CALL FOR PAPERS

CONFERENCE: ‘IDENTITY FORMATION’

WEDNESDAY 4 APRIL 2007

GUEST SPEAKERS: 

PROF. CHARLES FORSDICK 
& 
PROF. ADRIAN ARMSTRONG

SCHOOL OF LANGUAGES, LINGUISTICS 
& CULTURES
THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER

Sponsored by The University of Manchester, The Society for French Studies 
and
 The Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies

This will be the first ever conference to incorporate all the discipline 
areas in the School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures at The 
University of Manchester.  This exciting inaugural event aims to be all 
inclusive and embrace all languages; it will treat the notion of ‘Identity 
Formation’ in literature, art, film and media studies under three main 
themes:

1.	The role of philosophy/ideology in the formation of identity:

-	this addresses how the individual acts/forms his identity as a 
result of his philosophical ideas/ideological beliefs.
-	it could include the philosophical ideas and values of, for 
example, the Enlightenment; the Counter-Enlightenment; Irrationalism; 
Existentialism; Post-Structuralism; Post-Colonialism etc.  
-	it could include the ideologies and identities of a particular 
class or gender of people, nation, or race in society or a historical era.

2.	Diasporic and transcultural identities:

-	this could include the notion of “becoming” identities; of 
identities being interchangeable; the concept of hybridity; and the 
effects of migration on identities.

3.	Narrative identity:

-	this addresses identity as a result of narration, which can be 
analysed by looking at the parts that constitute it - in particular plot, 
time and place.
Guest Speakers:

The guest speakers will be the distinguished scholars PROFESSOR CHARLES 
FORSDICK, The University of Liverpool, and PROFESSOR ADRIAN ARMSTRONG, The 
University of Manchester.
Professor Forsdick, who occupies the James Barrow Chair of French at the 
University of Liverpool, went to Liverpool in 2001. He previously studied 
at New College, Oxford and Lancaster University where he obtained his 
doctorate. Before being appointed to the University of Liverpool, he 
taught for five years at the University of Glasgow.  
His research and teaching interests include exoticism, travel literature, 
postcolonial literature in French, the francophone dimensions of 
postcolonial theory, and the contemporary French novel.  He has recently 
published Travel in Twentieth-Century French and Francophone Cultures 
(OUP, 2005), and is currently working on the links between travel and 
cultural diversity.  His forthcoming publications include Francophone 
Postcolonial Studies (co-editor, Arnold) and editions of Victor Segalen's 
Essai sur l'exotisme and Equipée (Champion), and he is currently working 
on representations of the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint Louverture.
At this conference, Professor Forsdick will, amongst other subjects, 
discuss postcolonial representation and the effects of displacement, 
migration and travel.

Professor Armstrong completed his undergraduate degree and D.Phil. at 
Oxford, and spent a year as a Research Fellow in Cambridge before joining 
Manchester in 1995. Since then he has also taught as a visiting lecturer 
at Cambridge and Lyon-III.  

His research centres around grand rhétoriqueur poetry; late medieval and 
early Renaissance literature; manuscript studies and bibliography; and the 
influence of book form upon literature.  His principal interests are 
literary, and he has published work on various writers, including Villon, 
Molinet, Lemaire, Bouchet, and Jean Marot. However, his concerns with the 
book as object are also linked to literary questions by an interest in 
text editing, a discipline of fundamental importance for literary 
scholarship which is currently eliciting much methodological reflection. 
Besides a forthcoming edition of Jean Bouchet's Jugement poetic de 
l'honneur femenin, a pro-feminist text printed in 1538, he has co-edited a 
collection of occasional writing by the major rhétoriqueur Jean Lemaire de 
Belges from the period 1511-1513, with Jennifer Britnell (Société des 
Textes Français Modernes). 

At this conference, Professor Armstrong will discuss how to successfully 
pursue a career in academia as a postgraduate student and will address 
issues of learning and teaching within higher education.

Please join us for an exploration of this compelling subject of identity 
formation.  
The committee members, Louise Crowther, Michela Baldo and Kate Roy, 
cordially invite postgraduate and post-doctoral students to submit 
abstracts relating to one of the three aforementioned panel subjects.


Guidelines for Abstracts and Papers

Please follow these instructions carefully:

- Abstracts [and papers] should be in English and no longer than 150 
words.  

- All citations in both the abstract and the paper should be given in 
English.

- Abstracts should indicate clearly which of the three panels they 
correspond to; please put the title of the panel you are applying to as 
the e-mail's subject.  

- Abstracts must be simply pasted/written into the e-mail and not attached 
as a Word [or other] document.  Please also indicate the proposed title 
for the paper at the start of the abstract.

- Please state whether you will require PowerPoint/an overhead projector 
for your paper.

- The papers are to be 20 minutes in length and no longer, with 
approximately 10 minutes for questions.

- Abstracts should be sent to [log in to unmask] 

- The submission deadline is 15 January 2007. 


Conference Registration:

- Please send your name, faculty, institution and contact telephone number 
to [log in to unmask]  Please enter the title ‘Registration’ in the 
subject field of the e-mail.  You will then receive an official 
registration form to complete and return with the fee of ten pounds.  The 
deadline for registration is 25 February 2007.

Registration fees include refreshments, lunch and a reception in the 
evening.  
The registration fees are non-refundable due to administrative costs.

- Enquiries should be addressed to Louise Crowther, on the committee, at: 
[log in to unmask]

Please enter the title ‘Enquiry’ in the subject field of the e-mail.

We look forward to seeing you at this exciting and inaugural event.