[Vwoolf] International conference "Virginia Woolf & Simone de Beauvoir: Intersections and Resonances" (Paris, 29-30 Sept 2022)

[Luca PINELLI]

Dear All,
it is with great pleasure that I circulate our call for papers for the
international conference "Virginia Woolf & Simone de Beauvoir:
Intersections and Resonances", which will take place in Paris (and online!)
on 29th-30th September 2022. I am not really sure I can attach files so I
will just copy and paste the call in English here (and I apologise for
potential formatting issues).

Feel free to get in touch with me through the email addresses in the cfp if
you need a pdf to circulate somewhere else, I'll be more than happy to
provide it! Sadly, we don't currently have a website or a page we can link
you with. We also have a French version of the cfp as this will be a
bilingual conference.


*Virginia Woolf & Simone de Beauvoir: Intersections and Resonances*Université
Paris 3 – Sorbonne Nouvelle
29th-30th September 2022
Salle Claude Simon, Maison de la Recherche
4 Rue des Irlandais, 75005 Paris

Although Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoir are often mentioned in one
and the same breath, only little scholarship so far has investigated the
intersections between the two authors. Helen Southworth has dedicated some
five pages to the connections between Woolf and Beauvoir (Southworth 2004:
126-131) but has only done so to tie them in with Colette, who is, along
with Woolf, the ‘real’ subject of her monograph. Pierre-Éric Villeneuve
(2002) has drawn attention to how Beauvoir described and instrumentalised
Woolf’s oeuvre during her lecture tour in Japan in the 1960s, thereby
suggesting that the French intellectual had a more interesting and
materialist take on Woolf than most critics in France at the time. Suzanne
Bellamy has recently drawn attention to the legacy of Woolf’s Three Guineas
within the context of the “Post-War Left”, especially in Beauvoir’s and
Arendt’s work (Bellamy 2020). Maggie Humm, in her recent chapter, explores
the similarities between the writing of Woolf, that of Beauvoir, and the
cinematic experimentalism of Swedish film director Mai Zetterling (Humm
2021). Outside of the academic context, Rachel Cusk’s Guardian article
explored the meaning of ‘women’s writing’ in the wake of Constance Borde
and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier’s newly published English translation of *Le
Deuxième Sexe* in 2009 (Cusk 2009). However, in the most authoritative
collections of essays on Woolf, Beauvoir is hardly mentioned (Snaith 2007;
Randall & Goldman 2012; Berman 2016); equally, Woolf is only mentioned in
passing when referring to Beauvoir in an Anglophone context, but no
attention has been paid to her in Beauvoir scholarship (Simons 2006;
Hengehold & Bauer 2017; Kirkpatrick 2019). Interestingly, Toril Moi’s work
has functioned as a watershed both in Woolf studies (Moi 1985) and in
Beauvoir scholarship (Moi 1994), but her references to both authors have
tended to be quite limited. All these existing contributions, albeit
clearly limited in number, already reveal that the two authors offer more
room for further exploration.

In feminist circles, the notion of intersectionality has become
foundational for feminist movements and feminist theory alike: after
Crenshaw’s seminal article (Crenshaw 1989), more and more attention has
been paid to Black, queer, radical, decolonial, anti-capitalist feminisms
that insist on the interrelatedness of these liberation struggles. Some
critics have found the two ‘mothers’ of second-wave feminisms lacking in
those regards or have devised ways to reinterpret their work in the light
of recent contributions to the field (e.g. Walker 1972, Marcus 2004,
Coleman 2014 for Woolf; Simons 2002, Gines 2014, Altman 2020 for Beauvoir).
While Southworth (2004) and Villeneuve (2002) have shed light on the
intersection between Woolf and Beauvoir in terms of reception, none of the
existing contributions have attempted to create a communication channel
between the two feminist authors through the lens of intersectionality.

Recently, the concept of resonance has gained wider currency in the
humanities and in literary studies more specifically (Dimock 1997; Toop
2010; Rosa 2016; Napolin 2020). Although this flexible, often somewhat
nebulous term has been found to be wanting in terms of academic rigour, it
has often been pointed out how beneficial this could be for scholars who
are interested in the reverberations between textual voices and echoes,
readerships, and the slow rippling out of ideas beyond a purely diachronic
understanding of influence. By focusing on the resonances between Woolf,
Beauvoir, and possibly other authors and thinkers, this conference intends
to bring together a varied ensemble of scholars to collaborate in order to
piece together a version of literature, philosophy, and culture that
exceeds all sorts of boundaries – disciplinary, geographical, linguistic,
and textual.

The aim is thus to *bring together Woolf scholars and Beauvoir scholars to
rethink the intersections and resonances between the two ‘mothers’ of
second-wave feminisms, both within and beyond their respective literary and
philosophical productions*. Topics of interest may include, but are not
limited to:
● The reception of Woolf and/or Beauvoir in feminist circles, past and
present;
● Intersectional feminism in and beyond Woolf and Beauvoir;
● Sound and resonance in the works of Woolf and Beauvoir;
● Literature and philosophy, literary theory between Woolf and Beauvoir;
● Pacifism, fascism and war in Woolf and Beauvoir;
● Corporeality, embodiment, and the body between Woolf and Beauvoir;
● Life-writing and autobiography in Woolf and Beauvoir;
● Resonances of Woolf and/or Beauvoir in other authors, either their
contemporaries or ours (e.g. Marcel Proust, Simone Weil, Colette, Nathalie
Sarraute, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Franz Kafka, Violette Leduc, Annie Ernaux,
Rachel Cusk, Ian McEwan, Toni Morrison, bell hooks, Jeannette Winterson,
etc.);
● Woolf, Beauvoir, and translation;
● Woolf, Beauvoir, and the philosophical tradition (e.g. phenomenology,
psychoanalysis, feminist philosophy, queer theory, decolonial thought).

This hybrid international conference intends to be markedly horizontal:
there will be *no keynote speaker*; rather, t*he two communities of
scholars are meant to collaborate and exchange ideas about Woolf and
Beauvoir*. *No prior engagement with both authors is expected*, and we
would like to encourage every participant to be generous and generative in
their approach to others.

The conference will take the form of several thematically linked panels on
Woolf and Beauvoir. Proposals can be for single papers or for group papers
or panels, as long as Woolf academics and Beauvoir scholars are involved in
every panel. We also welcome proposals of roundtables around a specific
subject or book that brings Woolf and Beauvoir together. A publication
project will ensue.
Registration fees for the conference are €20 for senior academics
(lecturers, professors), but no fees are required for students and PhD
candidates. The languages of the conference are English and French,
preferably with a concise summary and a presentation in the other language
in order to make your contribution accessible to all.

Proposals should be sent to woolfbeauvoir22 at gmail.com by the* 20th June
2022*. For 20-minute papers, proposals should be of no more than 300 words
and should be accompanied by four keywords and a short bio (200 words),
along with an expressed preference for attending the conference in person
or online. For roundtables, proposals should be of no more than 400 words
and should include a short bio of every person involved in the roundtable
(no more than 4 people, with a 200-word bio for each speaker).
Notifications of acceptance will be sent by 30th June 2022.



*Works cited*Altman, Meryl. 2020. Beauvoir in Time. Brill.
Bellamy, Suzanne. 2020. ‘Woolf and the Post-War Left: Simone de Beauvoir,
Hanna Arendt, Legacies and Resonances of Three Guineas’. In Conversas com
Virginia Woolf, edited by David Pinho, Maria A. de Oliveira, Nícea
Nogueira. Ape’Ku. 262-273.
Berman, Jessica, ed. 2016. A Companion to Virginia Woolf. Wiley-Blackwell.
Coleman, Lisa. 2014. ‘Woolf’s Troubled and Troubling Relationship to Race.
The Long Reach of the White Arm of Imperialism’. In Virginia Woolf and the
Common(wealth) Reader, edited by Helen Wussow and Mary Ann Gillies,
Liverpool University Press.
Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1989. ‘Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and
Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist
Theory and Antiracist Politics’, University of Chicago Legal Forum 1 (8),
pp. 139-167.
Cusk, Rachel. 2009. ‘Shakespeare’s Daughters’. The Guardian, 12 December
2009.
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/dec/12/rachel-cusk-women-writing-review__;!!KGKeukY!2qM5JVS6VDDemqY1SVYNu3Rzw3ll_UVMHf1xma1qOoVQWIS5hFCu5LI6HMD79M32bmA316aZz4W5_8Q3KSbLEcdPCYo$ 
[last accessed 19/10/2021 10.55].
Dimock, Wai Chee. 1997. ‘A Theory of Resonance’, PMLA 112 (5), pp.
1060-1071.
Gines, Kathryn T. [Kathryn Sophia Belle]. ‘Comparative and Competing
Frameworks of Oppression in Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex’, Graduate
Faculty Philosophy Journal 1-2, 2014, pp. 251-273.
Hengehold, Laura, and Nancy Bauer, eds. 2017. A Companion to Simone de
Beauvoir. Wiley-Blackwell.
Humm, Maggie. 2021. ‘Realms of Resemblance: Virginia Woolf, Simone de
Beauvoir and Maï Zetterling’. In Women Writers and Experimental Narratives:
Early Modern to Contemporary, edited by Kate Aughterson and Deborah
Philips, Palgrave Macmillan, 125–37.
Kirkpatrick, Kate. 2019. Becoming Beauvoir: A Life. Bloomsbury.
Marcus, Jane. 2004. Hearts of Darkness: White Women Write Race. Rutgers
University Press.
4
Moi, Toril. 1985. Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory.
Methuen.
Moi, Toril. 1994. Simone de Beauvoir: The Making of an Intellectual Woman.
Oxford University Press.
Napolin, Julie Beth. 2020. The Fact of Resonance: Modernist Acoustics and
Narrative Form. Fordham University Press.
Randall, Bryony, and Jane Goldman, eds. 2012. Virginia Woolf in Context.
Literature in Context. Cambridge University Press.
Rosa, Hartmut. 2016. Resonanz: Eine Soziologie der Weltbeziehung. Suhrkamp.
Translated into English by James Wagner, Resonance: A Sociology of Our
Relationship to the World. Polity. 2019.
Simons, Margaret A. 2002. ‘Beauvoir and the Problem of Racism’. In
Philosophers on Race: Critical Issues, edited by Julie K. Ward and Tommy L.
Lott, Blackwell.
Simons, Margaret A., ed. 2006. The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir:
Critical Essays, Indiana University Press.
Snaith, A., ed. 2007. Palgrave Advances in Virginia Woolf Studies. Palgrave
Macmillan.
Southworth, Helen. 2004. The Intersecting Realities and Fictions of
Virginia Woolf and Colette. The Ohio State University Press.
Toop, David. 2010. Sinister Resonance: The Mediumship of the Listener.
Continuum.
Villeneuve, Pierre-Éric. 2002. ‘Virginia Woolf among Writers and Critics:
The French Intellectual Scene’. In The Reception of Virginia Woolf in
Europe, edited by Mary Ann Caws and Nicola Luckhurst, Continuum, pp. 19-38.
Walker, Alice. 1972. ‘In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens’. In Within the
Circle: An Anthology of African American Literary Criticism from the Harlem
Renaissance to the Present, edited by Angelyn Mitchell, Duke University
Press, 1994.

Scientific committee: Isabelle Alfandary (Sorbonne Nouvelle), Marie Allègre
(Birmingham), Rossana Bonadei (Bergamo), Claire Davison (Sorbonne
Nouvelle), Valérie Favre (Lyon 2), Michela Gardini (Bergamo), Jean-Louis
Jeannelle (Sorbonne), Jessica Passos (Northwestern-Sorbonne Nouvelle), Luca
Pinelli (Bergamo-Sorbonne Nouvelle), Bryony Randall (Glasgow), Marine Rouch
(Toulouse 2).
Organising committee: Luca Pinelli, Jessica Passos, Claire Davison.

For further information do not hesitate to contact us at
woolfbeauvoir22 at gmail.com or luca.pinelli at sorbonne-nouvelle.fr /
luca.pinelli at unibg.it.


-- 
Luca Pinelli
(he/him/his)
PhD student in Transcultural studies in the humanities
Department of Foreign Languages, Literatures and Cultures
University of Bergamo, Italy

PhD student in Anglophone studies
ED 625 MAGIIE
Université Paris 3 – Sorbonne Nouvelle, France
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