Women in French Sessions
2024 Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association (RMMLA) Conference
Las Vegas, Nevada
October 10-12, 2024
I. Taking Risks in Francophone Narratives of Selfhood
The proliferation of narratives of selfhood in contemporary culture attests to the liberating potential that writing affords as life-writers harness their texts to speak out and to voice their truth about lived experiences. Nonetheless, choosing to lay bare intimate stories of selfhood is not without its own set of risks. Some of these perils include reliving trauma in the process of writing it and facing pushback or even disapprobation when these accounts enter the public domain. In Contemporary Feminist Life-Writing: The New Audacity (2020), Jennifer Cooke writes that “[new] audacity writers are experimenters in life and in the art of telling it” (3). Cooke focuses on the positive and transformative nuances of “audacity,” recognizing this word as “a public challenge to conventions, characterized by boldness and a disregard for decorum, protocol, or moral restraints” (1-2).
This panel aims to shed light on Francophone writers who take risks with regard to crafting and divulging their personal stories of selfhood in narratives that explore activism, agency, (non-normative) identities and desires, illness, or trauma. This panel also considers Francophone writers who boldly engage with formal experimentation in their stories of selfhood. Please send 200-word proposals in English or French to Adrienne Angelo (ama0002@auburn.edu) by March 1, 2024. Chair: Adrienne Angelo, Auburn University, <ama0002@auburn.edu>
II. Hearing through the Hubbub: Noise and Silence in Francophone Literature and Culture
This year's RMMLA conference is being held in Las Vegas, Nevada where the lights and glamour of the strip draw over 30 million visitors per year. Often lost within all that noise are the individual stories, personal narratives, and life trajectories of those who come to take their chances in Sin city. This panel seeks to link Las Vegas and francophone literature and culture through the tropes of noise and silence. What do we gain by attending to the often nuanced interplay of noise and silence in francophone literature and culture? What can noisy narratives tell us about quieter stories? How might we understand noise differently when we center silence? How does silence help to frame noise? How does noise help to frame silence? Abstracts from any period of francophone literature and culture will be considered. Please send abstracts to cjgomolka@depauw.edu
III. Teaching Women in French Roundtable: Integrating (or avoiding!) Technology
This panel seeks participants willing to share innovative teaching ideas for the French classroom at all levels. How can we engage students to learn about French and Francophone women writers using technology such as AI, virtual reality, or other technologies ? How can we discourage students from using technologies in ways that are not productive to their learning? What are the challenges to both instruction and learning regarding technology in the classroom? Presentations/interactive discussions limited to 12 minutes. Participation in roundtable does not preclude presenting a paper at another RMMLA session. We encourage graduate student applications. Send a brief proposal along with contact information to Julia Frengs at jfrengs2@unl.edu.
IV. Revisiting the Past: Women of the French-Speaking World
Panel organizer: Glenn Fetzer, New Mexico State University
In 2018 Eric Dussert published an anthology titled Cachées par la forêt: 138 femmes de lettres oubliées. This panel expands on Dussert’s list to give attention to women writers, artists, and personnages in a variety of fields who have been overlooked, forgotten, or those whose contributions have been neglected. Inquiries and proposals in English or French to Glenn Fetzer (gwfetzer@nmsu.edu).
