Ch\u00e8res et chers coll\u00e8gues,<\/p>\n
J\u2019ai le plaisir de vous annoncer que le prochain colloque organis\u00e9 par les doctorants de l\u2019U.R. CLIMAS \u00e0 l\u2019universit\u00e9 Bordeaux Montaigne aura lieu les 7 et 8 mars 2024 sur le th\u00e8me<\/p>\n
\u00ab Authenticity and Heritage \u00bb. Vous trouverez l\u2019appel \u00e0 communications, en anglais puis en fran\u00e7ais, ci-dessous.<\/p>\n
Bien cordialement,<\/p>\n
Pascale Antolin<\/p>\n
International Conference for PhD students and young doctors \u2014 \u201cAuthenticity and Heritage\u201d The COVID and climate change crises have recently given rise to the desire to go back to a slower and more responsible way of life that is deemed more authentic. In Le Sacre de l\u2019authenticit\u00e9<\/em>, Gilles Lipovetsky analyzes the \u201cfetishism of authenticity\u201d which characterizes our modern Western societies. Sometimes synonymous with transparency, sobriety, or integrity, authenticity is presented as an ideal to be reached or rediscovered. This ideal is then used or exploited in the marketing or tourism industries for instance. The appeal that historical and memorial sites hold on tourists\u2014what is called \u201cheritage tourism\u201d\u2014questions our relationship to heritage and its relatively artificial display. Similarly, the genre of \u201cheritage films\u201d has sometimes been criticized for its idealistic representations of some historical periods, which hide the complexity of reality and thus lack authenticity. This conference aims at examining the links between authenticity and heritage, the latter being understood as a material, or an immaterial legacy transmitted from one generation to the next. Studying the multiple interrelations between these two notions offers a chance to examine our relationships to identity, memory, and transmission from social, political, aesthetic, and ethical perspectives.<\/p>\n Before being displayed and celebrated in museums, cultural and artistic legacies necessarily go through a process of selection and authentication. The value of the object\u2014here taken in a broad sense\u2014is negotiated after its authenticity has been assessed. In his work Sincerity and Authenticity<\/em>, Lionel Trilling highlights this question of authenticity by placing it within the symbolic location of the museum, a place of memory where the link to the past and to heritage is decisive as it determines the value and the price of the artifacts and objects exhibited there. The issue of authenticity is as important for archeological items as it is for works of art: to replicate or to plagiarize these objects robs them of their value, even in the case of a genuine facsimile of the original work. It follows that the value of an object does not hinge on purely aesthetic considerations since its replica, contrary to the original, is not credited with the same sacred character, precisely because of the absence of a link with a specific heritage, be it literary, artistic, or cultural. Questions related to museography are thus central to the examination of the two notions under study. How do museums shape artistic or cultural legacies which they want to be as authentic as possible? How to put on display a cultural heritage without transforming or betraying it?<\/p>\n The cultivation of a collective identity with a specific heritage may be a necessity for some communities, especially for marginalized groups. The transmission of a linguistic, religious, or cultural heritage that is deemed authentic becomes therefore a deeply political act. When the heritage of some cultures cannot be passed on from one generation to the next, the consequences may turn out to be disastrous for these populations. Since one may prove their affiliation to a cultural group by carrying on practices deemed authentic, some people look to revive or reconnect with traditions that were sometimes long forgotten, as a form of self-affirmation. The transmission of an authentic heritage thus brings up ethical and practical questions: Who has the responsibility of passing on cultural legacy? How to pass it on? Orally or in writing? Is there a duty to preserve that legacy? Who may receive or claim that legacy?<\/p>\n This legacy is strengthened, protected, sometimes even sanctified by communities. However, some traditions that are presented as descending from an authentic past are comprised of elements that were recently invented, as was proven by \u00c9ric Hobsbawm et Terence Ranger in The Invention of Tradition<\/em>. At the national level, or on a smaller scale, to invent new traditions appears to be a means to overcome moments of crises. In this case, authenticity is not what is inherited but what is collectively created. Authenticity is not as fixed as it may seem, it oscillates between preservation and creation, continuity and change. Moreover, cultural practices that truly originate in the distant past are often distorted and modified as time passes by. This is the case for languages and dialects for instance. More than a passively transmitted object, authenticity is a force with ever-changing features, continually redefined through the process of transmission. But then, to what extent can a cultural object change through time while remaining authentic? The temporal and memorial weight of the authentic object is at the heart of the matter.<\/p>\n In science as in art, one\u2019s contribution is always based on one\u2019s cultural and scientific inheritance. Instead of embracing one\u2019s heritage, one\u2019s quest for authenticity may translate into a rejection of one\u2019s legacy\u2014the relationship between the two notions here turns out to be one of conflict and opposition. The adjective \u201cauthentic\u201d can qualify something that is perceived as true, pure, original, or even in keeping with reality. Therefore, to refuse one\u2019s heritage would be a means for artists and others to remain true to the spirit of their time by looking to reach a deeper, more substantial level, like Virginia Woolf who criticized the literary heritage of her predecessors in her essay \u201cModern Fiction.\u201d She regrets the incapacity of the fossilized forms of fiction to allow for the expression of \u201can essential thing\u201d that would be real\u2014life or authenticity: \u201cWhether we call it life or spirit, truth or reality, this, the essential thing, has moved off, or on, and refuses to be contained any longer in such ill-fitting vestments as we provide<\/em>.\u201d Woolf\u2019s criticism of her literary heritage leads to a reflection on genres, forms, styles, and types of narration that would be more capable of capturing reality. How can one present or represent authenticity in literature? Does this necessarily entail distancing oneself from one\u2019s literary heritage? To repudiate one\u2019s heritage can be akin to liberating oneself when this heritage was built on social and political structures of oppression. The choice of the authentic seen as true and original can be interpreted as an act of political or artistic emancipation. On the contrary, proponents of some artistic or literary movements have openly presented themselves as the heirs of previous artists, as though authenticity necessarily dwelt in a past that is sometimes idealized. As such, can authenticity be rooted solely in the present, or is it intrinsically inseparable from our heritage?<\/p>\n Selective bibliography:<\/strong><\/p>\n AYN\u00c8S Laurent. L’Authenticit\u00e9 : Droit, Histoire, Philosophie<\/em>. 2e \u00e9dition. Paris (France) : La Documentation Fran\u00e7aise, 2013.<\/p>\n BRENNA Brita, Hans Dam Christensen et Olav Hamran, ed. Museum as Cultures of Copies: The Crafting of Artefacts and Authenticity. <\/em>Londres : Routledge, 2019.<\/p>\n CASSELY Jean-Laurent. No fake\u00a9<\/em>, Paris (France), Arkh\u00ea, 2019.<\/p>\n GUICHARD Charlotte. De L’authenticit\u00e9 : Une Histoire Des Valeurs De L’art (XVIe-XXe Si\u00e8cle)<\/em>. Paris (France): Publications De La Sorbonne, 2014.<\/p>\n HOBSBAWN Eric et RANGER Terence, dir. The Invention of Tradition<\/em>. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983.<\/p>\n JONES Si\u00e2n et Thomas Yarrow. The Object of Conservation: an Ethnography of Heritage Practice. <\/em>Londres : Routledge, 2022.<\/p>\n LIPOVETSKY Gilles. Le Sacre de l’authenticit\u00e9. <\/em>Gallimard, Biblioth\u00e8que des sciences humaines, 2021.<\/p>\n LOVELL Jane et Chris Bull. Authentic and Inauthentic Places in Tourism, From Heritage Sites to Theme Parks<\/em>, Londres : Routledge, 2017.<\/p>\n MONK Claire et Amy Sargeant. British Historical Cinema the History, Heritage and Costume Film<\/em>. Londres :\u00a0 Routledge, 2002.<\/p>\n MELOT Michel. \u00ab Qu\u2019est-ce qu\u2019un objet patrimonial ? \u00bb, Bulletin des biblioth\u00e8ques de France (BBF), <\/em>2004, n\u00b05, p. 5-10.<\/p>\n ORVELL Miles. The Real Thing: Imitation and Authenticity in American Culture, 1880-1940. <\/em>University of North Carolina Press, 2014.<\/p>\n \u00a0PHILLIPS Ruth B. et Christopher B. Steiner, ed. Unpacking culture: Art and Commodity in Colonial and Postcolonial Worlds. <\/em>University of California Press, 1999.<\/p>\n
\nMarch 7-8, 2024
\nUniversit\u00e9 Bordeaux Montaigne, UR CLIMAS 4196<\/strong><\/p>\n