Thursday 6th April 2023
Maison internationale des langues et des cultures
Amphitheatre (ground floor), 35 rue Raulin, 69007 Lyon
09.00: Welcome and coffee/tea
09.15: Opening of the conference
PANEL 1: Mourning
Chair: Héloïse Lecomte (ENS de Lyon)
9.30: Jürgen Pieters (Ghent University): “‘the sacrifice of mourning’: Denise Riley’s ‘A Part Song’”
10.00: Lacy Rumsey (ENS de Lyon): “Prosody as Consolation: Rhythmic vs. Cultural Work”
10.30: Kathrin Ritzka (Humboldt-University of Berlin): “Religious Residues and Consolation in the Works of Denise Riley and Julian Barnes”
11.00: Coffee break
PANEL 2: Ali Smith
Chair: Vanessa Guignery (ENS de Lyon)
11.30: Margaret Scanlan (Indiana University-South Bend): “A Private and Public Grief: Consolation in Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet”
12.00: Merritt Moseley (University of North Carolina, Asheville, N.C.): “Perverse Consolation in Ali Smith’s The Accidental”
12.45-14.00: Lunch Break (Buffet CROUS Descartes for speakers)
PANEL 3: Illness Narratives and the (Dis)Comforts of Bibliotherapy
Chair: Merritt Moseley (University of North Carolina, Asheville, N.C.)
14.15: Paweł Wojtas (University of Warsaw): “Illness Narrative as Bibliotherapy in J.M. Coetzee’s The Death of Jesus”
14.45: Diane Gagneret (University of Lyon 1): “‘a watering of her desert’: Depression and (Dis)Consolation in Jenny Diski’s Monkey’s Uncle”
15.15: Gerd Bayer (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg): “Apologies, Gratitude, Consolation: Jenny Diski’s Writing as Moral Reckoning”
15.45: Coffee Break
Chair: Vanessa Guignery (ENS de Lyon)
16.15: Keynote lecture: David James (University of Birmingham): “Whose Consolation? Medical Writing and the Caregiver’s Gain”
17.15: Break
17.30: Guest writer: Reading and Conversation with Salena Godden
Presented by Héloïse Lecomte (ENS de Lyon)
18.30: Book signing
Damn Fine Bookstore will be selling copies of Salena Godden’s books Pessimism is for Lightweights and Mrs Death Misses Death.
20.00: Dinner at Trattino, 58 rue Clément Marot, 69007 Lyon (for speakers)
Friday 7th April 2023
Amphitheatre Descartes, ENS de Lyon, 15 Parvis René Descartes, 69007 Lyon
PANEL 4: Narrative, Memory, Transmission and (In)Consolation
Chair: Judith Misrahi-Barak (University Paul Valery Montpellier 3)
09.30: Teresa Gibert (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid): “Desolation and Consolation in Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin”
10.00: Gina Cesto (University of Paris Nanterre): “Consoling the Untold: Suturing Filial Wounds in Andrea Levy’s Fruit of the Lemon (1999)”
10.30: Cédric Courtois (University of Lille): “(In)consolation through Excavation in Yewande Omotoso’s An Unusual Grief (2022)”
11.00: Coffee Break
PANEL 5: Fictions as Forums for (Un)consolation
Chair: Cédric Courtois (University of Lille)
11.30: Judith Misrahi-Barak (University Paul Valery Montpellier 3): “Drifting as Consolation in Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost”
12.00: Jaine Chemmachery (Sorbonne Université): “Consolation in The Fortune Men (2021) by Nadifa Mohamed: Fiction as Consolatory Practice?”
12.45-14.00: Lunch Break (Buffet CROUS Descartes for speakers)
PANEL 6: Performing In/Consolation in Theatre
Chair: Diane Gagneret (University of Lyon 1)
14.15: Vicky Angelaki (Mid Sweden University): “Theatre, Community and Climate Consolation”
14.45: Marion Coste (ENS de Lyon): “Damage Has Been Done: Atoning for the Iraq War on the British Stage”
15.15-15.30: Break
PANEL 7: Counter-Narratives of Consolation
Chair: Jaine Chemmachery (Sorbonne Université)
15.30: Franck Miroux (Université Toulouse-Jean Jaurès): “Consoling the Inconsolable? Writing, Telling and Persistent Pain in Robert Arthur Alexie’s Porcupines and China Dolls”
16.00: Bryant Scott (Texas A&M University at Qatar): “The Solace of the Gutter: Distance and Bearing Witness to Violence in Postcolonial Graphic Literature”
17.00: End of the conference