NeMLA 2025 CFP - The Changing "Face" of France (NeMLA)
Philadelphia, PA
Organization: NeMLA
Event: NeMLA
CFP – Panel
The Changing “Face” of France
Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) Annual Convention
March 6-9, 2025
Philadelphia, PA
« Un peu plus de trente ans plus tard, sommes-nous toujours français ? Ma réponse est oui. Nous sommes français et nous sommes la France. Ce ‘nous’ est un ‘nous’ composite, celui de ces individus qui, privés de relais, ne sont jamais sur le devant de la scène. Ce ‘nous’ est féminin, jeune, multicolore et multiculturel, il est l’avenir de la France. »
-Rokhaya Diallo, À nous la France !
In the introduction of her book, Rokhaya Diallo responds to a rhetorical question in an issue of Le Figaro Magazine from the 1980s that asks, under an image of Marianne wearing a hijab, whether “we” will still be French in thirty years. This seems to imply that the hijab and cultures that accept it are antithetical to French identity. What constitutes French-ness? How are conceptualizations of French identity changing (or not)? Are there new and different representations of French-ness? This panel seeks papers that discuss how individuals and groups of different races, ethnicities, religions, sexualities etc. embrace, question, challenge, or reformulate their French identity. Does the French population look different in the 21st century? Does the French population think differently than before about French-ness? Are there characteristics and mindsets that are considered essentially French? By whom? Who can be included in the “we”/“nous”? How are diversity and the changing “face” of France accepted and/or rejected?
Topics may include, but are not limited to:
· DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) efforts in France
· Increased visibility of racialized groups in French population, media, literature, film, arts
· Affinity groups or culturally-specific opportunities for minoritized groups in France
· Authors, filmmakers, creatives presenting new perspectives of French identity
· Underrepresented minority experiences in media, literature, and film
· Different definitions of French-ness
· Contemporary understandings of French identity
· Analyses, applications, implications, etc. of the “grand remplacement” theory
· France’s political, cultural, or ideological responses to immigration
· French linguistic evolutions for diverse speakers/to express diversity (i.e., use of slang, vocabulary for race/ethnicity, nonbinary pronouns, importation and popular use of other languages in France, French influence on other languages and cultures)
· Teaching diversity in the French-language classroom
Please submit abstracts of 200-300 words (in English or French) via the NeMLA Call For Papers by September 30, 2024.
For questions or more information, please contact Tiffany Bailey (t.bailey@northeastern.edu).
https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21154
Tiffany Bailey