The Society for Seventeenth-century French Studies
Annual Conference 2010
Royal Holloway
University of London
9 - 11 September 2010
Animality
The 33rd Annual Conference of the Society will be held at Royal Holloway, University of London, England from 9 to 11 September 2010.
If the animal is the most common ‘other’ of the human, it is also a disturbingly close relative. Throughout seventeenth-century France, and despite Cartesian attempts to distinguish the two realms, the animal often threatened to encroach on the human, disrupting human pretensions to reason, reflection, and civilised modes of conduct. Significantly, it was in the seventeenth century that the word ‘animal’ – with its connotations of brutality, stupidity and violence – was first pressed into service as an insult; according to traditional histories at least, it was only in the following century that the animal would begin to be revalorised as something positive, and assigned (by Rousseau) our title term ‘animalité’. And yet the concept of animality – those tendencies or habits pertaining to animals but always threatening to surface in the human – is subtly but persistently present throughout the seventeenth century. This conference will seek to tease out, describe and contextualise that concept.
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CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
Thursday 9 September
13.30-14.45 Arrival and Registration
14.45 Welcome, William Brooks, Chairman of the Society
15.00-16.00 Session 1: Challenges to the Ordered World
Richard MABER (Durham University)
Poets and Monsters: the challenge of the merveilleux vraisemblable
Nicholas HAMMOND (Cambridge University)
Hippolyte’s Coursiers oisifs: Poussin, Racine and animals untamed
16.00-16.30 Tea
16.30-17.30 Session 2: Encounters with Other Cultures
Vincent GRÉGOIRE (Berry College)
« Convertir les loups en agneaux » : l’animalisation de l’Amérindien par le missionnaire en Nouvelle-France au 17ème siècle
Michael HARRIGAN (NUI Maynooth)
The seventeenth-century exotic and transgressions of human and animal boundaries
17.30-18.30 Session 3: Imaginary Voyages
James F. GAINES (University of Mary Washington)
The Problem of the Species in Cyrano de Bergerac’s Etats et empires de la lune and Modern Science Fiction
Isabelle MOREAU (University College London)
Hommes, bêtes et «Fondins» chez Gabriel de Foigny
19.00-20.00 Dinner
20.15-21.15 Session 4: Plenary
Richard PARISH (St Catherine’s College, Oxford)
Beasts in the devout life: the place of animals in St François de Sales
Friday 10 September
9.00-10.30 Session 5: Molière
Ralph ALBANESE (University of Memphis)
Réflexions sur l’identité féminine à travers le bestiaire moliéresque
Jean Luc ROBIN (The University of Alabama)
Le philosophe et la bête-machine. Mécanisme et liberté dans L’École des femmes de Molière
Emilia WILTON-GODBERFFORDE (Queens’ College, Cambridge)
'Mais comment voulez-vous, après tout, qu'une bête / Puisse jamais savoir ce que c'est qu'être honnête?' Raising a wife: the human versus the beast in L'Ecole des Femmes
10.30-11.00 Coffee
11.00-12.30 Session 6: Allegory and Satire
Anne L. BIRBERICK (Northern Illinois University)
Gendering Metamorphosis: D’Aulnoy’s ‘Babiole’ and ‘Le Prince Marcassin’
Twyla MEDING (West Virginia University)
For the Birds: Metamorphosis and Pastoral Retreat in Madame d'Aulnoy's Le Pigeon et la colombe
Lise LEIBACHER-OUVRARD (University of Arizona)
Brutalités: Pierre Corneille Blessebois et les enjeux de l’animalité satirique
12.30-14.00 Lunch
14.00-15.00 AGM
15.00-16.00 Session 7: Literary Genres
Sophie ROLLIN (Durham University)
Les animaux dans la poésie mondaine du XVIIe siècle : style naïf ou naturel ?
Marion LAFOUGE (Wadham College, Oxford)
The bestiary of genres in seventeenth-century France
16.00-16.30 Tea
16.30-18.00 Session 8: Career-specific non-topic-based session: Practicalities
J. Christopher COOPER (Montreal)
Practicalities of publishing
Emma GILBY (Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge)
Leverhulme Fellowships
Richard MABER (Durham University)
Leverhulme Emeritus Research Fellowships
19.00-20.30
Reception and Conference Dinner
Saturday 11 September
9.30-10.30 Session 9: Testing the Distinctions
Matthew SENIOR (Oberlin College)
«L’animal que donc je suis»: Self-humaning in Descartes and Derrida
Andrew BILLING (Macalester College)
Animal thinking in the Fables of La Fontaine
10.30-11.00 Coffee
11.00-12.00 Session 10: Animals and the Court
Kathryn BASTIN (Indiana University)
Monkey as King: The Anthropomorphic Power Play of Singeries
Christine McCall PROBES (University of South Florida, Tampa)
Controversy and Consolation: The Animal in the Royal Court, Madame and her Spaniels
12.00 Concluding remarks, William Brooks, Chairman of the Society
13.00 Lunch
END OF CONFERENCE