Call for papers "Elements, materials, matter"
- URL: https://cercl.club
- Event Date: 2025-03-19 ~ 2025-03-19
- Abstract Submission Date: 2025-03-01
- Submission Date: 2025-02-01
- Organizer: CERCL; CELIS; INALCO
- Location: Clermont-Ferrand, France
Humanities, Literature & Arts (General) Literature & Writing
Call for papers
"Elements, materials, matter"
Maison des Sciences de l'Homme - Clermont-Ferrand
Deadline: 1 February 2025
Conference day : 19 March 2025
Conference languages : French and English
Scientific coordinators : Paolo Dias Fernandes (UCA / CELIS), Katarzyna Jopa (INALCO / CREE) & Méline Zappa (UCA / CELIS)
The fundamental links between the element and matter raise questions about both poetic and, more broadly, artistic creation. The aim of this day is to encourage reflection on the very nature of these two components, which have a semantic meaning that is as broad as it is confusing. Element, like the elementary brick: Democritus' atom, Gell-Mann's quark. Elements that also form the basis of a natural balance: water, fire, earth, air, nothingness, wood, metal, etc.
As for matter, so often discussed, at the very heart of poetic practice, it seems to be embodied above all in the domestication of the element. Domestication, or its opposite, more or less successful, more or less complete: these processes of transformation raise as many questions about a poetics of the oikos as they do about ecocritical perspectives. The aim of this study day is therefore to broaden the theme of elements and materials by putting texts from several disciplines and geographical areas into perspective and into dialogue in order to think about the Anthropocene.
Paper proposals may take the form of a short lecture (twenty-five minutes) or a performance linked to a research-creation project. They may be based on, but not limited to, the following themes:
I/ Elementary bricks
Matter and element can be understood as the elementary brick, the most inseparable constituent of a poetic and literary reality. The perspective of poetic matter explored by concrete poetry and practices of poetic erasure are at the heart of a reflection on the nature of poetic literatures. From representations of matter and the scientific disciplines that deal with it (experimental and theoretical physics) to attempts at poetic extrapolation of scientific theories: matter and its elemental dimension will be at the heart of our reflections. Papers that explore the intersection between the basic sciences, the humanities and literature will be particularly welcome.
II/ The elements of fire, air, water and earth
Gaston Bachelard used the four elements in his series of works devoted respectively to fire, water, air and earth (La psychanalyse du feu, L'eau et les rêves, L'air et les songes, La terre et les rêveries de la volonté, La terre et les rêveries du repos) to attempt to explain the poetic imagination. Each of these elements leads to a reality other than itself. The four elements form the basis of what Bachelard called the material imagination. According to Bachelard, the works of all great creators seem to be marked by an element that dominates their work. The consideration of elements (which provide the
‘matter’ of poetry) as symbols links Bachelard's theories to hermeneutics. For this study day, we are also looking for proposals that aim to explain or interpret the reveries and poetic images associated with the four elements, based on Bachelardian or other theories.
Although the West recognises only four fundamental elements (fire, water, air and earth), Eastern philosophies accept five elements and add wood or metal. These elements give rise to multiple correspondences.
III/ Matter, Materials, elements and the environment
Ecocritical issues may also be the subject of papers. The aim is to understand the term element as a corollary of environment. Natural elements, whether raging or peaceful, from catastrophe to beautification: poetic and literary representations of natural elements reflect both an ecological reflection and a poetics of the environment itself. The presentations will also highlight several dimensions of literature in the Anthropocene era, where writing intersects or overlaps with the narration of nature, activism and the creation of alternative futures. What's more, as the result of transformation, matter is itself an environmental issue. We are thinking in particular of polluting materials, fossil fuels and nuclear materials.
Proposals for papers should be sent before 1 February to the following address: contact@cercl.club.
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