Co-sponsored by New French Philosophy, The Center for French Civilization and Culture, Department of French, and La Maison Française
A mini–conference organized by Emily Apter
Barthes’s attachments to texts, myths, images, and groups of friends generated forms of intimate criticism that fit no clear genre. His affections and the affective modes of writing that these affections helped produce—suffused with desire, suffering, mourning, and resilience—will be the focus of this one-day conference. We will also consider the attachment as materials that were published posthumously or that remain relatively little known (as in the films he collaborated on with Canadian writers and film-makers). Additional questions to be addressed: How did Barthes compose an archive of intimacy? How did he blur the lines between intimate writing and pedagogy? How did he write queerly, influencing American critics like Susan Sontag, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and D.A. Miller? How did he articulate the anxieties and vulnerabilities of what Catherine Malabou has dubbed “the new wounded” or what others have termed the “precariat?”
Morning Session: 10:00 –1:00
Moderated by Richard Sieburth
Jean-Michel Rabaté, Roland Barthes and the Pathos of Distance
Françoise Gaillard, ‘J’ai toujours eu envie d’argumenter mes humeurs’
François Proulx, P/Reparation: Barthes and Sedgwick
Marielle Macé, Barthes and the rhythmicity of living
Afternoon I: 2:30 –4:30
Film Screening
Le sport et les hommes (1959, 58 minutes)
Script by Barthes, in collaboration with Hubert Aquin
La lutte (1961, 27 minutes)
Michel Brault and Marcel Carrière
To discuss the films: Yve-Alain Bois
Afternoon II: 5:00 –7:00
Roundtable Moderated by Emily Apter
Philippe Roger
Ben Kafka
Youna Kwak
Denis Hollier
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