Journée d'études sur l'écrivain Joseph Conrad

The one-day conference organized by the Institute for Transtextual and Transcultural Studies (I.E.T.T.) aims at questioning the nature of the line between the feminine and knowledge or concept: is it a boundary beyond which it is impossible to go, or is it a border that can be crossed? Is it stable, moving, fluid, porous? Is the feminine bound to remain terra incognita? Can it be perceived in the text, and how inseparable is it from Conrad's art, style and truth? If considered terra incognita, could the feminine also be seen as one of those arva vacua - another word referring to as yet unchartered territories - an empty space which can only be perceived thanks to that which frames it? In Conradian fiction where female characters rarely occupy centre-stage, is the feminine condemned to remain in the periphery, or is the periphery or margin the only possible opening onto "the dark continent"? Are the notions of periphery and centre still relevant? Besides, we will wonder what becomes of the feminine enigma when, with the film adaptations of Conrad's novels or with the works they have inspired, the borders between texts and media are crossed. If the feminine is linked to the writing style of one individual, is it fated to disappear in any act of literary appropriation?

These issues that revolve around the feminine and space, the known and the unknown, will be explored in this one-day conference.

The programm