>\n

<\/em>Sylvie Bauer (Universit\u00e9 Paris Ouest Nanterre)
\nAnne-Laure Tissut (Universit\u00e9 Paris-Sorbonne)<\/p>\n

Apr\u00e8s que la notion en a \u00e9t\u00e9 s\u00e9rieusement \u00e9branl\u00e9e par le postmodernisme, la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 op\u00e8re-t-elle un retour en force dans la fiction am\u00e9ricaine, par le biais de la repr\u00e9sentation du r\u00e9el, argument vendeur en communication, mais peut-\u00eatre tout aussi puissant dans le champ artistique contemporain ? Quand l\u2019\u0153uvre devient performance et que le spectateur partage avec l\u2019artiste un genre d\u2019exp\u00e9rience, le r\u00e9el semblerait avoir pris le pas sur l\u2019artifice en art. <\/p>\n

La litt\u00e9rature, quant \u00e0 elle, choisit parfois ses objets parmi les \u00e9v\u00e9nements marquants, grandes catastrophes, r\u00e9v\u00e9lations-chocs ou hauts faits historiques, qui semblent pousser la fiction \u00e0 accueillir un d\u00e9bat portant sur la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 et visant \u00e0 la faire \u00e9merger, jusqu\u2019\u00e0 s\u2019en faire parfois le vecteur privil\u00e9gi\u00e9, quand l\u2019indicible \u00e9chappe \u00e0 la communication directe, voire refuse tout acc\u00e8s au sens. Or ce qui est terrifiant, peut-\u00eatre, dans le r\u00e9el, c’est son indiff\u00e9rence absolue, ce qui retire toute puissance \u00e9thique \u00e0 la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Le \u00ab vrai \u00bb, ce qui ne serait ni frelat\u00e9, ni imposture ni m\u00eame posture (si toutefois cela existe) serait alors l’\u00e9v\u00e9nement brut, tel qu’il survient, ne devenant \u00ab v\u00e9rit\u00e9 \u00bb qu’une fois interpr\u00e9t\u00e9, et ce m\u00eame dans le discours scientifique, sujet lui aussi \u00e0 relecture. <\/p>\n

Dans le champ contemporain, on pourra prendre pour objet la litt\u00e9rature relative au 11 septembre (Don DeLillo, Paul Auster, Jonathan Safran Foer \u2026), \u00e0 la torture (Percival Everett, Nick Flynn \u2026), aux catastrophes, dites naturelles ou d\u2019origine humaine, souvent trait\u00e9es sur le mode de l\u2019anticipation, de la science fiction ou du conte (Davis Schneiderman, Blake Butler, George Saunders \u2026) ou encore les \u0153uvres mettant en sc\u00e8ne l\u2019obsession du complot (Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, William Gaddis, Adam Haslett \u2026). Ainsi tout un pan de la litt\u00e9rature contemporaine refl\u00e8te une interrogation sur la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 qui certes existait auparavant, mais sous des formes refl\u00e9tant les conditions de vie de l\u2019\u00e9poque et de la culture dans lesquelles elles sont n\u00e9es. (On peut penser aux jeux jamesiens sur le discours \u00e9lusifs et l’approche tangentielle d\u2019une v\u00e9rit\u00e9 \u00e0 l\u2019existence probl\u00e9matique, au choix de la forme du conte, par Edgar Allan Poe, entre autres, pour exprimer un syst\u00e8me de pens\u00e9e et de vision de l\u2019univers, \u00e0 la port\u00e9e \u00e9thique et m\u00e9taphysique de la fable melvillienne de la qu\u00eate de la baleine blanche.)<\/p>\n

Dans l\u2019\u00e9tude des rapports entre v\u00e9rit\u00e9 et fiction, des v\u00e9rit\u00e9s d\u2019un autre ordre sont \u00e0 envisager. Les repr\u00e9sentations diverses des sciences dans la fiction, rappelant cette derni\u00e8re \u00e0 son r\u00f4le de source de connaissance, posent la question des voies d\u2019acc\u00e8s au savoir ou de sa diffusion. Si la convergence de science et litt\u00e9rature n\u2019est pas apparue au tournant du XX\u00e8me si\u00e8cle, peut-\u00eatre a-t-elle toutefois connu un renouveau, qui n\u2019est sans doute pas \u00e9tranger \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9mergence massive des nouvelles technologies et en particulier de la litt\u00e9rature \u00e9lectronique. La pr\u00e9sence des sciences dans la litt\u00e9rature est-elle garante de son s\u00e9rieux, fait-elle miroiter au lecteur la promesse d\u2019un acc\u00e8s \u00e0 une v\u00e9rit\u00e9, f\u00fbt-elle partielle ? En outre, \u00e0 en croire nombre de chercheurs, la fiction joue un r\u00f4le dans la d\u00e9marche exp\u00e9rimentale, l\u2019\u00e9laboration des hypoth\u00e8ses et la construction du raisonnement. Semblables \u00e0 Dupin, le d\u00e9tective de Poe, qui \u00e0 la fois po\u00e8te et math\u00e9maticien, fait appel \u00e0 la raison et \u00e0 l\u2019imagination, certains romanciers utilisent-ils la fiction comme laboratoire de recherche scientifique, et r\u00e9ciproquement, sont-ils inspir\u00e9s par elle dans l\u2019\u00e9criture romanesque, que ce soit sur le mode m\u00e9taphorique, citationnel ou \u00ab factuel \u00bb, si l\u2019on peut d\u00e9signer ainsi un type de repr\u00e9sentation plus imm\u00e9diate des connaissances scientifiques ou des processus de leur recherche ? L\u2019\u0153uvre de Richard Powers offre un exemple frappant de repr\u00e9sentation des sciences et de v\u00e9rit\u00e9 scientifique, voire de sa qu\u00eate, dans la fiction, tandis que <\/strong>Paul West s\u2019approprie les jargons de la m\u00e9decine ou de l\u2019astronomie, s\u2019\u00e9merveillant de leur po\u00e9sie. Joseph McElroy, Don DeLillo, Steve Tomasula et de nombreux autres puisent dans les sciences des <\/strong>structures matricielles pour l\u2019\u00e9criture.<\/p>\n

On explorera donc les potentiels de la fiction dans la repr\u00e9sentation de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, sa mise en question, voire sa cr\u00e9ation.
\nBruner, Jerome : Making Stories : Law, Literature, Life<\/em>. Farrar Straus & Giroux, New York, 2002.
\nDevenirs du roman <\/em>Collectif, Essai. Inculte, Na\u00efve, 2007.
\nGault, Pierre : Lyrisme de l\u2019homme ordinaire. <\/em>Lambert-Lucas : Limoges, 2009.
\nLudot-Vlasak, Ronan et Claire Maniez, dir. : Discours et objets scientifiques dans l\u2019imaginaire am\u00e9ricain au XIX\u00e8 si\u00e8cle<\/em>. Grenoble : Ellug, 2010.
\nRabat\u00e9, Dominique : Le Roman et le sens de la vie. <\/em>Corti, 2010.
\nRicoeur, Paul : Histoire et v\u00e9rit\u00e9. <\/em>Seuil, 1955.
\nRosset, Cl\u00e9ment : Le R\u00e9el. Trait\u00e9 de l\u2019idiotie. <\/em>Minuit, 1997.
\nSalmon, Christian : Storytelling. <\/em>La D\u00e9couverte, 2007.
\nSchaeffer, Jean-Marie : Pourquoi la fiction ? <\/em>Seuil, 1999.<\/p>\n

– Truth in fiction<\/p>\n

<\/em>After the notion has been seriously shaken by postmodernism, could truth be staging a triumphant return into American fiction, via the representation of reality, a persuasive enough argument in communication but possibly just as powerful an incentive in the contemporary artistic field? When the artwork turns into a performance and the audience shares with the artist an experience of some kind, reality may appear to have taken the upper hand over artifice in art.<\/p>\n

Literature sometimes chooses its objects among marking events, vast catastrophes, shock-revelations or historical facts, that seem to bring into fiction a debate on truth aimed at letting it emerge, or even sometimes turning fiction into a privileged vector of truth, when the unspeakable escapes direct communication or even refuses any access to meaning. The terrifying nature of the real may have to do with its absolute indifference, which deprives the truth of any ethical power. The \u201ctrue\u201d then, what has not been tampered with, neither an imposture nor even a posture \u2012if that is possible\u2012, would be the raw event as it happens, becoming the \u201ctruth\u201d through interpretation only, and this even in scientific discourse, itself subject to new readings.<\/p>\n

In the contemporary field, the papers may focus on post-9-11 literature (Don DeLillo, Paul Auster, Jonathan Safran Foer \u2026), on texts related to torture (Percival Everett, Nick Flynn\u2026), to catastrophes, natural or of human origins, often dealt with through anticipation, science fiction or tales (Davis Schneiderman, Blake Butler, George Saunders \u2026) or on works staging the obsession with plots (Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, William Gaddis, Adam Haslett \u2026). A whole section of contemporary literature reflects a questioning about truth that was there before indeed, but under forms more specifically related to the times\u2019 living conditions and culture. (One may think of Jamesian plays on elusive discourses and tangential approach of a truth whose existence remains problematic, of Edgar Allan Poe\u2019s choice of the tale as a form, to express a system of thought and vision of the universe, or of the ethical and metaphysical import of the Melvillian fable of the quest for the white whale.)<\/p>\n

When studying the relations between truth and fiction, one should take into account truths of yet another kind. The various representations of science in fiction, recalling the latter\u2019s role as a mode of learning, raise the question of the access to knowledge or of its broadcasting. Although the convergence of science and literature did not appear at the turn of the XXth century, it may then have undergone a renewal that seems to be linked to the massive emergence of new technologies, hence particularly of electronic literature.<\/p>\n

Does the presence of sciences in literature grant how serious it is, does it lure the reader with some promise of an access, be it only limited, to truth? According to a great number of scientists, fiction plays a part in experimental processes, the elaboration of hypotheses and the construction of reasoning. Much like Dupin, Poe\u2019s French detective, who as both a poet and a mathematician appeals to reason and imagination, some novelists may use fiction as a laboratory for scientific experiments and reciprocally, be inspired by science in novelistic writing, either in a metaphoric way, or more directly through quotations or the factual representation of scientific knowledge and of investigation processes. Richard Powers\u2019 work offers a striking illustration of the representation of sciences and of scientific truth, while Paul West appropriates medical or astronomical jargons, marvelling at their poetry. Joseph McElroy, Don DeLillo, Steve Tomasula and many others tap sciences for matrix structures in writing.<\/p>\n

The potentials of fiction in the representation, questioning or even creation of truth will be explored.<\/p>\n

Bruner, Jerome : Making Stories : Law, Literature, Life<\/em>. Farrar Straus & Giroux, New York, 2002.
\nDevenirs du roman <\/em>Collectif, Essai. Inculte, Na\u00efve, 2007.
\nGault, Pierre : Lyrisme de l\u2019homme ordinaire. <\/em>Lambert-Lucas : Limoges, 2009.
\nLudot-Vlasak, Ronan et Claire Maniez, dir. : Discours et objets scientifiques dans l\u2019imaginaire am\u00e9ricain au XIX\u00e8 si\u00e8cle<\/em>. Grenoble : Ellug, 2010.
\nRabat\u00e9, Dominique : Le Roman et le sens de la vie. <\/em>Corti, 2010.
\nRicoeur, Paul : Histoire et v\u00e9rit\u00e9. <\/em>Seuil, 1955.
\nRosset, Cl\u00e9ment : Le R\u00e9el. Trait\u00e9 de l\u2019idiotie. <\/em>Minuit, 1997.
\nSalmon, Christian : Storytelling. <\/em>La D\u00e9couverte, 2007.
\nSchaeffer, Jean-Marie : Pourquoi la fiction ? <\/em>Seuil, 1999.<\/p>\n

Contacts: Sylvie Bauer<\/a> et Anne-Laure Tissut<\/a><\/p>\n

– 5. De la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 et du mensonge en photographie am\u00e9ricaine<\/p>\n

<\/em>Fran\u00e7ois Brunet (Universit\u00e9 de Paris-Diderot)
\nG\u00e9raldine Chouard (Universit\u00e9 de Paris-Dauphine)<\/p>\n

Cet atelier s’int\u00e9ressera \u00e0 l’oscillation r\u00e9currente, aux Etats-Unis, entre la conception arch\u00e9ologique de l’image photographique comme evidence<\/em>, c’est-\u00e0-dire comme t\u00e9moin naturel ou m\u00e9canique des ph\u00e9nom\u00e8nes, exprim\u00e9e \u00e0 travers ses usages m\u00e9moriels, militants et institutionnels d’une part, et l’ensemble des pratiques qui, de l’\u00e2ge du daguerr\u00e9otype \u00e0 l’\u00e8re digitale, mettent en cause cette doctrine (images fictionnelles, critiques th\u00e9oriques “anti-v\u00e9ritaires”, autres types de d\u00e9construction).<\/p>\n

On pourra s’int\u00e9r\u00e9sser en particulier aux d\u00e9tournements dont ont fait l’objet des images consacr\u00e9es comme “ic\u00f4nes”, du fait de leur influence r\u00e9elle ou suppos\u00e9e sur le cours des choses dans divers domaines (politique, social, l\u00e9gal) ou par leur usage dans la presse, l’historiographie ou encore la litt\u00e9rature.<\/p>\n

Les propositions de communications pourront porter sur des exemples particuliers d’images mais \u00e9galement envisager des probl\u00e9matiques historiques ou th\u00e9oriques de plus grande envergure.<\/p>\n

Elles pourront explorer tout \u00e0 la fois des pratiques et positions d\u00e9fendant la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 des images et d’autres qui mettent en lumi\u00e8re leur puissance de mensonge.
\nOutre le m\u00e9dium photographique, cet atelier souhaite \u00e9galement s’ouvrir \u00e0 ses avatars ult\u00e9rieurs (cin\u00e9ma, vid\u00e9o, image digitale, web…) et aux relations intertextuelles, intericoniques et interm\u00e9diales qui lui sont attach\u00e9es.
\nOn pourra aussi s’interroger sur la sp\u00e9cificit\u00e9 d’un destin “am\u00e9ricain” de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 et du mensonge en photographie.<\/p>\n

– Truth and lies in American photography<\/p>\n

<\/em>This workshop will focus on a recurring oscillation in the United States between two opposite views on photography : on one hand, the archaeological conception of the photographic images as evidence<\/em>, ie as natural or mechanical witnesses to phenomena (through their uses related to memory, activism and institutional functions) and on the other hand, a set of practices questioning this view from the age of the daguerreotype to the digital era (through fictional images, theoretical criticism about its \u201cuntruthfulness\u201d, various forms of deconstruction).<\/p>\n

Particularly interesting are the changes that iconic images have been subjected to on account of their real or supposed influence on the course of events in various areas (be it political, social or legal) and their use in the press, historiography or even literature.<\/p>\n

Proposals may concern specific examples of images but could also consider historical or theoretical issues of a larger scale.<\/p>\n

They may also explore practices and positions that defend the truth of images as well as those that bring to light their ability to lie.<\/p>\n

In addition to the photographic medium, this workshop will also be open to its subsequent avatars (cinema, video, digital imaging, the web) and intertextual, intericonic and intermedial links.<\/p>\n

This workshop would also like to raise the issue of the specificity of an American destiny of truth and lies in photography.<\/p>\n

Contacts: Fran\u00e7ois Brunet<\/a> et G\u00e9raldine Chouard<\/a><\/p>\n

– 6. Religions et v\u00e9rit\u00e9s dans l\u2019exp\u00e9rience nord-am\u00e9ricaine<\/p>\n

<\/em>Nathalie Caron (Universit\u00e9 Paris Est Cr\u00e9teil)
\nSabine Remanofsky (ENS Lyon)<\/p>\n

Aux \u00c9tats-Unis, un tiers de la population adulte (33%) consid\u00e8re, toutes religions confondues, que le texte sacr\u00e9 est litt\u00e9ralement vrai (U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, 2008). Toutefois, si 24% estiment que leur religion est la seule vraie religion, la seule capable de les mener \u00e0 la vie \u00e9ternelle, les Am\u00e9ricains sont en grande majorit\u00e9 (70%) convaincus que d\u2019autres religions peuvent les mener au salut, qu\u2019ils soient chr\u00e9tiens, juifs, musulmans, ou hindous. Pays fortement s\u00e9cularis\u00e9 et religieusement pluriel, longtemps domin\u00e9 de facto<\/em> si ce n\u2019est de jure<\/em> par le protestantisme, o\u00f9 pr\u00e8s de 90% des adultes se d\u00e9clarent croyants, la question de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 de la parole divine s\u2019y pose de mani\u00e8re centrale, dans la mesure o\u00f9 elle informe \u00e0 bien des \u00e9gards la nature des d\u00e9bats publics, ceux sur l\u2019identit\u00e9 de la nation am\u00e9ricaine en particulier, et, depuis les ann\u00e9es 1960, des guerres dites \u00ab culturelles \u00bb. Si, dans ces d\u00e9bats, particuli\u00e8rement vifs aujourd\u2019hui, se manifeste une divergence persistante entre religion et science, on y per\u00e7oit aussi l\u2019expression de la tension entre forces s\u00e9culi\u00e8res et forces religieuses qui fa\u00e7onne la culture am\u00e9ricaine depuis les origines nationales. On peut sans doute y d\u00e9celer aussi certains des effets d\u2019un march\u00e9 religieux toujours plus comp\u00e9titif, r\u00e9sultat d\u2019un pluralisme croissant, et du d\u00e9clin de l\u2019h\u00e9g\u00e9monie protestante qui lui est concomitant. S\u2019y r\u00e9v\u00e8lent \u00e9galement les recompositions du religieux qui s\u2019accompagnent d\u2019une perte des rep\u00e8res ancestraux et du d\u00e9veloppement du relativisme.<\/p>\n

L\u2019atelier cherchera \u00e0 mettre en \u00e9vidence la vari\u00e9t\u00e9 des confrontations qui ont oppos\u00e9 des r\u00e9gimes de connaissance diff\u00e9rents au cours de l\u2019histoire des \u00c9tats-Unis, de mani\u00e8re \u00e0 souligner le caract\u00e8re polymorphe du discours sur la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 religieuse dans l\u2019exp\u00e9rience nord-am\u00e9ricaine depuis l\u2019\u00e9poque coloniale. Pourront \u00eatre abord\u00e9es les th\u00e9matiques suivantes : 1) celles relatives au dynamisme interne des traditions religieuses, celui-ci produisant des courants dissidents et contribuant \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9mergence de nouvelles religions ; 2) celles issues du questionnement \u00e9pist\u00e9mologique hobbesien, prolong\u00e9 par les Lumi\u00e8res radicales, sur l\u2019autorit\u00e9 des \u00c9critures donn\u00e9es comme parole vraie ; 3) celles corr\u00e9l\u00e9es au conflit toujours ouvert entre deux r\u00e9gimes d\u2019acc\u00e8s \u00e0 la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, la religion et la science, notamment entre les grands monoth\u00e9ismes, selon lesquels Dieu est source de tout, et la th\u00e9orie darwinienne de l\u2019\u00e9volution qui con\u00e7oit l\u2019origine de l\u2019esp\u00e8ce humaine en dehors de toute intervention divine ; 4) celles mettant en regard plusieurs v\u00e9rit\u00e9s religieuses. Il s\u2019agira en effet de consid\u00e9rer la question dans une perspective large, inclusive des religions non abrahamiques, en particulier des religions autochtones, des world religions<\/em>, ou des nouveaux mouvements religieux (NMR), et de ne pas la limiter aux controverses mettant en jeu le fondamentalisme chr\u00e9tien.<\/p>\n

– Religions and Truths in the North-American Experience<\/p>\n

<\/em>In the United States, one third of the adult population (33%), regardless of religious tradition, say that the Holy Book is to be taken literally (U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, 2008). Although 24% of Americans say that their religion is the single true faith leading to eternal life, a large majority among them (70%), be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Hindu, claim that many religions can lead to eternal life. The United States is highly secularized, yet close to 90% of Americans say they believe in God. In this religiously diverse country, long dominated by a de facto<\/em> Protestant establishment, the issue of divine truth is central to the extent that it suffuses most of the public debates and culture wars, in particular those pertaining to the identity of the American nation. While these debates, at present particularly pointed, reveal a persistent conflict between religion and science, they also bring to light the ongoing tension between the secular and religious forces that have shaped American culture since its origins. They are also the upshot of a more competitive religious marketplace, the result of increasing religious pluralism and the concomitant decline of Protestant hegemony, as well as the outcome of religious shifts involving the promotion of relativism and the loss of traditional values.<\/p>\n

This workshop will seek to address the variety of confrontations which have opposed different systems of knowledge throughout U.S. history, with a view to underscoring the polymorphous character of discourses on religious truth in the North-American experience since the colonial period. Papers may focus on the following themes : 1) the internal dynamics of religious traditions as it produces dissident religious currents which in turn give rise to new religions; 2) Hobbesian epistemological questioning, which was then further enhanced by the Radical Enlightenment, on the authority of Scripture held as the true word; 3) the complex relationship and\/or conflict between two ways of accessing truth, namely science and religion, especially between the great monotheisms, which hold that God is the source of everything, and the Darwinian theory of evolution, which conceives of the origin of the human species outside any divine intervention ; 4) the plurality of religious truths. The purpose is to adopt a wide perspective on the issue at hand, inclusive of non-Abrahamic religions, especially indigenous religions, world religions or new religious movements (NRM). Therefore, the perspective should not be limited to debates involving Christian fundamentalism.<\/p>\n

Contacts: Nathalie Caron<\/a> et Sabine Remanofsky <\/a> <\/p>\n

– 7. Vies et contrevies: v\u00e9rit\u00e9s autobiographiques et biographiques en litt\u00e9rature<\/p>\n

<\/em>Yannicke Chupin (Universit\u00e9 de Franche-Comt\u00e9)
\nPeggy Pacini (Universit\u00e9 de Cergy-Pontoise)<\/p>\n

\u00ab Literature is invention. Fiction is fiction. To call a story a true story is an insult to both art and truth \u00bb, disait Nabokov \u00e0 ses \u00e9tudiants (Lectures on Literature<\/em>, 1980). Cet atelier se propose de s\u2019interroger sur la pertinence du concept de v\u00e9rit\u00e9 dans la litt\u00e9rature nord-am\u00e9ricaine de l\u2019apr\u00e8s-guerre \u00e0 nos jours.<\/p>\n

La r\u00e9flexion s\u2019appuiera sur le ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne de brouillage des genres entre autobiographie, biographie (textes r\u00e9f\u00e9rentiels) et romans, romans autobiographiques, autofictions (textes de fiction).<\/p>\n

Dans le cas de l\u2019\u00e9criture autobiographique, on pourra revenir sur la rupture des contrats de lecture d\u00e9finis par Philippe Lejeune dans son \u00e9tude sur l\u2019autobiographie. On s\u2019int\u00e9ressera \u00e0 cet espace priv\u00e9 qui s\u2019ouvre soudain au public en s\u2019interrogeant sur le besoin de v\u00e9rit\u00e9 : d\u00e9voiler la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, dire la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 pour un auteur ou lire la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 pour le lecteur.<\/p>\n

Parall\u00e8lement, si le fait m\u00eame de conter et de raconter d\u00e9nature l\u2019id\u00e9e de v\u00e9rit\u00e9, comment nier que toutes les histoires sont vraies puisqu\u2019on les invente, et qu\u2019on leur donne ainsi une v\u00e9rit\u00e9 \u00ab fictionnelle \u00bb, romanesque. Reste pourtant la nature pol\u00e9mique du concept de v\u00e9rit\u00e9 que ce soit dans le roman, quand son auteur r\u00e9invente par exemple la vie d\u2019un personnage c\u00e9l\u00e8bre, pour en \u00e9crire une biographie (Zoli<\/em> et Dancer<\/em> de Colum McCann) ; dans le roman autobiographique (Vladimir Nabokov, John Fante, William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, Edmund White, Dan Fante, etc.), les \u00ab memoirs<\/em> \u00bb (r\u00e9cits) (Wolf, a false memoir<\/em>, de Jim Harrison, The Invention of Solitude <\/em>et Hand to Mouth<\/em> de Paul Auster, Off to the Side<\/em> de Jim Harrison) o\u00f9 l\u2019auteur est libre de mentir, puisque comme le souligne Aragon, la t\u00e2che de l\u2019\u00e9crivain est de mentir vrai.<\/p>\n

On pourra aussi r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir \u00e0 la mani\u00e8re dont les fictions autobiographiques s\u2019\u00e9loignent de la notion conventionnelle de l\u2019autobiographie comme v\u00e9ridique ; ou encore voir comment certains auteurs \u00e9prouvent le besoin de revenir sur l\u2019\u00e9criture de romans autobiographiques (textes de fiction) souvent d\u00e9velopp\u00e9s en plusieurs volumes en fournissant leurs pendants r\u00e9f\u00e9rentiels : une autobiographie, des m\u00e9moires.<\/p>\n

Enfin on pourra faire dialoguer deux r\u00e9alit\u00e9s : les mensonges de l\u2019autobiographie et la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 du roman. Le mat\u00e9riau autobiographique dans le roman ne sert-il pas l\u2019auteur dans son d\u00e9sir d\u2019atteindre une certaine v\u00e9rit\u00e9 sur soi et le monde ?<\/p>\n

– \u00ab Lives and Counterlives: Truth in Literary Biography and Autobiography\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/em>\u201cLiterature is invention. Fiction is fiction. To call a story a true story is an insult to both art and truth,\u201d Vladimir Nabokov said to his students at Cornell. (Lectures on Literature<\/em>, 1980). This workshop aims to challenge the relevance of the concept of truth in literature. It will thus examine different angles from which the question of truth in post-war and contemporary American fiction and memoirs can be breached, starting from a reflexion on the blurring of genres: autobiography, biography (referential texts), and autobiographical novels (fictional texts).<\/p>\n

Autobiographical writing is fertile ground to approach the breach of the \u201creading contract\u201d as defined by Philippe Lejeune in his study on autobiography \u2013 the narrative of a historical truth of the author \u2013 especially one of the two presuppositions of his referential pact, i.e. the permanent truth of a name. A close scrutiny of this private space (the private \u201cI\u201d) opening onto the public eye will help question the drive for truth: the author\u2019s need to tell the whole truth or the reader\u2019s need to read the truth.<\/p>\n

Moreover, if the very act of storytelling alters the idea of truth itself, it cannot be refuted that all stories are true since they are sheer invention, thus endowing these fictions with a narrative \u201ctruth.\u201d Nonetheless, there remains the question of the controversial nature of truth in the novel, when the author, for instance, reinvents the life of a famous character to write his<\/em> biography (Zoli<\/em> and Dancer <\/em>by Colum McCann); in autobiographical novels (Vladimir Nabokov, John Fante, William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, Edmund White, Dan Fante, etc.) and in memoirs (Wolf, a false memoir<\/em>, by Jim Harrison, The Invention of Solitude <\/em>and Hand to Mouth<\/em> by Paul Auster, Off to the Side<\/em> by Jim Harrison) in which the author is free to lie.<\/p>\n

We will also consider autobiographical novels that stray away from the conventional notion of autobiography as true, and see how some novelists feel the urge to write autobiographical novels as fiction, often composed of different volumes, and rewrite their referential counterpart: an autobiography, a memoir. Eventually, forcing a dialogue between the lies of the autobiography and the truth of the novel brings to light two complex realities. Fundamentally, opening this dialogue also opens a reflexion on the author and the world, and the author\u2019s desire to reach a certain truth about the self and the world.<\/p>\n

Contacts: Yannicke Chupin<\/a> et Peggy Pacini <\/a><\/p>\n

– 8. La diplomatie de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, entre information et propagande<\/p>\n

<\/em>Annick Cizel (Universit\u00e9 Sorbonne Nouvelle \u2013 Paris 3)
\nMaud Quessard-Salvaing (Universit\u00e9 Sorbonne Nouvelle \u2013 Paris 3)<\/p>\n

<\/strong>Objet de discours, slogan de campagne, ou ambition de croisade id\u00e9ologique, la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 s\u2019est impos\u00e9e comme une arme privil\u00e9gi\u00e9e des strat\u00e9gies diplomatiques de la puissance am\u00e9ricaine. Depuis la d\u00e9claration de ces \u00ab v\u00e9rit\u00e9s \u00e9videntes \u00bb assorties de \u00ab droits inali\u00e9nables \u00bb qui scellent la naissance d\u2019un nouvel \u00c9tat au sein du concert des nations, aux ambitions humanistes et conqu\u00e9rantes de la Destin\u00e9e manifeste et \u00e0 leur h\u00e9ritage de \u00ab promotion de la d\u00e9mocratie \u00bb \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e8re contemporaine, la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 a tenu une place pr\u00e9pond\u00e9rante dans la strat\u00e9gie de supr\u00e9matie d\u2019une puissance victorieuse de l\u2019Autre. Elle est au c\u0153ur du contrat id\u00e9ologique qui fonde l\u2019Alliance occidentale du \u00ab monde libre \u00bb dans la guerre froide, de \u00ab l\u2019alliance des d\u00e9mocraties \u00bb (George W. Bush) ou du r\u00e9cent \u00ab partenariat des d\u00e9mocraties \u00bb (Hillary Clinton) consacr\u00e9s dans la lutte anti-terroriste transnationale de l\u2019apr\u00e8s 11 septembre.<\/p>\n

Ainsi la diplomatie des Etats-Unis a-t-elle fa\u00e7onn\u00e9 l\u2019image d\u2019une Am\u00e9rique id\u00e9ologis\u00e9e dans l\u2019universalit\u00e9 d\u2019un principe moral global, se dotant peu \u00e0 peu des outils de sa projection \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9chelle mondiale. Acteurs de cette diplomatie particuli\u00e8re, diplomates et \u00e9missaires d\u00e9p\u00each\u00e9s par le d\u00e9partement d\u2019\u00c9tat, universitaires et think-tanks<\/em>, tous s\u2019attachent \u00e0 v\u00e9hiculer les principes humanistes et th\u00e9ologiques d\u2019une destin\u00e9e politique \u00e0 vocation universelle, \u00e0 construire une mise en valeur de la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 s\u2019adressant tout \u00e0 la fois \u00e0 la logique raisonn\u00e9e des \u00ab esprits \u00bb et \u00e0 l\u2019affect \u00e9motionnel des \u00ab c\u0153urs \u00bb. En temps de guerre, surtout, la construction d\u2019une v\u00e9rit\u00e9 nationale prend alors toute sa place dans l\u2019arsenal de la s\u00e9curit\u00e9 nationale.<\/p>\n

Savamment th\u00e9oris\u00e9e, construite et mesur\u00e9e, la diplomatie publique participe de l\u2019appareil de la politique \u00e9trang\u00e8re des Etats-Unis. Elle est devenue au cours du XXe si\u00e8cle un atout dans la construction de \u00ab la vie dans la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 \u00bb (Vaclav Havel), le ressort principal du soft power<\/em> (Joseph Nye) au service des int\u00e9r\u00eats de s\u00e9curit\u00e9 nationale, un outil premier de la strat\u00e9gie totale du smart power<\/em> v\u00e9hicul\u00e9e par l\u2019Administration Obama. Cet atelier se propose de revenir sur la construction et la diffusion des discours et des images de la diplomatie de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 v\u00e9hicul\u00e9e par les Etats-Unis au cours du \u00ab long \u00bb XXe si\u00e8cle pour en comprendre les pr\u00e9suppos\u00e9s, les enjeux et les modes de fonctionnement \u00e0 travers diff\u00e9rentes \u00e9tudes de cas susceptibles de constituer et d\u2019illustrer un panorama significatif des lignes directrices du soft power<\/em> am\u00e9ricain.<\/p>\n

Contacts: Annick Cizel <\/a> et Maud Quessard <\/a><\/p>\n

– 9. Repr\u00e9sentations de l’ethnicit\u00e9 dans le discours historique aux Etats-Unis<\/p>\n

<\/em>Dominique Daniel (Oakland University, Michigan)<\/p>\n

Depuis que certains historiens ont d\u00e9clar\u00e9 l’objectivit\u00e9 de leur discipline un “noble r\u00eave”, pour reprendre l’expression de M. Novick, les universitaires se sont int\u00e9ress\u00e9s aux facteurs et processus qui fa\u00e7onnent le r\u00e9cit historique. Michel Rolph Trouillot, dont les travaux portent sur les relations entre histoire et pouvoir, distingue 4 \u00e9tapes dans le processus de cr\u00e9ation des r\u00e9cits historiques (\u00ab historical narratives \u00bb) : la cr\u00e9ation des faits (production des sources), l’assemblage des faits (cr\u00e9ation des archives), l’utilisation des faits (production des r\u00e9cits historiques) et l’interpr\u00e9tation r\u00e9trospective (production de l’histoire). Pour comprendre les biais qui influent sur notre connaissance du pass\u00e9, Trouillot affirme qu’il faut \u00e9tudier les processus \u00e0 l’oeuvre pour chacune de ces \u00e9tapes. C’est ce que se proposent de faire les communicants dans cet atelier, pour ce qui est de l’histoire de l’immigration et de l’ethnicit\u00e9 aux Etats-Unis. La premi\u00e8re communication rappelle que l’interpr\u00e9tation commence d\u00e8s le moment de constitution des sources primaires, un processus influenc\u00e9 par les diff\u00e9rences culturelles et les relations de pouvoir entre groupes collectionneurs et \u00ab collect\u00e9s \u00bb. De ces sources d\u00e9pendent les futures repr\u00e9sentations historiques des groupes ethniques et l’interpr\u00e9tation de l’exp\u00e9rience de l’immigration. Les deux communications suivantes montrent que ces repr\u00e9sentations historiques ont des enjeux politiques et id\u00e9ologiques. Elles sont l’objet de n\u00e9gotiations et de confrontations incessantes en fonction de l’\u00e9volution de ces enjeux. Elles sont cr\u00e9\u00e9es et recr\u00e9\u00e9es, utilisant les sources historiques existantes mais aussi les silences de l\u2019histoire. Dans un domaine sensible comme celui des relations ethno-raciales aux Etats-Unis, la constitution des collections d\u2019archives et leur utilisation et manipulation par les historiens mais aussi les groupes impliqu\u00e9s, illustrent bien les enjeux de la construction des \u00ab v\u00e9rit\u00e9s \u00bb historiques.<\/p>\n

– Representations of Ethnicity in American Historiography<\/em><\/p>\n

Since historians, like M. Novick, have begun to see objectivity in
\nhistory as a \u201cnoble dream\u201d, academics have become increasingly
\ninterested in the study of the factors and processes that shape
\nhistorical narratives. Michel-Rolph Trouillot, who specializes in the
\nrelationship between history and power, distinguishes between four
\nstages in the making of historical narratives: \u201cthe moment of fact
\ncreation (the making of sources); the moment of fact assembly (the
\nmaking of archives); the moment of fact retrieval (the making of
\nnarratives); and the moment of retrospective significance (the making
\nof history in the final instance)\u201d. To better understand the biases
\nthat influence our perception of the past, Trouillot affirms that it
\nis necessary to analyse the contextual processes involved at each
\nstage.<\/p>\n

This is what this workshop will try to do, as applied to the history
\nof immigration and ethnicity in the United States. The first paper
\nstarts with the reminder that interpretation begins with the
\ncollecting of primary sources, a process influenced by cultural
\ndifferences and power relationships between collecting and collected
\ngroups. From these sources depends the future historical
\nrepresentations of ethnic groups and interpretations of the immigrant
\nexperience. As the next papers illustrate, such historical
\nrepresentations have political and ideological stakes. They are the
\nobject of constant negotiations and confrontations that affect, and
\nare affected by those political and ideological stakes. They are
\ncreated and recreated, using existing historical sources but also the
\n\u201csilences\u201d of history.<\/p>\n

In such a sensitive issue as ethnocultural relations in the United
\nStates, the creation of archival collections and their use and
\nmanipulation by historians as well as interested parties illustrate
\nwhat is stake in the construction of historical \u201ctruths\u201d.<\/p>\n

Contact : Dominique Daniel<\/a><\/p>\n

– 10. Scandal in US News & Popular Culture<\/p>\n

<\/em>John Dean (Universit\u00e9 de Versailles Saint-Quentin)<\/p>\n

Scandal is a sometimes brutal, a sometimes surgically fine process in US civilization by which a festering lie may be exposed by the knife of truth. Or not. For one may tell the scandal and not tell the truth.
\nScandal comes in as many forms as its US era can handle. Shakespeare coined the word in Hamlet<\/em> \u2013 to mean a \u201cdisgraceful imputation\u201d — eight years before Jamestown was settled. Scandal was word manure in the original American mix. To paraphrase Jefferson, it seems that the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of an offense committed by a holder of high office, social shock, an outrageous event or person, disrepute itself, malignant gossip, a salacious edge. Why?
\nYet scandal runs a strange range in America from insightful social criticism to yellow tabloid vomit. Doesn\u2019t its gamut extend from the genteel yet thorny debate of The Federalist Papers and the first colonial-national uprisings (Shay\u2019s Rebellion, 1786: \u201cI am deeply abused\u201d) — through the nation\u2019s rough & tumble cable news mongers of CNN, Fox News, DrudgeReport and the Huffington Post?<\/p>\n

Having said this, how and where does one get at scandal in American civilization? Hasn\u2019t its increasing dominant form of expression over the course of US history been in the growing medium of news? Because news is the town crier. News makes way for the pillory. News can be the trap, the jaw in which the lie is caught. Or escapes.<\/p>\n

The student who delights in scandal can find it in an embarrassment of US forms. In the political arena of American government and politics, scandal flourishes on the local, state-wide or national level (notoriously Watergate, Irangate [Iran-Contra Affair], Lewinskygate, and many others). Along with politics comes a moral outrage about social issues; probably the best known 20th century example would be racial segregation \u2013 which still feeds the fires of US news in its multiple ethnic forms. <\/p>\n

Then comes celebrity use of making scandalous news in the USA. In terms of US Cultural History this phenomenon was probably first perfected by P.T.Barnum in his freak shows and elsewhere; Barnum a master at milking scandal to make an honest buck. Hasn\u2019t scandal been bread and butter of American movie, tv, and popular culture industries \u2013 extending from the sensational murder trials of Hollywood\u2019s Fatty Arbuckle in 1921 through O.J.Simpson\u2019s very own of 1994-95? And weren\u2019t they each about much more than mere murder? Considering the relation of US society, music and its cultural icons — where would old bump-and-grind Madonna be without scandal? To what extent has Curt Cobain\u2019s scandalous suicide kept him alive? What about Lady GaGa? Isn\u2019t the US entertainment industry electrified throughout by scandal? Is scandal of this ilk only superficial bread and circus for the hoi poloi or does it go deeper?<\/p>\n

The list goes on. There\u2019s business: the Cr\u00e9dit Mobilier of America scandal of 1872, the US savings and loan crisis of the 1980s & 1990s, the subprime mortgage scandal of the early 21st century. There\u2019s crime: the scandalous disruption of law and order during the Great Depression (particular with home-grown, road criminals such as Bonny & Clyde and John Dillinger), the Kefauver Commission\u2019s use of scandal in the early 1950s to get over the head of the political bosses to The People about a cause they truly seemed to care about, or TV scandal mellowed into the prosaic Prosac of middle class life in HBO\u2019s The Sopranos. There\u2019s religion: US radio priests and televangelism from the 1920s through the present time and the plague of sex-crimes rampant in US Catholicism over the last few years.
\nEach has their image, voice, and meaning. Each has scandal in common. Yet each has differently expressed America — awaiting, & inviting, your exploration. <\/p>\n

Contact: John Dean <\/a><\/p>\n

– 11. L\u2019exp\u00e9rience de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9<\/p>\n

<\/em>Agn\u00e8s Derail-Imbert (Ecole Normale Sup\u00e9rieure\/Universit\u00e9 Paris Sorbonne \u2013 Paris 4)
\nThomas Constantinesco (Universit\u00e9 Paris Diderot)<\/p>\n

Y a-t-il une exp\u00e9rience am\u00e9ricaine de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 ? On postulera deux grands modes d\u2019appr\u00e9hension et de constitution de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 qui, sans \u00eatre absolument propres \u00e0 l\u2019Am\u00e9rique, s\u2019y entrecroisent et s\u2019y d\u00e9ploient \u00e0 la faveur d\u2019une configuration historique et g\u00e9ographique singuli\u00e8re : d\u2019un c\u00f4t\u00e9, la r\u00e9v\u00e9lation, l\u2019apocalypse, et de l\u2019autre, la cr\u00e9ation, la fabrication. D\u00e8s avant sa d\u00e9couverte, l\u2019Am\u00e9rique est imagin\u00e9e comme le lieu de l\u2019av\u00e8nement de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Selon ce sch\u00e8me apocalyptique, typique de la pens\u00e9e puritaine, l\u2019avanc\u00e9e dans le d\u00e9sert am\u00e9ricain est la trace d\u2019un cheminement vers l\u2019accomplissement de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 et son d\u00e9voilement suivant le plan divin. Dans cette perspective, \u00ab Am\u00e9rique \u00bb est le nom encore ind\u00e9chiffrable de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, qui n\u2019en finit pas de se d\u00e9couvrir au fil de l\u2019ex\u00e9g\u00e8se et de la longue scrutation des signes. Et c\u2019est en ce sens que la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 r\u00e9v\u00e9l\u00e9e a partie li\u00e9e avec les lettres, avec la lettre comprise comme objet d\u2019une herm\u00e9neutique et instrument heuristique. Conjointement cependant, cette entreprise de d\u00e9chiffrement se double d\u2019un d\u00e9sir de construire le sens de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, car le travail de la lettre invente la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 au moment m\u00eame o\u00f9 il pr\u00e9tend la d\u00e9voiler. De ce point de vue, \u00ab Am\u00e9rique \u00bb serait le nom des v\u00e9rit\u00e9s possibles. La v\u00e9rit\u00e9 n\u2019est pas l\u00e0, apodictique, attendant d\u2019\u00eatre d\u00e9couverte, et encore moins v\u00e9rifi\u00e9e, mais elle se fait au gr\u00e9 de l\u2019exp\u00e9rience. Comme le dira William James : \u00ab Truth is made<\/em>, just as wealth, health and strength are made, in the course of experience. \u00bb V\u00e9rit\u00e9 processuelle, donc, qui r\u00e9sulte d\u2019une s\u00e9rie de transactions entre la conscience individuelle et le monde, et suppose une forme de confiance dans la conversion possible de l\u2019un dans l\u2019autre. La connaissance s\u2019\u00e9labore au cours d\u2019une aventure o\u00f9 la conscience se constitue, s\u2019amplifie ou se r\u00e9tracte, selon l\u2019intensit\u00e9 et l\u2019\u00e9tendue des connexions physiques et mentales qui relient la pens\u00e9e \u00e0 ce qui l\u2019environne. <\/p>\n

Cet atelier souhaiterait s\u2019interroger sur le conflit entre ces deux modalit\u00e9s de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 qui traverse les textes am\u00e9ricains. Les propositions pourront porter sur l\u2019ensemble des lettres am\u00e9ricaines sans distinction de genre, ni d\u2019\u00e9poque.<\/p>\n

– The Experience of Truth<\/p>\n

<\/em>Is there an American experience of truth? Two modes of apprehending as well as constructing the truth, while not strictly native, may be said to have flourished in America and to have come together under specific historical and geographical conditions. One of these modes may be called revelatory or apocalyptic whereas the other pertains to creation or fiction. Even before it was discovered, America was imagined as the place where the world would witness the advent of truth. This apocalyptic paradigm, typical of the Puritans\u2019 way of thinking, conceives of the American errand into the wilderness as a step towards the ultimate unveiling of truth and as its exposure according to God\u2019s providential design. In this perspective, \u201cAmerica\u201d is truth\u2019s undecipherable name, whose meaning is gradually uncovered as the signs of its manifestation are tracked down and interpreted. Signs and letters are thus both a hermeneutical object and a heuristic instrument, so that, in America, literature has been, from the start, inseparable from the quest for truth. Simultaneously, however, such interpretive endeavour has been coupled with a desire to fashion truth, since writing contributes to inventing the meaning of truth even as it claims to unravel it. From this alternative perspective, \u201cAmerica\u201d is the name for all possible truths, which are not \u201cout there\u201d and waiting to be discovered, let alone verified, but are to be fashioned in the flux of experience. William James encapsulates this perspective on truth: \u201cTruth is made, just as wealth, health and strength are made, in the course of experience.\u201d Truth is a process, then, which results from a series of transactions between the subject\u2019s consciousness and the world and presupposes some kind of trust in the possible conversion of one into the other. Knowledge develops in the course of an adventure that sees consciousness also take shape, expand and retract, according to the intensity and extent of the physical and mental connexions that link thought to its environment.
\nThis workshop aims to look at the relations between these two versions of truth in American literature. Papers may focus on any aspect and period of American letters.
\n<\/p>\n

<\/em>Contacts: Agn\u00e8s Derail-Imbert<\/a> et Thomas Constantinesco<\/a>.<\/p>\n

– 12. La v\u00e9rit\u00e9 : sa couleur, son sexe, sa culture \u2013 relativisme et absolutisme en histoire des id\u00e9es.<\/p>\n

<\/em>Patrick Di Mascio (Universit\u00e9 de Provence)<\/p>\n

Le pragmatisme, mouvement philosophique et intellectuel tenu pour un parfait reflet de l\u2019id\u00e9ologie am\u00e9ricaine par Bertrand Russell, pose de fa\u00e7on frontale la question de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 en tant qu\u2019il tourne le dos aux conceptions de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 comme \u00ab correspondance avec la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 \u00bb ou comme \u00ab coh\u00e9rence \u00bb. Le pragmatisme, de Peirce \u00e0 Rorty, quoique de mani\u00e8res fort diff\u00e9rentes, fait des th\u00e9ories, ou plus simplement des id\u00e9es, des hypoth\u00e8ses destin\u00e9es \u00e0 cr\u00e9er du possible et non des \u00e9difices contribuant \u00e0 la fabrications de dogmes. A cet \u00e9gard, il constitue le versant am\u00e9ricain de l\u2019\u00e8re du soup\u00e7on \u00e0 l\u2019europ\u00e9enne, de Nietzsche \u00e0 Freud en passant par Marx. <\/p>\n

Gageons donc qu\u2019il existe un noyau pragmatiste et pragmatique dans l\u2019immense corpus de l\u2019histoire intellectuelle des Etats-Unis. M\u00eame si le pragmatisme n\u2019est pas le tout de la pens\u00e9e am\u00e9ricaine, il pose de fa\u00e7on radicale une question r\u00e9currente en l\u2019histoire des id\u00e9es : la fa\u00e7on dont une pens\u00e9e se confronte \u00e0 une autorit\u00e9 dont la notion de v\u00e9rit\u00e9 para\u00eet l\u2019aboutissement. Les exemples sont l\u00e9gions : on pensera bien s\u00fbr \u00e0 la tradition issue d\u2019Emerson et de Thoreau, mais aussi \u00e0 tous les mouvements qui se sont trouv\u00e9s confront\u00e9s \u00e0 des normes engageant de quelque fa\u00e7on la question de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 \u00e0 la fa\u00e7on dont se fabrique la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. <\/p>\n

Ainsi, derri\u00e8re le d\u00e9bat sur le multiculturalisme, on discernera sans peine la question de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 des croyances et le souci de conf\u00e9rer \u00e0 chaque syst\u00e8me de croyance une \u00e9gale dignit\u00e9 – et il en va de m\u00eame pour les questions religieuses. La contestation f\u00e9ministe a eu comme effet de jeter le doute sur la science et son discours qui s\u2019adosse \u00e0 des qualit\u00e9s \u00ab masculines \u00bb et s\u2019appuie sur des dualismes solidement ancr\u00e9es (raison\/passion ; masculin\/f\u00e9minin). Quant au domaine litt\u00e9raire, c\u2019est sans doute la question du canon qui pose le plus clairement la question du vrai : les \u00ab grands textes \u00bb ne sont-ils pas porteurs d\u2019une v\u00e9rit\u00e9 qui ferait d\u00e9faut aux autres, tenus pour mineurs, voire qui seraient exclus du champ litt\u00e9raire, la question esth\u00e9tique servant de voile \u00e0 la question des \u00ab v\u00e9rit\u00e9s \u00bb v\u00e9hicul\u00e9es par le texte ?<\/p>\n

Cet atelier se propose donc de r\u00e9unir des contributions qui rel\u00e8vent de l\u2019histoire des id\u00e9es et qui posent en somme la question de savoir dans quelle mesure la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 est la chose la mieux partag\u00e9e. <\/p>\n

– Truth : its color, gender and culture \u2013 relativism and absolutism in intellectual history.<\/p>\n

Pragmatism, allegedly a perfect reflection of American ideology (see B. Russell\u2019s scathing remarks on
\npragmatism\u2019s provincialism), entails a radical reassessment of the question of truth. The European
\nintellectual tradition produced two visions of truth: truth as correspondence to reality and truth as
\ninner consistency. Pragmatism challenged the notion of truth as universal and fixed, and insisted
\non the hypothetical quality of our ideas and theories. Through its assault on truth, pragmatism
\ncontributed to the intellectual climate that made possible the emergence of relativistic stances on
\nthe cultural scene. In more ways than one, pragmatism has exemplified antiauthoritarianism. This
\nworkshop will welcome contributions that focus on the challenge to the cultural and intellectual
\navatars of the idealistic conception of truth that pragmatism undermined.<\/p>\n

Possible areas of culture where the pragmatic lesson reverberates are many. The debate over
\nmulticulturalism is underlined by a reconstruction of the notion of truth and its correlates: each
\ncommunity tries to promote its own system of values and its creeds, thus sapping our universalistic
\npreconceptions. The feminist protest threw doubt on the uses of truth in one of the bastions
\nof \u201cobjectivity\u201d, namely science: Evelyn Fox Keller, for one, exposed the phallocentrism of scientific
\ndiscourse that depicts science as a male activity dealing with a feminine, passive nature. The question
\nof race recapitulates the issue of truth as a cluster of norms that lies at the core of a vast and
\ncomplex power game. The literary field also is saturated with the question of truth: the \u201ccanon\u201d,
\nonce put to the pragmatic test, appears as a corpus designated to typify aesthetic norms that really
\nact as a veil covering up ideological assumptions, thus leaving unquestioned the truths harbored in
\nthe text.<\/p>\n

Truth as something provisional, truth as a necessary fiction that makes action and thinking possible:
\nsuch is the pragmatic angle from which all claims to \u201ctruth\u201d will be examined.<\/p>\n

Contact : Patrick Di Mascio<\/a><\/p>\n

– 13. Quelles v\u00e9rit\u00e9s pour l’art ?<\/p>\n

<\/em>Eliane Elmaleh (Universit\u00e9 du Maine, Le Mans)<\/p>\n

L’histoire de l\u2019art montre que n’importe quelle r\u00e9alit\u00e9 historique peut devenir la sc\u00e8ne d\u2019une \u00ab mise en forme \u00bb esth\u00e9tique. Mais, ce faisant, l\u2019art transforme la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 qui lui sert de mat\u00e9riau afin de re-pr\u00e9senter son essence telle qu\u2019il la voit, de refl\u00e9ter le r\u00e9el selon son propre regard. La question de la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 est-elle alors encore l\u00e9gitime ? Et de quelle r\u00e9alit\u00e9 s’agit-il ? L’art se constitue-t-il de fa\u00e7on autonome en contradiction avec la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 ? Sans cette autonomie, succomberait-il \u00e0 la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 qu\u2019il cherche \u00e0 appr\u00e9hender ? Toutes ces questions sont autant de pistes que l’on peut suivre pour tenter d’appr\u00e9hender les v\u00e9rit\u00e9s auxquelles l’art peut pr\u00e9tendre. On pourra ainsi se demander si l\u2019hyperr\u00e9alisme \u2012qui n’est pas dissociable d’une survivance d’une longue tradition figurative am\u00e9ricaine\u2012 qui se caract\u00e9rise par un rendu minutieux de la r\u00e9alit\u00e9, adh\u00e8re au r\u00e9el et \u00e0 une certaine forme de v\u00e9rit\u00e9 parce qu’imitant la technique pr\u00e9cise des gros plans photographiques. Si l’on pense aux photographies de Diane Arbus, fascin\u00e9e par les personnages hors normes, ou encore \u00e0 celles tout aussi pol\u00e9miques de Robert Mapplethorpe, on pourra se demander si leur v\u00e9rit\u00e9 se situe dans ce qu’ils veulent donner \u00e0 voir et ce faisant, de quelles v\u00e9rit\u00e9s il s’agit. <\/p>\n

Pour les modernistes, qui croyaient au progr\u00e8s et \u00e0 la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, l\u2019art \u00e9tait la voix de la contestation, la \u00ab voix de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 \u00bb qui s\u2019opposait aux forces de l’obsolescence et de l’hypocrisie. Lorsque la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9tablie ne pouvait plus donner une image du monde tel qu’il \u00e9tait, l’art entrait en sc\u00e8ne pour d\u00e9noncer ses pratiques et r\u00e9tablir une v\u00e9rit\u00e9 nouvelle. L’art se voulait \u00eatre la voie courageuse, celle qui marquait son opposition et qui finissait par \u00eatre entendue. On pourra alors se demander quelle \u00e9tait la place de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 dans cette opposition, de la m\u00eame mani\u00e8re qu’on questionnera la notion de \u00ab culture de la r\u00e9sistance \u00bb li\u00e9e \u00e0 la v\u00e9rit\u00e9.<\/p>\n

La v\u00e9rit\u00e9 est une constante dans la d\u00e9finition du r\u00e9alisme socialiste, mouvement tr\u00e8s en vogue dans l’Am\u00e9rique des ann\u00e9es 30, v\u00e9rit\u00e9 attach\u00e9e \u00e0 une conception marxiste du monde ; l\u2019art doit \u00eatre r\u00e9volutionnaire et prendre part \u00e0 la lutte pour la lib\u00e9ration des individus d\u2019une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 oppress\u00e9e. La \u00ab v\u00e9rit\u00e9 de l\u2019art \u00bb est de refl\u00e9ter le manque de libert\u00e9 d\u2019une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 et r\u00e9side dans son pouvoir de rompre le monopole de la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 \u00e9tablie. On pourra questionner ce monde esth\u00e9tique comme principe de r\u00e9alit\u00e9 diff\u00e9rent. Lorsque l\u2019art d\u00e9finit ses objectifs et revendique l’\u00e9nonciation de sa propre v\u00e9rit\u00e9, parvient-il alors \u00e0 s’\u00e9manciper d’une r\u00e9alit\u00e9 unidimensionnelle ? Les oeuvres produites pendant cette p\u00e9riode attestent-elles ou non d’une d\u00e9faillance de l’art en faveur d’une r\u00e9alit\u00e9\/v\u00e9rit\u00e9 ? <\/p>\n

Depuis l’\u00e9mergence de l’art postmoderne au milieu des ann\u00e9es 60, cette probl\u00e9matique de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 rel\u00e8ve-t-elle encore du possible ou n’est-elle plus que non-sens ? Le point de vue \u00e9pist\u00e9mologique qui sous-tend ce mouvement \u00e9tant le relativisme, il n’existe plus de vrai absolu, ni de faux. L’art postmoderne ayant cr\u00e9\u00e9 une histoire de l’art \u00e0 facettes multiples, ayant \u00e9crit des histoires parall\u00e8les au lieu de l’histoire lin\u00e9aire que les mouvements pr\u00e9c\u00e9dents avaient offert, que devient la notion de v\u00e9rit\u00e9 universelle objective ? A-t-elle laiss\u00e9 la place \u00e0 de multiples versions de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, garante d’une tol\u00e9rance pour une diversit\u00e9 des opinions ? Dans son ouvrage intitul\u00e9 The Transfiguration of the Commonplace<\/em>, Arthur C. Danto (1981) d\u00e9crit une exposition artistique dans laquelle huit toiles carr\u00e9es rouges identiques sont cens\u00e9es \u00eatre huit repr\u00e9sentations d’un genre diff\u00e9rent. Cet exemple, qui peut bien \u00e9videmment \u00eatre per\u00e7u comme une pure provocation, illustre t-il l’impasse \u00e0 laquelle peut mener la recherche d’une \u00ab v\u00e9rit\u00e9 \u00bb dans l’art ? L’oeuvre d’art a toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 plurivoque, m\u00eame si les artistes, jusque vers la fin du XX\u00e8me si\u00e8cle, s\u2019attachaient \u00e0 reproduire une \u00ab r\u00e9alit\u00e9 \u00bb d’apr\u00e8s nature. Cette pluralit\u00e9 est criante aujourd’hui. On se demandera si elle permet d’affirmer que la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 dans l’art ne peut \u00eatre qu’un postulat subjectif, li\u00e9 d’une part \u00e0 l’objectif et \u00e0 la pratique de l’artiste, d’autre part au regard du spectateur, et enfin au contexte socioculturel dans lequel l’oeuvre est produite.<\/p>\n

Cet atelier se propose donc de questionner le r\u00f4le que peut avoir l\u2019art dans la recherche de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. L’art est-il un agitateur ext\u00e9rieur comme il a pu l’\u00eatre dans l’avant-garde moderne ou n’est-il au contraire que la capacit\u00e9 qu\u2019a la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 d’absorber toute v\u00e9rit\u00e9, qu’elle soit une voix discordante ou harmonique pour la transformer en produit de consommation ?<\/p>\n

– What truths for Art?<\/em><\/p>\n

Art History shows that any historical reality may be translated into aesthetic terms. Therefore one may wonder if the question of reality is still legitimate. Which reality should we consider? Can art be constituted autonomously in opposition to reality? Without this autonomy, would it fall victim to the reality it seeks to tackle? All these questions amount to the many ways of apprehending the truths that art can claim to reveal. Thus we can wonder if hyperrealism \u00bewhich cannot be dissociated from a long figurative tradition in American art and is characterized by a close representation of reality\u00be refers to a certain kind of truth because it imitates the photographic technique of close ups.<\/p>\n

For modernists who believed in progress and truth, art was the voice of protest, the voice of truth which fought against the voices of obsolescence and hypocrisy. When mainstream society could not provide a reliable picture of the world as it was, art then came onto the stage to challenge social practices and establish a new truth. Art was the way of courage, marking opposition and in the end it triumphed. The role of truth in this opposition will be interrogated as well as the notion of \u201ccultural resistance\u201d.<\/p>\n

Art was constantly invoked in socialist realism, an art movement which was fashionable in the 30s in the US when truth was linked to a Marxist interpretation of the world. The world of aesthetics as a different reality principle can be interrogated. When art defines its own objectives and claims to speak its own truth, can we say it frees itself from a unidimensional reality?<\/p>\n

Since the emergence of post-modernism in the mid 60s, the question of truth may have moved away from the possible to the realm of meaninglessness. Epistemologically, relativism undergirds postmodernism, therefore there is neither absolute truth nor absolute falsehood. Can one still refer to an objective, universal truth? Or instead are there multiple versions of truth that ensure toleration for a diversity of opinions?<\/p>\n

A work of art has always been multilayered even if, till the end of the 20th century, artists strove to represent a \u201creality\u201d after nature. This diversity is prevalent today. Therefore, one needs to wonder whether truth in art is only a subjective stance which is connected to objective reality and the practice of the artist on the one hand, and to the spectator\u2019s gaze and to the socio-cultural context in which art is produced on the other.<\/p>\n

This workshop aims therefore at questioning the role of art in the search for truth. Does art function as a source of contestation as was the case fort the modernist avant-garde or, on the contrary, does it help society absorb any kind of truth whether it be one of protest or one of approval in order to transform it into consumer goods?<\/p>\n

Contact : Eliane Elmaleh<\/a><\/p>\n

– 14. V\u00e9rit\u00e9, contrefa\u00e7on, faussaires : vers une litt\u00e9rature de la parano\u00efa ?<\/p>\n

<\/em>Brigitte F\u00e9lix (Universit\u00e9 du Maine)
\nAnthony Larson (Universit\u00e9 Rennes 2)<\/p>\n

La contrefa\u00e7on ou le faux (et le faussaire) hantent un imaginaire am\u00e9ricain obs\u00e9d\u00e9 par la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 depuis ses plus lointaines origines. Ainsi les Puritains scrutaient-ils les signes de l\u2019approbation de Dieu sur ce territoire nouveau qu\u2019ils colonisaient, mais ils \u00e9taient perp\u00e9tuellement pr\u00e9occup\u00e9s par la possibilit\u00e9 que ces signes qu\u2019ils guettaient ou bien qu\u2019ils d\u00e9chiffraient puissent \u00eatre des contrefa\u00e7ons destin\u00e9es \u00e0 les pi\u00e9ger. Depuis Cotton Mather et les proc\u00e8s de Salem, depuis The Scarlet Letter<\/em> et The Confidence Man<\/em>, depuis The Great Gatsby<\/em>, ou bien encore The Recognitions<\/em>, la litt\u00e9rature am\u00e9ricaine est obs\u00e9d\u00e9e par le d\u00e9chiffrement des signes et par la distinction entre le vrai et le faux. Comme la br\u00e8ve liste ci-dessus le sugg\u00e8re, la parano\u00efa dans la litt\u00e9rature am\u00e9ricaine vient de l\u2019incertitude constante qu\u2019il puisse y avoir une v\u00e9rit\u00e9, de la crainte d\u2019\u00eatre pris au jeu de la lettre et de se retrouver, en fin de compte, avec entre les mains l\u2019\u00e9quivalent litt\u00e9raire d\u2019un paquet de fausse monnaie. <\/p>\n

Ce qui appara\u00eet alors n\u2019est pas tant la d\u00e9faite de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 (entendue aussi au sens logique) dans la culture am\u00e9ricaine que le mouvement dynamique, sous-jacent, du faux, de la contrefa\u00e7on et des jeux de confiance qui fournissent une bien curieuse \u00e9nergie \u00e0 la production litt\u00e9raire am\u00e9ricaine. Cet atelier souhaite donc recueillir des propositions de communication sur le faux, la fraude et la contrefa\u00e7on dans la litt\u00e9rature am\u00e9ricaine, particuli\u00e8rement au XXe si\u00e8cle. On retiendra tout sp\u00e9cialement les communications abordant des questions telles que la fraude, la contrefa\u00e7on, l\u2019obsession du complot et de la tromperie au XXe si\u00e8cle, la crise de confiance dans la v\u00e9racit\u00e9 de la repr\u00e9sentation, le plagiat et la cr\u00e9ation litt\u00e9raire, la crise de l\u2019originalit\u00e9 et de l\u2019autorit\u00e9, les rapports entre parano\u00efa et litt\u00e9rature. <\/p>\n

– Truth, Fakery, and Frauds: towards a literature of paranoia?<\/p>\n

<\/em>The fake or fraud (and counterfeiter) have haunted the American imaginary, obsessed by the truth, from its earliest origins: the Puritans sought signs of God\u2019s approval in the territory they colonized but were constantly troubled by the possibility that the signs they sought or deciphered were counterfeits, laid to entrap them. From Cotton Mather through the Salem Witch Trials, from The Scarlet Letter<\/em> to The Confidence Man<\/em>, The Great Gatsby<\/em>, or The Recognitions<\/em>, American literature has been obsessed with properly deciphering signs, distinguishing the true from the false. As this short list indicates, the paranoia of American literature is in the constant uncertainty of the truth, of being taken in by the confidence game of letters and finding oneself holding the literary equivalent of a stack of fake bills. <\/p>\n

What thus appears is perhaps not the failure of truth and truth value in American culture but an underlying dynamic of falseness, fakery, and confidence games that provides a curious energy to American literary production. This panel invites contributions on fraud and fakery in American literature, particularly with regards to the twentieth century. Of particular interest would be papers that examine fraud, counterfeits, the obsession with plots and deceit in the twentieth century, the crisis of confidence in the veracity of representation, plagiarism and literary creation, the crisis of originality and authorship, paranoia and literature, among others.<\/p>\n

Contacts: Brigitte F\u00e9lix<\/a> et Anthony Larson<\/a><\/p>\n

– 15. Truth Value Across Media : (Un)telling 9\/11<\/em><\/p>\n

Divina Frau-Meigs (Paris Sorbonne nouvelle)
\n S\u00e9bastien Mort (Paris Sorbonne nouvelle)<\/p>\n

9\/11 and the war on terror have left a mark on American media, but as often with media, not where it was expected. Such is the premise of this workshop, that \u2026 The treatment of the trauma has not been frontal, beyond removing some pictures of the World Trade Center or shooting a movie or two on the theme. The treatment has been much more circuitous, and so has been the interpretation of the truth value of the event. Several media strategies will be analyzed in this workshop, from the perspective of news and from the perspective of fiction, showing how American culture is dealing with the trauma a decade after the fact. <\/p>\n

In the case of news, R\u00e9mi Brulin demonstrates how the lack of definition of \u201cTerror\u201d in the ante 9\/11 period sets the scene for all the hesitations between truth and lies that follows the explanation of the event. S\u00e9bastien Mort questions the fragility of the norm of objectivity as a truth value paradigm in journalism and shows its failure to ensure the credibility of the profession in the Bush era. Mathieu O\u2019Neil explores the issue further by looking at the online debates around conspiracy and the wikileaks that question the authority of experts and allow every one to construct their truth.<\/p>\n

In the case of fiction, Divina Frau-Meigs considers the cognitive turn in serial story-telling, where many narratives about detection express a way of coping with the event, often by un-telling or re-telling it in such a way as to allow the mourning for the departed. Nolwenn Mingant analyzes the cinematic mechanism of telling lies to get at the truth as a political mechanism that warns the audience about the ambiguity of truth and of story-telling. All in all the workshop aims at showing the role of media in engaging the audience in the process of dealing with the traumatic event as well as their creative work at repairing and redefining it.<\/p>\n

Contacts: Divina Frau-Meigs:<\/a> et S\u00e9bastien Mort<\/a><\/p>\n

– 16. Seeking the truth: American documentary culture<\/p>\n

<\/em>Fiona McMahon (Universit\u00e9 de Bourgogne)
\nAnne Ollivier-Mellios (Universit\u00e9 Paris 13)<\/p>\n

Documentary culture addresses pressures to memorialize historical events in twentieth-century America. In doing so, it exemplifies the relationships that are formed between political and aesthetic spheres. Whether in literature, photography, film or in the press, the document is taken up in a time of crisis as an opportunity for the disclosure of \u201ctruth.\u201d In its deployment the document carries the features of the context and the experiment, technological and aesthetic, of the historical moment. For instance, with respect to the 1920s and the 1930s, documentary culture retains a place alongside what has been called literature\u2019s \u201ccultural work\u201d (Michael Thurston). Functioning as an intersection of craft and socio-political conditions, such work embodies a complex dynamic between the search for truth, ideological agendas and the aim to shape the popular imaginary. <\/p>\n

When a writer undertakes \u201cthe extension of the document,\u201d as Williams Carlos Williams said for instance of Muriel Rukeyser, the boundaries between the imaginary and the factual are blurred, just as the threads shaping historical and fictional narrative become intertwined. Throughout the twentieth century the assimilation of documentary sources into poetry and the novel (Muriel Rukeyser, Charles Reznikoff, W.C. Williams, Marianne Moore, J. Dos Passos, Rosmarie Waldrop, Susan Howe) demonstrates how aesthetic experience meets with historical circumstance and political critique to form what Michael Thurston has called a \u201cpoetics of politicized memory.\u201d<\/p>\n

For intellectuals, be they essayists, philosophers or historians, the role they have to play in the quest for truth and for its recovery has been a key subject of inquiry since the beginning of the twentieth century. For example, in the case of the philosopher John Dewey, truth not being immutable, it needs to be discovered: \u201ctruth is not eternal and absolute but it can be made to happen.\u201d As for historians and essayists, examining the truth has meant observing not only the historical moment, but also the role of the political and historical document. What relationship should the intellectual entertain with the document? Is the bare document more objective (closer to the truth) than the interpretation provided by the intellectual? Is it the task of the intellectual to adopt a distanced standpoint as a means to question and interpret the document? The consensus amongst American intellectuals, to quote Arlette Farge, writing at the close of the 1980s, is that the intellectual needs to act as an arbitrator: \u201cthere needs to be an alternative to the engrossing power of the raw document.\u201d However, what determines the value of the intellectual\u2019s testimony and judgement?<\/p>\n

These questions sparked intellectual debate at the time of World War One, during and after the Russian Revolution, and remained at the forefront throughout the 1930s. Radical American magazines began to publish propaganda from the Wilson administration in support of the War as well as first the first documents reporting on Revolutionary Russia. Thanks to such opportunities as interviews of American politicians and Russian leaders, cartoons opposing scenes from a communist paradise and a capitalist hell, testimonies of intellectuals returning from Russia, the focus of intellectual activity was directed to the relationship between the political document, propaganda and truth.<\/p>\n

Participants in the workshop are invited to examine the formation of documentary culture within the context of the first decades of the twentieth century. What defines the authority of documentary with the onset of intermedial practices, combining photography, reportage, case histories and testimony? What record may be provided when conventions exercised by documentarists are appropriated by the intellectual, the poet and the novelist? <\/p>\n

– Culture documentaire et v\u00e9rit\u00e9<\/p>\n

<\/em>Si la culture documentaire est la r\u00e9ponse aux efforts qui se d\u00e9ploient pour comm\u00e9morer des \u00e9v\u00e9nements de l\u2019histoire am\u00e9ricaine au vingti\u00e8me si\u00e8cle, elle donne \u00e0 voir par la m\u00eame occasion la rencontre entre des sph\u00e8res politiques et artistiques. Le recours au document qu\u2019il soit litt\u00e9raire, iconographique, cin\u00e9matographique ou issu de la presse, devient en temps de crise (sociale, politique ou \u00e9conomique) un moyen d\u2019acc\u00e9der \u00e0 la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Le document est empreint du contexte \u00e0 la fois technologique et artistique dans lequel il est produit. \u00c0 titre d\u2019exemple, dans les ann\u00e9es vingt et trente, la culture documentaire commence \u00e0 occuper une place aux c\u00f4t\u00e9s de ce qui se d\u00e9cline comme \u00ab travail culturel \u00bb de la litt\u00e9rature, pour reprendre les mots du critique Michael Thurston. Au croisement de l\u2019art et du politique, le travail documentaire est le r\u00e9sultat d\u2019une dynamique complexe entre la recherche de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, le parti-pris id\u00e9ologique et l\u2019imaginaire populaire.<\/p>\n

Quand un \u00e9crivain entreprend d\u2019ouvrir les horizons du document, comme l\u2019a dit William Carlos Williams \u00e0 propos de Muriel Rukseyer, les fronti\u00e8res entre l\u2019imaginaire et le r\u00e9el s\u2019effacent, tout comme les fils qui tissent le r\u00e9cit historique et le r\u00e9cit romanesque s\u2019entrem\u00ealent. Tout au long du XXe si\u00e8cle, l\u2019incorporation de sources documentaires dans la po\u00e9sie ou le roman (Muriel Rukseyer, Charles Reznikoff, W.C.Williams, Marianne Moore, John Dos Passos, Rosemarie Waldrop ou Susan Howe) t\u00e9moigne de la mani\u00e8re dont l\u2019exp\u00e9rience esth\u00e9tique rencontre le fait historique et la critique politique pour cr\u00e9er ce que Michael Thurston appelle une \u00ab politique de m\u00e9moire politis\u00e9e \u00bb.<\/p>\n

Qu\u2019ils soient essayistes, philosophes ou historiens, les intellectuels se sont \u00e9galement pos\u00e9s, depuis le d\u00e9but du XXe si\u00e8cle, la question de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 et de leur r\u00f4le dans la qu\u00eate ou la restitution de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Pour le philosophe John Dewey, par exemple, la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 n\u2019est pas immuable mais doit \u00eatre d\u00e9couverte (\u00ab truth is not eternal and absolute but it can be made to happen \u00bb) Les historiens et les essayistes ont pour leur part abord\u00e9 la question de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 en interrogeant non seulement leur rapport \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9v\u00e9nement mais \u00e9galement au document politique et historique. Quel doit \u00eatre le rapport entre l\u2019intellectuel et le document ? Le document brut est-il plus objectif (proche de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9) que son interpr\u00e9tation par l\u2019intellectuel ? Le devoir de l\u2019intellectuel est-il aussi d\u2019interroger et d\u2019interpr\u00e9ter le document, c\u2019est-\u00e0-dire prendre de la distance ? La plupart des intellectuels am\u00e9ricains estiment alors, comme l\u2019\u00e9crira l\u2019historienne Arlette Farge \u00e0 la fin des ann\u00e9es 80, qu\u2019 \u00ab une restitution fascin\u00e9e du document brut ne suffit pas \u00bb et que l\u2019intellectuel a un r\u00f4le de m\u00e9diateur. Mais si l\u2019intellectuel interpr\u00e8te, quelle peut alors \u00eatre la valeur (de v\u00e9rit\u00e9) de son t\u00e9moignage et de son jugement ? <\/p>\n

Ces questions se posent avec beaucoup d\u2019acuit\u00e9 au moment la Premi\u00e8re guerre mondiale, pendant et apr\u00e8s la r\u00e9volution russe, jusques et y compris dans les ann\u00e9es trente. Les revues radicales am\u00e9ricaines commencent alors \u00e0 publier la propagande du gouvernement Wilson en faveur de la guerre ainsi que les premiers documents sur la r\u00e9volution bolchevique et la vie en Russie. Interviews de politiciens am\u00e9ricains et de dirigeants russes, cartoons<\/em> repr\u00e9sentant le paradis bolchevique et l\u2019enfer capitaliste, t\u00e9moignages d\u2019intellectuels ayant s\u00e9journ\u00e9 en Russie, sont autant d\u2019occasions pour les intellectuels am\u00e9ricains de s\u2019interroger sur le rapport entre document politique, propagande et v\u00e9rit\u00e9. <\/p>\n

Les propositions de communication pourront porter sur la formation d\u2019une culture documentaire aux Etats Unis dans les ann\u00e9es vingt et trente, voire m\u00eame au lendemain de la Seconde guerre mondiale. Quelle autorit\u00e9 accorde-t-on au documentaire issu des proc\u00e9d\u00e9s de fabrication interm\u00e9diale o\u00f9 s\u2019entrem\u00ealent photographies, reportages, rapports et t\u00e9moignage ? Quelle m\u00e9moire \u00e9crit-on d\u00e8s lors que des m\u00e9thodologies du documentariste sont appropri\u00e9es par l\u2019intellectuel, le po\u00e8te ou le romancier ?<\/p>\n

Contacts: Fiona McMahon<\/a> et Anne Ollivier-Mellios<\/a><\/p>\n

– 17. La v\u00e9rit\u00e9 politique : la construction d’un rapport de forces ?<\/em>
\nVincent Michelot, Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Lyon<\/p>\n

Cet atelier vise \u00e0 explorer la mani\u00e8re dont la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 est construite en politique am\u00e9ricaine au 20\u00e8me si\u00e8cle ou encore aujourd’hui. S’agit-il simplement d’une illusion philosophique manipul\u00e9e \u00e0 des fins partisanes et\/ou id\u00e9ologiques (il n’y a pas de v\u00e9rit\u00e9 en politique) ou plut\u00f4t d’un id\u00e9al vers lequel les gouvernants doivent tendre et les gouvern\u00e9s l’exiger par une participation active dans la conversation politique et la surveillance de la marche de l’\u00c9tat. On s’int\u00e9ressera d’abord au processus de construction de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 par le biais du fonctionnement des institutions et par son inscription dans le droit constitutionnel, par exemple dans le contr\u00f4le de constitutionnalit\u00e9 des lois par la Cour supr\u00eame. Les \u00e9changes se structureront aussi autour de l’antonyme de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, le secret, pour poser la question de la responsabilit\u00e9 des gouvernants devant le peuple. Le secret est-il au centre vital de la \u00ab nouvelle pr\u00e9sidence imp\u00e9riale \u00bb pl\u00e9biscitaire et irresponsable ou un produit d\u00e9riv\u00e9 d’un nouveau mode de fonctionnement entre l’\u00c9tat et des m\u00e9dias radicalement transform\u00e9s dans leur rapport \u00e0 la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 en politique, en raison notamment de la polarisation id\u00e9ologique? Enfin, li\u00e9 intimement \u00e0 la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 et \u00e0 la responsabilit\u00e9 se trouve le concept de transparence. Quand bien m\u00eame il existerait une ou des v\u00e9rit\u00e9s politiques sont elles ou doivent-elles \u00eatre accessibles ?<\/p>\n

– Truth in American Politics: a power play?
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

This workshop aims at exploring the way truth has been constructed\/construed in American politics in the 20th Century and until today. Is truth simply a philosophical illusion manipulated to partisan and ideological ends (there is not truth in politics) or rather an ideal at which elected officials should aim and the people should demand through both active participation in the political conversation and oversight of government operations. The workshop will focus first on the process of inventing\/creating\/building the truth in the daily functioning of institutions but also in its inscription into constitutional law through the process of judicial review, specially in the US Supreme Court. Exchanges will also be organized around the antonym of truth, secrecy, to raise the question of the accountability of elected officials to the people. Has secrecy become the vital center of a plebiscitary and unaccountable \u201cnew imperial presidency\u201d or is it simply the by-product of a new relationship between Government and the media, whose rapport to the truth has been radically altered because of ideological polarization? Finally the concept of truth cannot be disconnected from that of transparency. Even there is such a thing as truth in politics is it and should it be readily accessible?<\/p>\n

Contact: Vincent Michelot<\/a><\/p>\n

– 18. V\u00e9rit\u00e9 et mensonge au cin\u00e9ma<\/p>\n

<\/em>Gilles M\u00e9n\u00e9galdo (Universit\u00e9 de Poitiers)
\nAnne-Marie-Paquet-Deyris (Universit\u00e9 Paris Ouest Nanterre)<\/p>\n

V\u00e9rit\u00e9 et mensonge sont au c\u0153ur de la repr\u00e9sentation cin\u00e9matographique qu\u2019elle rel\u00e8ve du documentaire ou de la fiction. Comme l\u2019indique le titre fran\u00e7ais du c\u00e9l\u00e8bre film d\u2019Orson Welles, F For Fake<\/em> (V\u00e9rit\u00e9s et mensonges), les deux notions sont souvent indissociables. Le statut ontologique de l\u2019image filmique est d\u00e9j\u00e0 en soi probl\u00e9matique car elle produit une illusion de r\u00e9alit\u00e9. De plus, le cin\u00e9ma joue avec la \u00ab v\u00e9rit\u00e9 \u00bb \u00e0 tous les niveaux : celui de la fabrication du film, de la mise en sc\u00e8ne, du travail sur les d\u00e9cors, les effets sp\u00e9ciaux etc. Le num\u00e9rique cr\u00e9e un niveau d\u2019illusion suppl\u00e9mentaire puisqu\u2019il n\u2019a m\u00eame plus besoin d\u2019un r\u00e9f\u00e9rent dans la r\u00e9alit\u00e9.<\/p>\n

Cette vaste question peut se d\u00e9ployer selon divers axes. Le documentaire a bien s\u00fbr une place de choix. On pourra interroger l\u2019\u0153uvre de grands documentaristes comme Wiseman ou Kramer. On pourra \u00e9voquer la question de la s\u00e9lection et du montage des documents, le cin\u00e9ma de propagande, la manipulation des images et du point de vue chez certains cin\u00e9astes (Michael Moore par exemple), la \u00ab v\u00e9rit\u00e9 \u00bb du cin\u00e9ma ethnographique (chez Flaherty par exemple), le genre particulier du \u00ab mockumentary \u00bb etc.<\/p>\n

En ce qui concerne le cin\u00e9ma de fiction, la th\u00e9matique de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 et du mensonge est r\u00e9currente. Le film historique tente de reconstruire la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 de tel ou tel \u00e9v\u00e9nement, par exemple l\u2019affaire Rosenberg, le Watergate etc De nombreux films hollywoodiens s\u2019interrogent sur le r\u00f4le de la presse et d\u00e9noncent les manipulations des pouvoirs. La question de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 peut aussi se poser \u00e0 propos du biopic, faut-il dire la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 sur les grands hommes ?; On pourra \u00e9voquer \u00e0 ce propos les biographies d\u2019hommes politiques, de savants ou d\u2019\u00e9crivains. Un western comme L\u2019homme qui tua Liberty Valance<\/em> de John Ford pose clairement la question de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 : on se souvient que le journaliste pr\u00e9f\u00e8re le mensonge ou l\u2019omission : \u00ab print the legend \u00bb. La question de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 est aussi pr\u00e9sente dans de nombreux sc\u00e9narios, par exemple dans All About Eve<\/em> de Mankiewicz. On pourra donc explorer cette tension entre v\u00e9rit\u00e9 et mensonge dans de nombreux films de genre, comme par exemple le film noir ou le \u00ab double crossing \u00bb est fr\u00e9quent, mais aussi dans la com\u00e9die. Les cin\u00e9astes se permettent aussi des entorses au contrat spectatoriel en proposant comme Hitchcock dans Le grand alibi<\/em>, des flashbacks mensongers. On pourra donc interroger les diff\u00e9rents modes de manipulation de la narration filmique. <\/p>\n

Ces quelques remarques sont indicatives. D\u2019autres pistes peuvent \u00eatre explor\u00e9es.<\/p>\n

Contacts: Gilles M\u00e9n\u00e9galdo <\/a> et Anne-Marie Paquet-Deyris<\/a><\/p>\n

– 19. \u00ab To read true books in a true spirit \u00bb ? : questions d\u2019herm\u00e9neutique et d\u2019\u00e9thique de la lecture<\/p>\n

<\/em>Fran\u00e7oise Sammarcelli (Universit\u00e9 Paris Sorbonne)<\/p>\n

On se propose dans cet atelier d\u2019aborder la question de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 dans les termes des \u0153uvres litt\u00e9raires \u2013 et singuli\u00e8rement des \u0153uvres de fiction \u2013 et des probl\u00e8mes d\u2019herm\u00e9neutique qui s\u2019y rattachent. La notion a-t-elle alors une pertinence ? Comment se construit le discours de v\u00e9rit\u00e9 de\/sur un texte de fiction ? Comment articuler le rapport entre v\u00e9rit\u00e9 et sens du texte ? Dans Sens et textualit\u00e9<\/em> (1989) le s\u00e9manticien Fran\u00e7ois Rastier rappelait comment un texte r\u00e9gule les possibilit\u00e9s de constructions du sens, limitant les choix interpr\u00e9tatifs, et il soulignait les effets de contexte. Faut-il oublier Critique et V\u00e9rit\u00e9<\/em> de Roland Barthes (1966) et son id\u00e9e que le plaisir d\u2019une lecture garantit sa v\u00e9rit\u00e9 ? <\/p>\n

Il s\u2019agira parall\u00e8lement de se demander quel doute \u00e9thique anime nos lectures. On se souvient que dans le chapitre \u00ab Reading \u00bb de Walden<\/em>, Henry David Thoreau d\u00e9finissait la lecture \u00ab vraie \u00bb et imaginait l\u2019engagement du lecteur id\u00e9al ou h\u00e9ro\u00efque. Les crit\u00e8res de lecture \u00e9thique et esth\u00e9tique peuvent-ils \u00eatre totalement dissoci\u00e9s ? Comment les th\u00e9ories de la lecture nous aident-elles \u00e0 envisager notre responsabilit\u00e9 critique?<\/p>\n

On tentera d\u2019apporter quelques \u00e9l\u00e9ments de r\u00e9ponse \u00e0 ces questions pour \/ \u00e0 travers l\u2019\u00e9tude de textes fictionnels et de nos strat\u00e9gies de lecture.<\/p>\n

– \u00ab To read true books in a true spirit \u00bb ? : on hermeneutics and the ethics of reading<\/p>\n

<\/em>This panel aims to address and problematize the question of truth in the context of literary works\u2014more specifically in fiction\u2014and to examine the related issues of hermeneutics. To what extent is the notion of truth relevant when fiction is concerned ? How is the discourse of truth of\/on a fictional text elaborated ? How can one articulate the relationship between truth and meaning ? In Sens et textualit\u00e9<\/em> (1989), semanticist Fran\u00e7ois Rastier reminded his readers that literary texts contain instructions that limit interpretive choices, and he insisted on contextual effects. Should one then forget Roland Barthes\u2019s Critique et v\u00e9rit\u00e9<\/em> (1966) and his notion that the pleasure derived from a reading guarantees its truth ? <\/p>\n

Simultaneously it is worth wondering about the role and status of ethical doubt in our reading. One remembers that, in Walden<\/em>, Henry David Thoreau defined \u00ab true \u00bb reading and elaborated on the commitment required from the ideal or heroic reader. Can the criteria of ethical and aesthetic reading be totally dissociated ? How can the theories of reading help us (re)consider our responsibility as critics ?<\/p>\n

The speakers will try to tackle some of these issues while examining fictional texts and our critical or theoretical strategies.<\/p>\n

Contact: Fran\u00e7oise Sammarcelli (frasamm@club-internet.fr)<\/p>\n

– 19. Mobilisations politiques et (contre)v\u00e9rit\u00e9s<\/p>\n

<\/em>Emilie Souyri (Universit\u00e9 Nice Sophia Antipolis)
\nJean-Baptiste Velut (Universit\u00e9 Paris Est Marne-la-Vall\u00e9e) <\/p>\n

L\u2019histoire sociale et politique des \u00c9tats-Unis peut \u00eatre interpr\u00e9t\u00e9e comme l\u2019\u00e9ternelle red\u00e9finition d\u2019un ordre id\u00e9ologique ou institutionnel \u00e9tabli sous la pression des forces soci\u00e9tales. Pour Frances Piven (2006), les mouvements sociaux \u2013 depuis la r\u00e9volution am\u00e9ricaine jusqu\u2019\u00e0 la mobilisation altermondialiste en passant par les mouvements f\u00e9ministes et les d\u00e9fenseurs des minorit\u00e9s ethniques \u2013 sont les catalyseurs des r\u00e9volutions id\u00e9ologiques et politiques en vertu de leur \u00ab pouvoir disruptif \u00bb. <\/p>\n

Ces acteurs du progr\u00e8s social s\u2019efforcent de r\u00e9v\u00e9ler, red\u00e9finir et parfois m\u00eame d\u00e9former la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 au moyen de \u00ab cadres d\u2019interpr\u00e9tation \u00bb (frames<\/em>). Selon David Snow et Robert Benford (1986), les mouvements sociaux et les organisations de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 civile utilisent ces strat\u00e9gies discursives pour donner plus de r\u00e9sonance \u00e0 leurs causes en ralliant l\u2019opinion publique, les \u00e9lites politiques et\/ou les m\u00e9dias \u2013 l\u2019objectif final \u00e9tant de changer l\u2019ordre du jour des affaires publiques (agenda setting<\/em>). <\/p>\n

Ces tactiques de l\u00e9gitimation ne sont bien s\u00fbr pas l\u2019apanage des forces progressistes.<\/p>\n

Les mouvements conservateurs comme la droite religieuse ou les milieux d\u2019affaires se sont mobilis\u00e9s pour d\u00e9fendre leurs convictions ou int\u00e9r\u00eats et proposer leur propre version de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 \u2013 que celle-ci soit morale, scientifique ou \u00e9conomique. Ainsi, la droite religieuse a lutt\u00e9 pour donner aux embryons le statut d\u2019\u00eatre humain ; certains lobbies industriels continuent \u00e0 nier le r\u00e9chauffement climatique, le pr\u00e9sentant comme un \u00ab canular \u00bb; les repr\u00e9sentants du mouvement du Tea Party d\u00e9crivent le pr\u00e9sident Obama comme un nazi, un communiste ou un musulman n\u00e9 hors du territoire am\u00e9ricain. <\/p>\n

Depuis une trentaine d\u2019ann\u00e9e, la prolif\u00e9ration des groupes d\u2019int\u00e9r\u00eats, lobbyistes et think tanks \u00e0 Washington a exacerb\u00e9 ces conflits discursifs. Aujourd\u2019hui, chaque projet de loi notable est l\u2019objet d\u2019expertises et contre-expertises instrumentalis\u00e9es par les diff\u00e9rentes parties prenantes de la r\u00e9forme. En effet, quel que soit le th\u00e8me du d\u00e9bat, les discours qui s\u2019y rapportent se construisent bien souvent \u00e0 l\u2019aide d\u2019instruments statistiques et d\u2019\u00e9valuations qui, comme le montre Foucault, n\u2019identifient pas leur objet, mais les constituent et ce faisant, occultent leur propre invention.
\nPh\u00e9nom\u00e8ne concomitant ou corollaire de cette surench\u00e8re de l\u2019activisme, la polarisation partisane qui se nourrit des guerres de culture a contribu\u00e9 \u00e0 la radicalisation des d\u00e9bats, faisant de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 une notion politique toujours plus illusoire. Aujourd\u2019hui, doit-on consid\u00e9rer les notions de mobilisation et de v\u00e9rit\u00e9 comme des termes antith\u00e9tiques ? <\/p>\n

Cet atelier se propose d\u2019explorer les rapports entre mobilisation et v\u00e9rit\u00e9 dans leurs dimensions th\u00e9orique et empirique. D\u2019un point de vue th\u00e9orique, il s\u2019agira d\u2019analyser les modalit\u00e9s et l\u2019impact des strat\u00e9gies discursives mises en \u0153uvres par les artisans de la mobilisation en puisant dans des corpus comme les th\u00e9ories de l\u2019action collective, le constructivisme et d\u2019autres encore. <\/p>\n

L\u2019objectif est de tenter d\u2019apporter une r\u00e9ponse aux questions suivantes : Par quelles strat\u00e9gies discursives les acteurs politiques parviennent-ils \u00e0 promouvoir leur vision id\u00e9ologique en tant que nouvelle v\u00e9rit\u00e9 ? La diabolisation des opposants, les strat\u00e9gies d\u2019alliance ou l\u2019appui de \u00ab communaut\u00e9s \u00e9pist\u00e9miques \u00bb (Haas 1992) cr\u00e9dibles sont-elles des tactiques propices \u00e0 la l\u00e9gitimation d\u2019une pens\u00e9e politique ? <\/p>\n

D\u2019un point de vue empirique, les participants sont libres d\u2019examiner diverses formes de mobilisation (mouvements sociaux, groupes d\u2019int\u00e9r\u00eats, think tanks etc.), en se focalisant de pr\u00e9f\u00e9rence sur la p\u00e9riode contemporaine, sous un angle am\u00e9ricaniste ou comparatiste. Ils pourront \u00e9galement analyser la relation entre v\u00e9rit\u00e9 et mobilisation en \u00e9tudiant les causes et cons\u00e9quences de la radicalisation des d\u00e9bats politiques, les conditions de la renaissance du syst\u00e8me pluraliste et de la d\u00e9mocratie participative.<\/p>\n

– Political Mobilization and (Counter) Truth<\/p>\n

The United States\u2019 social and political history can be seen as a never-ending process of redefining an ideological or institutional order established under the pressure of societal forces. For Frances Fox Piven (2006), social movements, from the American Revolution to the feminist and civil rights movements to the anti-globalization movement, are catalysts for ideological and political revolutions by virtue of their \u201cdisruptive power\u201d.<\/p>\n

Those actors of social progress strive to reveal, redefine, and sometimes even stretch the truth by using \u201cinterpretive frames\u201d. For David Snow and Robert Benford (1986), social movements and organizations use discursive strategies to give more momentum to their causes by rallying \u2018targets of agenda-setting\u2019 such as public opinion, political elites and\/or the media.<\/p>\n

Of course progressive forces are not the only ones that resort to such legitimizing tactics. Conservative movements such as the Christian Right or business organizations have mobilized to defend their own convictions or interests, and offer their version of the truth -be it moral, scientific or economic. Indeed, the Christian Right has fought to get embryos recognized as human beings; certain industrial lobbies keep denying climate change and present it as a \u201choax\u201d; and members of the Tea Party describe President Obama as a Nazi, a communist or a Muslim born in a foreign country.<\/p>\n

The proliferation of interest groups, lobbies and think tanks in Washington over the past thirty years has exacerbated these discursive conflicts. Today, any major bill is subject to analyses and counter-analyses, which are used by the various stakeholders to their own advantage. Indeed, regardless of the theme at stake, discourses are usually built around an array of statistical tools and evaluations. And these discourses, as Foucault shows, do not identify their objects, but constitute them, thus concealing their own invention.<\/p>\n

As a corollary or contemporary phenomenon, partisan polarization, which is fueled by culture wars, has made compromises ever more difficult, turning truth into an increasingly illusory political notion. Nowadays, should we consider political mobilization and truth as antithetical notions?<\/p>\n

This workshop sets out to explore the relationship between mobilization and truth in both their theoretical and empirical dimensions. From a theoretical point of view, we will try to analyze the modalities and the impact of discursive strategies used by actors in those various forms of mobilizations by drawing from (without limiting ourselves to the literature on framing as well as constructivism.<\/p>\n

The current aim is to address the following questions: which discursive strategies do political actors use to promote their ideological visions as new truths? Can the practices of demonizing opponents, creating strategic alliances, or soliciting support from \u201cepistemic communities\u201d (Haas 1992) be understood as tactics to legitimize political thought?<\/p>\n

From an empirical point of view, participants are free to examine different forms of mobilization (social movements, interest groups, think tanks, etc\u2026) focusing, preferably, on the contemporary period through an American or comparative lens. They may also analyze the relationship between mobilization and truth by studying the causes and consequences of the radicalization of political debates, the conditions for the resurgence of a pluralist system and\/or a participatory democracy.<\/p>\n

Contacts: Emilie Souyri<\/a> et Jean-Baptiste Velut <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Please find below the list of workshops in alphabetical order of their coordinators. -1. La vie \u00e0 l\u2019\u0153uvre R\u00e9douane Abouddahab (Universit\u00e9 Lyon 2 \u2013 Lumi\u00e8re) Elisabeth Bouzonviller (Universit\u00e9 de Saint-Etienne) Cet atelier s\u2019int\u00e9ressera aux liens multiples entre la vie et l\u2019\u0153uvre, dans le sens non pas d\u2019un rep\u00e9rage d\u2019\u00e9l\u00e9ments biographiques dans la fiction, mais d\u2019une […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2011-conference-brest-the-truth"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"cremieux","author_link":"https:\/\/afea.fr\/annualconference\/author\/cremieux\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Please find below the list of workshops in alphabetical order of their coordinators. -1. La vie \u00e0 l\u2019\u0153uvre R\u00e9douane Abouddahab (Universit\u00e9 Lyon 2 \u2013 Lumi\u00e8re) Elisabeth Bouzonviller (Universit\u00e9 de Saint-Etienne) Cet atelier s\u2019int\u00e9ressera aux liens multiples entre la vie et l\u2019\u0153uvre, dans le sens non pas d\u2019un rep\u00e9rage d\u2019\u00e9l\u00e9ments biographiques dans la fiction, mais d\u2019une…","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/afea.fr\/annualconference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/afea.fr\/annualconference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/afea.fr\/annualconference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afea.fr\/annualconference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afea.fr\/annualconference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/afea.fr\/annualconference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/afea.fr\/annualconference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afea.fr\/annualconference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afea.fr\/annualconference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}