SEAC Conference: ‘Disrupting’ the City: Urban Cris(e)s in Contemporary British Literature and Art
Avignon Université, 14-15 October 2021
Salle 0E32 – Campus Centre ville
Convened by Elsa Cavalié& Justine Gonneaud (ICTT)
THURSDAY 14 OCTOBER
Morning Session
9am Welcome
9.15 – 9.30 Conference Opening
9.30-10.30 Plenary session #1: Nick Bentley (Keele University)
Working-class City Spaces: Deindustrialisation, Displacement, and Gentrification in Contemporary British Fiction
Chairs: Elsa Cavalié & Justine Gonneaud
Coffee break
11 – 12.30 Panel 1: Centre & Margins
Chair: Nick Bentley (Keele University)
- Writing Urban Crisis from the Centre or the Periphery of the Capitalist World-System: Comparative Perspectives on John Lanchester’s Capital– Marianne HILLION (Sorbonne Université – Warwick University)
- Flight, Flânerie and Focalization in James Kelman’s How Late it Was, How Late – James DALRYMPLE (Université de Grenoble )
- Digging Deep: Iain Sinclair’s LondonOverground/Underground– Catherine LANONE (Université Paris Sorbonne)
Afternoon session
2.30 – 3.30 Plenary session #2: Lauren Elkin
Paying attention in the 21st century city
Chair: Catherine Lanone (Université Paris Sorbonne)
Coffee break
4 – 5.30 Panel 2: Divided Geographies
Chair: Vanessa Guignery (ENS Lyon)
- Bare Life in Nikesh Shukla’s Run, Riot(2018) and Guy Gunaratne’s In Our Mad and Furious City(2018) – Rebecca BLANCHARD (Université de Tours)
- Crisis of the ‘Event’, Guy Gunaratne’s In Our Mad and Furious City (2018) – Georges LETISSIER (Université de Nantes)
- Speaking the City, Disrupting the City: How immigrant-descent Spoken Word poets reclaim Britain’s postcolonial multicultural cities by enacting their disruption(s). – John SANNAEE (Université Paris 8 )
FRIDAY 15 OCTOBER
Morning session
Chair: Catherine Bernard (Université de Paris)
9.30-10.30 Plenary session #3 Charlotte Gould (Université de Paris Nanterre)
The Inclusions and Exclusions of British Public Art: creating art for the successful city or for the just city?
Coffee break
11 – 12 Panel 3: Art & disruption
- Banksy’s Disruption of London : a reappropriation of the city through art – Youssef FERDJANI (Université de Toulon)
- Disruption by Opportunity and by Design: The London squat party scene, 1993-2021 – Stéphane SADOUX (Grenoble School of Architecture (ENSAG)
Afternoon session
2 – 4.30 Panel 4: Historicizing Disruption: Past & Future
Chair: Laurent Mellet (Université de Toulouse)
- Interrupted Trains of Thoughts – Public Transports in Modernist Fiction of the early 20th century Great Britain : An Aesthetics of Disruption – Maud DE LUGET (Université Paris 3)
- Spatialising Character in The Crimson Petal and the White: The Figure of the Prostitute in the Neo-Victorian Urban Space – Lilia LOUATI MEZGHANI (Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès)
Coffee break
- Cohabitation, Crisis, and Commonality at the Other End of the Universe – Disrupting the Urban Space in China Miéville’s Embassytown– Deborah BRIDLE – (Université Côte d’Azur, CTEL)
- Ruins of the Future: Decaying Urban Landscapes in Richard Jefferies, J.G Ballard and Angela Carter’s Speculative Fiction (After London, The Drowned World and The Passion of the New Eve)”- Quitterie De BEAUREGARD – (Sorbonne Université)