"Si vous vous intéressez aux romanciers britannique contemporains, voici de quoi satisfaire votre curiosité un peu avant Noel à Paris. Je participe à ce colloque le vendredi après midi pour le débat et j'accueillerai Will Self qui viendra lire des extraits de son prochain roman le samedi après midi.
This is an invitation to attend a confrence on current trends in British fiction to be held at the Sorbonne in December. I will play the role of (im)moderator on Friday afternoon and then will talk about and to Will Self who will be with us on Saturday afternoon to read some extracts of his latest novel.
Didier Girard"
International conference
« VOICES AND SILENCE IN THE CONTEMPORARY NOVEL IN ENGLISH »
with
WILL SELF
14 and 15 December 2007
Paris IV Sorbonne. 1 rue Victor Cousin, 75005 Paris (Friday and Saturday afternoon)
Maison de la recherche. 28 rue Serpente, 75006 Paris (Saturday morning)
Research centre ERCLA (http://www.ercla.paris4.sorbonne.fr)
François Gallix and Vanessa Guignery
With the support of the Scientific Committee and Doctoral School IV of Paris IV-Sorbonne, and of the British Council
Friday 14 December 2007
Paris IV Sorbonne. 1 rue Victor Cousin, 75005 Paris
8h45-12h30 Salle du CIO, Galerie Claude Bernard, ground floor.
Chair : Vanessa Guignery (Paris IV)
8h45 Welcome
9h Laurence Tatarian (Bordeaux 3): Graham Swift’s vocal silences
9h30 Isabelle Roblin (Université du Littoral-Côte d'Opale): Graham Swift’s Tomorrow: once more upon the breach...
10h00 Hélène Fau (Metz) : Making the voice wordless in A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro
10h30 Coffee break
Chair :
11h00 Annette Kern-Stähler (Münster, Germany): Jackie Kay, Why don’t you stop talking?
11h30 Cécile Léonard (Orléans): Salman Rushdie’s Art of Sentencing the Excess
12h Elsa Sacksick (Cergy-Pontoise): Cries and Whispers (Salman Rushdie/Arundhati Roy)
12h30-14h30: Lunch break
14h30-18h00 English Department, Salle Louis Bonnerot, G Stairs, 2nd floor.
Chair: Prof. Didier Girard
14h30 Tetyana Lunyova (Poltava State Pedagogical University, Ukraine): The Told, the Written, and the Unuttered: on the Representation of speech in the novel Music and Silence by Rose Tremain
15h00 Monica Girard (Nancy): Breaking the Silence in Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin
15h30 Judith Munat (Pisa, Italy): The representation and interpretation of silence in contemporary African fiction
16h00 Coffee break
16h30 Sonia Saubion (Montpellier III) : From Logorrhoea to Silence in John Fowles’s The Collector
17h00 Judith Misrahi-Barak (Montpellier III) : Ryhaan Shah’s Silent Screams of A Silent Life
17h30 Christina Mesa (Stanford University, USA): Still Life and Active Erotic Excess in Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy and Zadie Smith’s On Beauty
Saturday 15 December 2007
9h00-12h30 Maison de la recherche, 28 rue Serpente, Salle D323, 3rd floor.
Chair :
9h00 Geneviève Ducros (Bordeaux II) : ‘The silent ghostly I-figure in Coetzee’s Boyhood : Scenes from Provincial Life and the grotesque writing of an unnameable secret.’
9h30 Bozena Kucala (Poland): Resisting history, resisting story: J.M. Coetzee’s The Life and Times of Michael K
10h00 Nicole Terrien (Rouen) : So many Silent Voices, which are mine? (Jenny Diski)
10h30 Break
Chair :
11h00 Benjamine Toussaint (Paris IV-Sorbonne) : The narrator’s voice lost and found in Ronald Frame’s The Lantern Bearers
11h30 Ingrid Bertrand (Louvain, Belgium): Filling in what was Left out: Voices and Silences of Biblical Women (Michèle Roberts, Margaret Atwood)
12h00 Eleftheria Kavazi (Oxford): Voicing Silence and Silencing the Voices: The Interplay of Verbosity and Absence of Speech in Samuel Beckett’s Drama
12h30-14h30: Lunch break
14h30-18h00 Milne Edwards lecture room, B stairs, 3rd floor, Sorbonne, 1 rue Victor Cousin
Chair : Prof. François Gallix (Paris IV)
14h30 Paulina Kupisz (Warsaw, Poland): Giving voice to silence: A.S.Byatt’s Possession.
15h00 Ben Winsworth (Orléans): Passing Over in Silence: Towards Quietism in Graham Swift’s Shuttlecock
15h30 Pascale Tollance (Lille 3) : « You cross a line » : l’excès d’une parole contenue dans The Light of Day de Graham Swift
16h00 Break
16h30 Didier Girard (Perpignan): Radical No-Saying : PAradoxes of the Will/Self
17h00 Reading and discussion with Will SELF
18h30 Cocktail
Saturday, 10 November 2007
General: Conference Sorbonne 14 et 15 décembre (Will Self / too much noise too much silence)
Friday, 9 November 2007
People in Perpignan
Left to right:
1. Lekha (not a Mundus student but in the Heterology department in Perpignan)
2. Tenon Kone
3. Poonam Ganglani
4. Alexandra Bardy
5. Sharad Bhaviskar
Thanks again, Ambika!
Tuesday, 6 November 2007
University accommodation in Lisbon
Guys, here's an awesome text Becky (a second-year student who is now in Sheffield) wrote about the university accommodation in Lisbon. It's really detailed and balanced - not to mention funny! Thanks Becky!
Residência Universitária do Lumiar – You either hate it of love it!
For most of us—the Mundus people, this is the place where you’ll most probably land your feet on, after the Lisbon airport, of course.
Based on my experience in meeting people who holds degree in Complaining, I cautioned myself to start with the “Ifs” so that it will make things easier especially for those who don’t have PhD in Tolerating. Lumiar might not be the right place for you
IF you value privacy more than anything else, because:
- You may be allocated a double room.
- Before you leave the residence, you have to drop your key with the Mr. or Miss Security.
- Every Tuesday the ladies in-charge will most probably enter your room to change your bed sheets if you are not in. In certain situation, they will enter whenever they need to.
IF you seek excitement, because:
- If you have visitors, they are required to leave by 12am. Meaning any outsider is not allowed to stay overnight unless they book and pay.
- There’s a distance between the Residence and the most happening places in Lisbon. If you are addicted to partying, perhaps Lumiar is too boring for you.
IF cooking is your passion, because:
- There is only 1 fridge and a separate cold storage for the whole block (about 60 persons). You could be Jamie Oliver wannabe or a beginner in cooking, in order to be fair to everyone be prepared for some inconvenience.
- Not everybody will clean the kitchen after using. Not everybody will put things back to its place. One day you might find there’s no fork, while the next day you’ll find that all the forks come back to the drawer but there’s no spoon.
If you sleep, eat, drink Internet, because:
- Perfect Internet connection 24/7 remains as the greatest dream of most of the residence. For plain reason, some rooms get better connection than the others. While for some mysterious reason, the Internet tends to rest during the weekend, though so far it has not taken Sabbatical leave.
If stealing is the worse crime that you can imagine, because:
- Putting your food in a common place, what else can you expect?
If you think you can do what you want, because:
- You’ll only know the rule when you break the rule.
- Gossiping is the nature of women as well as men.
- Don’t forget there are two ladies who perform their duty at the Residence.
But good news for those who don’t hold any qualification in Grudging or Perfectionism, Lumiar will be a fantastic place for you, because:
- You’ll never feel alone (though I can’t guarantee that you won’t feel lonely, lonely and alone is different, no?). Perhaps the only time that you can hardly find anyone is during the summer vacation.
- You’ll have the opportunity to meet people from <>10 nationalities. And just imagine how interesting the interactions between people can turn out. Not to mention cultural exchange, language learning and partying at the Residence!
- Monthly rental at 160 euros for double room, and 190 euros for single room (plus balcony), bathrooms and kitchen being cleaned every weekdays, beddings included, bed sheets and pillowcase being changed every week, 1 euro charged for each laundry, a rooftop (or your balcony) to hang your clothes, kitchen utensils and cutlery provided, wireless connection for the whole block, a common place with tv, a study room, security, and the free sunny sky of Lisbon, isn’t that too good to be true?
- Metro station located less than 500m away from the Residence, one fruit/grocery stall right in front of the Residence, the Canteen of Lisbon University opposite the Residence where you pay 2 euros for a complete meal (opened for lunch and dinner), one mini market within 200m, a big supermarket within 5 minutes walk, few Chinese shops and at least 2 Chinese restaurants, less than 15 minutes walk to Alvalaxia (a football stadium + Shopping complex + food court + cinemas + bowling alleys).
- If you are keen on academic research or looking for good student facilities, especially libraries and sporting facilities, the University of Lisbon is 2 stations away, which is less than 5 minutes journey if you take the Metro nearest to the Residence. More info on this will be published later.
I guess I’ve made a right choice to enroll in the College of Contentment. Thinking about it, isn’t it more worthwhile to pursue the Master Mundus Crossways in European Humanities than the Masters in Complaining? (it’s advertisement time….)
Sunday, 4 November 2007
Accommodation in Sheffield
Accommodation in usually a concern when arriving in a different city. So here's a quick guide to Sheffield.
