PLURILINGUISMES / MULTILINGUALISM

TRANSLINGUAL LITERATURE: COMPARATIVE BY NATURE OR BY CHOICE? Translingual literature (the term coined by Steven Kellman, 2000) is literature written by authors in a language other than their primary one. Spanning time and across continents and languages, from Petrarch and Descartes to Beckett and Nabokov to present day Nancy Huston, Ha Jin, Ilan Stavans, and Gary Shteyngart, among many others, this emerging field has been growing steadily over the last century, making visible strides on the literary scene of our increasingly globalized world and reflecting a new zeitgeist of cultural nomadism, cosmopolitanism, and fragmented national identity. Plurilingual speakers (bi- and multi-lingual, polyglot) who have acquired two or more languages through migration, displacement, education, travel, economic domination or territorial re-configurations are profoundly marked by these dynamics. Translingual literature mirrors and echoes their voices. Interdisciplinary and comparative by nature, the study of translingualism extends from multiple perspectives of the examination of literary text (all genres) to studies in bilingualism, socio- and psycho-linguistics, cultural anthropology, psychology, and artsall across humanities. In the spirit of the conference theme, Comparative Literature as a Critical Approach, the proposed seminar will examine a number of topics which demonstrate that translingual literature is simultaneously an object, subject, and agent of inquiry, both a research method and data, and, most importantly, a site for literary, linguistic, inter-cultural, and psychological transgredience. The diverse papers included in the proposal represent literary works from different historical and geographical/cultural intersections, such as East and West, and reveal a variety of literary and lingua-cultural phenomena explored from textual, qualitative, phenomenological, autobiographical, and empirical perspectives. They include such topics as plurilingual writing in Germany in the 1900s (Rilke, George, and Wedekind); the story of a trilingual poet, journalist, and publisher, Eugene Jolas; multilingual writers in Alsace after World War II; the dual lives of Leonard Michaels, Mary Antin, Louis Wolfson, Assia Djebar; the exodus and literary rebirth of Soviet Jews (Gary Shteyngart, Alina Bronsky); and linguistic interlopers, Andrei Makine, Nancy Huston, and Alba de Cespedes. Stemming from these and other subjects of translingual inquiry, new theoretical concepts and metaphors have emerged: the theme of involuntary dissent in immigrant memoir; bilingual writers, protagonists, and individuals as mythical tricksters; the relationship between multilingual readers, writers, and monolingual texts; the issue of national literature and transnational affiliations; and the history of trans-atlantic (multilingual) literary criticism. The proposed seminar brings together recognized scholars across continents (Eastern and Western Europe, USA, Australia, New Zealand) and within a wide interdisciplinary spectrum. AILC is a perfect venue for the group to share research and to communicate to fellow scholars. As of now, we are twelve (12) participants. We are requesting a four (4) day seminar: three presenters per 90 minutes per day, 20 minutes per presentation, 5 min. for immediate questions after each presentation, and 15 min. discussion at the end of each day session. References Kellman, S. (2000). The Translingual imagination. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.

PLURILINGUISME LITTERAIRE 1900 Universit partenaire organisatrice: Universit de Strasbourg Rflexions thoriques et tudes de cas Lintrt pour lexpression littraire du plurilinguisme va croissant, comme en tmoigne la rcente rdition de louvrage The Poets Tongues : Multilingualism in Literature (1970) de Leonard Forster (Cambridge University Press, 2010) dont les tudes de Schmitz-Emans et Schmeling, notamment, ont pu rappeler le caractre pionnier (Schmeling & Schmitz-Emans 2002 ; Schmitz-Emans, 2004) et en favoriser la redcouverte. Sans toutefois connatre la mme inflation que les tudes interculturelles, champ avoisinant, les travaux autour du plurilinguisme littraire, en plein essor, sont eux aussi mettre en relation avec les bouleversements nationaux (runification allemande), europens (largissement de lUE et unification) et mondiaux (mondialisation et migrations) qui donnent une nouvelle acuit la question de la culture, et consquemment aux enjeux identitaires et linguistiques. Cet ancrage dans les interrogations de notre temps claire certainement les risques danachronisme et dappropriation politique qui guettent le concept dinterculturalit (Heimbckel et ali, 2010) mais galement les tudes dauteurs et/ou de textes plurilingues. Aussi, afin de prvenir de telles mprises et de contribuer ventuellement circonscrire lesprit de la littrature compare, notamment en ce quelle se distingue des tudes interculturelles, le prsent sminaire propose de donner une place explicite la contextualisation, afin

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de se situer dans une perspective dhistoire littraire, fidle lhritage de Forster aussi bien quaux prmisses de la littrature gnrale et compare. Le plurilinguisme littraire sera envisag selon deux facettes (qui peuvent aller de pair) : le plurilinguisme intertextuel pratiqu par les auteurs polyglottes qui, dun texte lautre, utilisent des langues diffrentes (Mehrsprachigkeit), et le plurilinguisme intratextuel, mlange de langues au sein dun mme texte (Mischsprachigkeit). Cette distinction (Knauth, 2004) est fondamentale lhypothse de dpart laquelle ce sminaire invite rflchir : avec la fin du XIXe sicle se constitue une ligne de partage dans laccueil et le maniement du plurilinguisme littraire. QuOscar Wilde crive sa Salom (1894) en franais fait scandale, alors quun sicle auparavant, personne navait rien trouv de malsant dans le fait que langlais Beckford et choisi dcrire en franais sa fantaisie orientale Vathek. Cet exemple permet -il, et si oui, dans quelle mesure, dvoquer lide dun renversement dans les reprsentations ? Des tudes de cas dauteurs polyglottes (appartenant la gnration ne autour de 1860/70 : Jules Laforgue, Jean Moras, Stuart Merill, Marie Krysinska, Teodor de Wyzewa, Emile Verhaeren, Frank Wedekind, Lou Andreas-Salom, Fritz Mauthner, Rainer Maria Rilke ) sont-elles mme de prouver lmergence dune nouvelle sensibilit lgard du plurilinguisme ? Peut-on affirmer que lauteur plurilingue, aprs avoir t un non -phnomne/problme pendant environ 2000 ans, est dans le XIXe sicle finissant considr comme hors-norme, ft ou rejet mais ne laissant plus indiffrent ? Peut-on parler dun paradoxe du plurilinguisme 1900, dans la mesure o le plurilinguisme des auteurs est dsormais visible et remarqu, tandis que lhybridit des textes, prosc rite selon la norme de la puritas, commence percer, pour, au courant du XXe sicle, stablir comme option esthtique reconnue ? Theoretical Approaches and Case Studies Interest in the literary expression of multilingualism has recently been growing as can be seen by the publication in 2010 of a new edition of Leonard Foster's The Poet's Tongue: Multilingualism in Literature, originally published in 1970. Two authors, Schmitz-Emans (2002) and Schmeling (2004), have specifically contributed to the rediscovery of Fosters pioneering work. While literary multilingualism has not witnessed the same amount of interest as has in recent decades the related field of cultural studies, the considerable growth of research in this area can be understood in the context of transformations at different levels: national (German reunification), European (enlargement and intensification of ties within the EU), and global (globalisation and migration). These changing landscapes present a new challenge to understanding the nature of culture and related issues of identity and language. Such contemporary questions are not free of the danger of anachronism and political appropriation, often found both in the concept of interculturalism (Heimbrckel et al, 2010) and in studies of multilingual texts and/or authors. The purpose of this seminar is to give explicit attention to contextualisation, situating papers in a historical literary perspective true to the heritage of Foster and to the premises of comparative literature, and thus to contribute to highlighting the possible differences between comparative literature and cultural studies. Literary multiligualism will be approached from two perspectives (which can coexist): firstly, the intertextual multilingualism of polyglot authors, who use different languages in different texts and secondly, intratexual multilingualism (mixing languages in the same text). This distinction (Knauth, 2004) is fundamental to the hypothesis this seminar seeks to reflect upon, which is that the end of the nineteenth century constitutes a watershed in the reception of and engagement with literary multilingualism. Oscar Wilde created a scandal by writing his Salome (1894) in French, but a century earlier there was no objection to the English novelist Beckford writing his Vathek in French. Does this example allow us to identify changing attitudes, and if so, to what extent? Could case studies of multilingual authors belonging to the generation born around 1860/70 (such as Jules Laforgue, Jean Moras, Stuart Merill, Marie Krysinska, Teodor Wyzewa, Emile Verhaeren, Frank Wedekind, Lou Andreas-Salom, Fritz Mauthner, Rainer Maria Rilke...for example), prove the emergence of a new attitude towards multilingualism? For some two thousand years multilingual authors had neither been a special phenomenon nor a problem. Could one argue that at the end of the nineteenth century they were no longer received indifferently, being either rejected or celebrated? Could one contend that multilingualism was paradoxical in 1900: multilingual authors were now noticed and visible, but textual hybridity, previously forbidden by the norm of puritas, began to emerge as a new aesthetic option for the twentieth century?

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