Documents may be written words or images made with pen and paper, painted on parchment, typewritten, or recorded in various media, analogue or digital. What are the boundaries of documentation and what lies in the undocumented space beyond?
Central to this question is the definition of “document.” Documents are material–tangible and/or visible, and yet they are signs or representations of a point of origin, a source of power or authority, from which they are detached. Given this irreducible gap, the relationship among the documented, the documenter, and ultimately the document is slippery and unfixed. Therefore, the document itself is unstable, and yet we endow it with authority and authenticity, and even at times agency. Since our notions of authenticity are so often mediated by documents, to what extent can we trust them and what do we do in their absence?
Friday, November 17
8:45 a.m. Registration
9:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Opening Remarks, Panels 1 & 2
12:30 – 1:30 p.m. Keynote: BRIGITTE BEDOS-REZAK, NYU
Saturday, November 18
10:15 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. Opening remarks, Panels 3, 4 & 5
4:00 – 5:00 p.m. Keynote: PETER SZENDY, Brown University
Sponsored by Department of French Literature, Thought, and Culture
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