The abstracts and biographies are in alphabetical order. The letters before the name indicated the Session and Panel.
Les résumés et les biographies sont classés par ordre alphabétique. Les lettres précédant le nom indiquent la Session et le Panel.
(Keynote) Simone A. James ALEXANDER, Crossings, Creolizations and Con/Testing Borders: Maryse Condé’s Discursive and Poetic Practices and In(ter)ventions
Preeminent feminist Caribbean author’s, Maryse Condé, critical and creative talent is indisputable, the gendered ideology of collective responsibility manifests in her activism and fictional and non-fictional writing. Focusing on Condé’s various and multiple “feminist crossings” that engender contestations and creolizations (cultural, linguistic and poetic cross-pollination and intertextuality), this talk focuses on Condé’s writing (self) that embodies migrating wor(l)ds and multiple manifestations and migrations of the subject. Condé’s feminists crossings elude temporality and spatiality in their transcendence of fixity and predictability; fittingly, this talk examines how her discursive and creative crossings disturb and disrupt the male androcentric canon and the vocabulary of earlier canon(ical) debates. It establishes that Condé’s disruptive crossing/practice finds representation in her deliberately provocative interrogation of gender norms and her attendant searing critique of representative maleness, the masculinist vocabulary of so-called canonical literature. Condé’s subject position, her subjectivity, is integral to her feminist theorizations. Her bodily and literary/discursive presence (having lived in multiple, diverse geographic locales, and challenging traditional generic forms) registers unruliness and disorderliness (and simultaneously is redolent of self-regard) as it con/tests border restrictions and restraints.
Simone A. James Alexander is Professor of English, Africana Studies and Women and Gender Studies, affiliate member of the Russian and East European Studies Program and Latin America and Latino/Latina Studies at Seton Hall University. Her primary fields of research include women, gender, and sexuality studies, postcolonial literature, Transnational Feminist Theory, Caribbean studies, migration and diaspora studies. She is the author of the award-winning monograph, African Diasporic Women’s Narratives: Politics of Resistance, Survival and Citizenship (UP of Florida, 2014; reprinted in May 2016), which also received Honorable Mention by the African Literature Association Book of the Year Scholarship Award. Alexander is also the author of Mother Imagery in the Novels of Afro-Caribbean Women (University of Missouri Press, 2001) and coeditor of Feminist and Critical Perspectives on Caribbean Mothering (Africa World Press, 2013). Her articles appeared in Journal of West Indian Literature, L’Espirit Créateur, African American Review, MLA Approaches to Teaching Gaines’s The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and Other Works, Turkish Journal of Diaspora Studies, Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women’s and Gender Studies, African Literature Today, Anglistica: An Interdisciplinary Journal, and edited collections. She is the editor of <em”>The Cambridge Companion to Colson Whitehead. Her current book projects include Bodies of (In)Difference: Intimacy, Desirability and the Politics and Poetics of Relation and Black Freedom in (Communist) Russia: Great Expectations, Utopian Visions.
(S2P4) Abdelghani BRIJA, La représentation de la nature dans Traversée de la Mangrove de Maryse Condé. Une approche écocritique postcoloniale.
La période de la colonisation en Afrique et aux Caraïbes a considérablement changé le regard de l’ancien colonisé à la nature. L’impérialisme s’est mis à exploiter massivement les ressources naturelles des terres colonisées dont on ne saurait facilement négliger les dégâts. A cet effet, l’exploitation irrationnelle de l’entreprise coloniale est fortement présente dans les discours poétique et épistémologique de la nature dans les littératures postcoloniales de façon générale.
Parmi les éléments naturels qui hantent particulièrement la littérature antillaise, on trouve l’arbre et la forêt qui symbolisent la précarité de la société et sa résistance face à la dévastation coloniale des richesses naturelles. Dans l’imaginaire africain, l’arbre entretient une place sacrée et est considéré comme un symbole de la communauté et un gardien des esprits. La tradition antillaise n’est pas exclue de cette représentation. La nature y est marquée comme un symbole de la tradition, de l’identité, de l’histoire et de l’héritage. Afin d’avoir une idée de la valeur symbolique de la nature dans le contexte postcolonial, on n’a qu’à explorer un roman représentatif de cet aspect, à savoir Traversée de la Mangrove (1989) de son auteure guadeloupéenne Maryse Condé qui figure parmi les plus grands écrivains de la Caraïbe et dont le roman a été publié pendant la “vague de la mémoire” consacrée à la commémoration de l’abolition de l’esclavage.
A travers ce roman, nous essayerons d’explorer la nature non pas comme un espace de bien-être et du beau mais comme figure symbolique dont les éléments (arbres, terre, eau) se conjuguent à l’écriture et au style. Nous verrons comment l’auteure repense le rapport des personnages à l’espace naturel antillais à partir d’éléments comme l’arbre, le sel, l’eau, la boue, etc. tout en investissant une écopoétique postcoloniale de la nature.
[“The representation of nature in Maryse Condé’s Traversée de la Mangrove. A postcolonial ecocritical approach.” The period of colonization in Africa and the Antilles considerably changed the way the former colonized viewed nature. Imperialism began to exploit the natural resources of colonized lands on a massive scale, the damage of which cannot easily be overlooked. To this end, the irrational exploitation of the colonial enterprise is strongly present in the poetic and epistemological discourses of nature in postcolonial literatures in general.
Among the natural elements that particularly haunt West Indian literature, we find the tree and the forest, which symbolize the precariousness of society and its resistance to the colonial devastation of natural resources. In the African imagination, the tree holds a sacred place and is considered a symbol of the community and a guardian of spirits. The West Indian tradition is not excluded from this representation. Nature is marked there as a symbol of tradition, identity, history and heritage. In order to have an idea of the symbolic value of nature in the postcolonial context, we only have to explore a novel representative of this aspect, namely Traversée de la Mangrove (1989) by its Guadeloupean author Maryse Condé, who appears among the greatest writers of the Caribbean and whose novel was published during the “memory wave” dedicated to the commemoration of the abolition of slavery.
Through this novel, we will try to explore nature not as a space of well-being and beauty but as a symbolic figure whose elements (trees, earth, water) are combined with writing and style. We will see how the author rethinks the relationship of the characters to the West Indian natural space based on elements such as trees, salt, water, mud, etc. while investing in a postcolonial ecopoetics of nature.]
Abdelghani Brija est Docteur ès Lettres françaises, spécialité littérature francophone. Il est maître de conférences habilité à l’Université Mohamed V de Rabat et membre du Laboratoire Langues, Littératures, Arts et Cultures (LLAS). Soutenue en janvier 2020 à la Faculté des Lettres de Rabat, sa thèse portait le titre : « Corps féminin et postcolonialité dans le roman africain contemporain ». Il a publié plusieurs articles portant sur la littérature francophone. Ses domaines de recherche se rapportent à l’écriture africaine féminine, la postcolonialité et le comparatisme. Parmi ses contributions :
[Abdelghani Brija holds a doctorate in French literature, specializing in Francophone literature. He is a qualified lecturer at Mohamed V University, Rabat, and a member of the Laboratoire Langues, Littératures, Arts et Cultures (LLAS). Defended in January 2020 at the Faculté des Lettres in Rabat, his thesis was entitled “Corps féminin et postcolonialité dans le roman africain contemporain” (“Female body and postcoloniality in the contemporary African novel”). He has published several articles on Francophone literature. His areas of research relate to African women’s writing, postcoloniality and comparatism. His contributions include:]
Abdelghani BRIJA, « La Folie et la mort de Ken Bugul ou l’image en miniature d’un continent en état de guerre », La Guerre et ses représentations dans la littérature et les arts, ouvrage collectif dirigé par Monsif El Houari et Faiza Guennoun Hassani, département de langiue et de littérature françaises, Laboratoire de recherche : langues, représentations et esthétiques (LARES), Université Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah, 2021. pp. 11-20. ISBN 978-2-343-19957-3
Abdelghani BRIJA, « Le mépris des hommes pour le corps des femmes dans C’est le soleil qui m’a brûléede C. Beyala et La Voyeuse Interdite de Nina Bouraoui », La Palette des émotions. Comprendre les affects en sciences humaines, ouvrage collectif sous la direction de Frédéric Chauvaud, Rodolphe Defiolle et Freiderikos Valetopoulos avec le concours de Michel Briand, Rennes Cedex, Presses Universitaire de Rennes, coll. Essais PUR, 2021, pp. 415-434. ISBN 978-2-7535-8256-9
Abdelghani BRIJA, Assia MARFOUQ, « L’écriture du dégoût dans La Voyeuse interdite de N. Bouraoui et C’est le soleil qui m’a brûlée de C. Beyala, La Nourriture dans les arts et la littérature, ouvrage collectif sous la direction de Jamila Ayaou et Abdelhak Jaber, Publications du Laboratoire de Traductologie, Communication et Littérature (TCL), 2021, pp. 77-88. ISBN 978-9920-645-74-4.
Abdelghani BRIJA, « Réflexions philosophiques sur l’androgyne dans L’Enfant de sable et La Nuit sacré de Tahar Benjelloun », Repères Littéraires, Langagiers et Artistiques RELI’LART (IMIST), n°1 (2021) dirigé par Bouchra EDDAHBI et coordonné par Bouchra EDDAHBI et Assia MARFOUQ, pp. 36-45. ISSN 2737-8802, URL : https://revues.imist.ma/index.php/Relilart/article/view/29413.
(S3P6) Jaïlys DUAULT, Moi, Tituba sorcière… Noire de Salem : du réalisme magique au réel réenchanté
Dans le roman Moi Tituba sorcière… noire de Salem, Maryse Condé fait appel au réalisme magique, selon deux axes qui nous semblent importants. Non seulement elle s’inscrit dans la tradition d’un genre littéraire riche, mais elle combine également le réalisme historique, et la magie avérée de Tituba. Si la personnage éponyme est présente dès 1962 dans The Crucible d’Arthur Miller, elle n’y est alors qu’une « esclave noire baragouinant quelques mots d’anglais » (Maryse Sullivan). Par ces deux choix de narration (le réalisme magique et la narration homo et autodiégétique focalisée par Tituba), Maryse Condé « réenchante » (autant que faire se peut) les tragiques histoires de l’esclavagisme et des procès de Salem. Tituba apprend, désire, prend soin d’autrui, et n’est jamais seule (nous pensons, entre autres, à ses relations aux autres femmes (Esther Prynne, Elizabeth Parris), à ses amants, aux invisibles). Ainsi, la prise de pouvoir (fictive) grâce à la narration, à la magie, et au care positif est investie d’une prise de pouvoir sur le réel : il s’agit de redonner vie et voix à la présumée sorcière, dans une forme du devoir de mémoire que nous pouvons rapprocher de la micro-histoire (Carlo Ginzburg) et du revisionist mythmaking (Alicia Ostriker). Dans une notice explicative à la fin du roman, l’autrice indique en effet « je lui ai offert, quant à moi, une fin de mon choix ». Il s’agirait donc, dans cette communication, de nous interroger sur la façon dont Maryse Condé relate deux époques (autrement dit la dichotomie entre le XVIIème siècle et le propos universel sous-jacent), tout en proposant un discours sur la magie, dans un roman qui vise à replacer la femme noire et esclave au centre.
[“I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem: From Magical Realism to Re-enchanted Reality.” In the novel I Tituba: Black Witch of Salem, Maryse Condé employs magical realism in two ways that seem important to us. Not only does she follow in the tradition of a rich literary genre, but she also combines historical realism with the proven magic of Tituba. Although the eponymous character first appeared in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible in 1962, she was only a “black slave gibbering a few words of English” (Maryse Sullivan). Through these two narrative choices (magic realism and the homo and autodiegetic narration focused on Tituba), Maryse Condé “re-enchants” (as far as it is possible to do so) the tragic stories of slavery and the Salem trials. Tituba learns, desires, cares for others, and is never alone (we think, among other things, of her relationships with other women – Esther Prynne, Elizabeth Parris –of her lovers, of those who are invisible). Thus, the (fictional) assumption of power through narration, magic and positive care is invested with an assumption of power over reality: it’s a question of giving life and voice to the presumed witch, in a form of duty of memory that we can compare to micro-history (Carlo Ginzburg) and revisionist mythmaking (Alicia Ostriker). In an explanatory note at the end of the novel, the author states that “I offered her an ending of my own choosing”. The aim of this paper is to examine the way in which Maryse Condé relates two eras (in other words, the dichotomy between the 17th century and the underlying universalism), while at the same time proposing a discourse on magic, in a novel that aims to place the black, enslaved woman at the centre.]
Jaïlys Duault est doctorante en Littérature Générale et Comparée et chargée de cours à l’Université de Rennes 2 (Bretagne, France). Elle travaille sur “Les usages de la figure de la sorcière dans les romans hispanophones et anglophones de 1960 à nos jours : autour des concepts de croyance et de référentialité”, sous la direction d’Anne Teulade.
Elle s’est spécialisée sur les liens entre Histoire et fiction, avec un mémoire de Master autour de l’uchronie et du nazisme (“L’uchronie ou ‘l’infinie possibilité des possibles'”), qui a donné lieu à une communication lors du colloque “Raconter l’Histoire” du Laboratoire des imaginaires. Elle a également proposé en 2023 une communication sur “Dune ou l’impossible mouvement”, et une autre intitulée “Au centre des esprits la marge : le personnage de Tituba dans le roman de Maryse Condé.
Elle est membre du collège du Laboratoire des imaginaires, dont elle codirige la revue.
[Jaïlys Duault is a doctoral student in General and Comparative Literature and a lecturer at the University of Rennes 2 (Brittany, France). She is working on “The uses of the figure of the witch in Spanish- and English-language novels from 1960 to the present day: around the concepts of belief and referentiality”, under the supervision of Anne Teulade.
She specializes in the links between history and fiction, with a Master’s thesis on uchrony and Nazism (“L’uchronie ou ‘l’infinie possibilité des possible’“), which gave rise to a paper at the “Raconter l’Histoire” symposium organized by the Laboratoire des Imaginaires. In 2023, she also presented a paper on “Dune ou l’impossible mouvement”, and another entitled “Au center des esprits la marge: le personnage de Tituba dans le roman de Maryse Condé”.
She is a member of the board of the Laboratoire des imaginaires, whose journal she co-edits.]
(S3P5) Miriam GORDON, “Trouver son langage”: Créolité, Diaspora and Condé’s call to the Caribbean writer
In the edited collection of essays, Maryse Condé concludes Penser la Créolité with a scathing criticism against the Créolité movement that had been in prominence during the 1980s and 1990s. Describing the movement as ‘passéiste’, Condé condemns the lack of vision of the Creolists who seemingly failed to see the changing face of the French Caribbean in the late 20th century as embodied in continual inter-island migration and also by ‘aller-retour’ journeys of the Caribbean diaspora. The edited collection (co-edited with the late Dr Madeleine Cottenet-Hage) demonstrated the expanding potential of Créolité by its bilingual nature and including voices from the Caribbean, France and the US.
>Within her critique, Condé affirms that it is sufficient for the writer to ‘trouver son langage au-delà des langues’ a maxim that she has stood as she transitioned from writing as a Caribbean writer to writing as ‘Condé’. In recent years, younger female Caribbean writers have also been finding their voices in the foray of French Caribbean literature. It is interesting that Gisèle Pineau and Fabienne Kanor, who both grew up within the Caribbean diasporic communities in France seem to be the answer to the Créolité movement’s many insufficiencies.
This paper seeks to explore the ‘langage’ of both Pineau and Kanor, exploring how they display a sense of ‘global’ and ‘local’ aesthetics within their works and how they both adhere to and challenge the concepts of Creolists and even Condé herself. Both have made their physical and literary returns to the Caribbean but they by no means remain restricted by the borders of the French Caribbean islands. Ultimately, the paper seeks to understand what younger generations of female Caribbean writers owe to Condé ‘global’ vision of the Caribbean space.
Miriam Gordon is a 3rd PhD student at the University of Warwick. Her thesis examines the intersection between place, displacement and gender in French Caribbean literature. She has published a book review of Dr Laëtitia Saint Loubert’s monograph The Caribbean in Translation: Remapping Thresholds of Dislocation with the journal Modern and Contemporary France (May 2022). She has also given papers at several conferences including the Society for Caribbean Studies (SCS) main conference in July 2023 (De Monfort University) and the Women in French Australia online seminar series ‘Women, Memory and Intergenerational Transmission in the Francophone World’ (November 2023). Miriam also sits as postgraduate representative on the SCS Committee and has taken an active role in organising their postgraduate and main conferences.
(S1P1) Kathleen GYSSELS, « Rendez à Damas ce qui revient à Damas ! » ou les rendez-vous ratés avec l’œuvre de Maryse Condé
A trois reprises, Maryse Condé a raté le rendez-vous avec Léon G. Damas (1912-1978), son aîné, cofondateur de la négritude. Elle qui ne jure qu’avec Aimé Césaire a pourtant sur trois domaines agi comme une précurseure. D’abord, sur le champ littéraire qui se mettait en place pour les littératures émergentes dites « négro-africaines ». Moins connue est son anthologie en deux volumes Le Roman antillais, la poésie antillaise, qu’elle publie avec Nathan, en 1977.
Quarante ans avant, Damas avait déjà sorti chez Seuil une anthologie fort novatrice : Poètes d’expression française. A vrai dire, Damas de son côté précède Senghor, qui fait publier avec PUF son Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache, préfacée par Sartre et donc largement plus célèbre, rééditée, et ombrageant celle de Damas qui se soucie de l’éclat et de l’écho de voix « nègres » sous toutes les latitudes…
Certes, d’autres grands feront des anthologies (ce sera le chant de cygne d’Edouard Glissant, par exemple), mais Damas aura à sa façon publié trois anthologies, pour que l’Afrique diasporique se lise et s’entende, en dépit des barrières géographiques et linguistiques.
Ensuite, Condé ose s’aventurer sur le terrain litigieux de la relation entre Noir et juif (j’écris à dessein avec minuscule). Elle le fait sur le mode caustique du dialogue imaginaire entre Benjamin Cohen de Azevedo et Tituba, la sorcière noire de Salem dans son roman éponyme. Mais Damas, bien avant elle, avait cogité sur le rapport biaisé entre deux figures de l’oppression. C’est dans ses poèmes inédits, mis sous sceau par l’ayant droit, qu’il donne du fil à retordre quant au « nœud de mémoire » (qui n’est pas encore « conceptualisé » à cet instant-là). Dans « A la rubrique des chiens crevés », il met face à face la question de la mémoire noire et juive, se désolant de l’invisibilité de la victime de couleur sous le nazisme, et de la guerre des mémoires qu’il pressent, longtemps d’avance. Sa « compatriote » Taubira aura réalisé ses vœux culturels et politiques…et c’est aussi Taubira qui admire et respecte sa grande sœur Condé…
Car Condé a inlassablement tissé l’homosexualité, grand tabou aux Antilles, en Afrique et au-delà, dans ses romans où des couples mixtes sont nombreux, mais aussi de plus en plus ouvertement gays ou bisexuels. Chez Damas, la transgression de la dernière Ligne, celle de l’identité genrée, est abordée dans des poèmes inachevés, inédits. Lui qui avait été censuré à deux reprises, pilonné pour Pigments, censuré pour Retour de Guyane, n’ose plus l’autodafé mais « balance son porc ».
Quel dommage que la grande Irrévérencieuse n’ait pas croisé la route avec l’Intersectionnel de Cayenne ! A trois reprises, elle aurait ainsi désavoué, voire trahi, le troisième homme de la négritude qui, avec beaucoup moins de fastes que ses confrères (Senghor, Césaire), préparait le difficile chemin de Damas que Condé a également choisi. Traverser les obstacles de « race », « classe », « genre »… tel était leur « chemin de traverse » qui fait de tous deux des « marronneurs » souvent délaissés, sinon incompris, par les théoriciens « intra muros »…
[“‘Render unto Damascus what is due to Damascus’!’ Or, Failed Encounters with the Work of Maryse Condé”. On three occasions, Maryse Condé missed the rendezvous with Léon G. Damas (1912-1978), her predecessor and co-founder of négritude. Yet she, who swears by Aimé Césaire, acted as a precursor in three areas. First, in the emerging literary field of “negro-African” literature. Less well known is her two-volume anthology Le Roman antillais, la poésie antillaise, which she published with Nathan in 1977.
Forty years earlier, Damas had already published a very innovative anthology, Poètes d’expression française, with Seuil. In fact, Damas in turn preceded Senghor, who had his Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache published with PUF, with a preface by Sartre, thus much more famous, reissued and overshadowing Damas’s work, which was concerned with the brilliance and the echo of “negro” voices in all latitudes…
Of course, other great writers will produce anthologies (it would be Edouard Glissant’s swan song, for example), but Damas will have published three anthologies of his own, so that diasporic Africa can be read and heard, despite geographical and linguistic barriers.
Second, Condé dares to venture into the contentious terrain of the relationship between Blacks and jews (I use lower case on purpose). She does so in the caustic mode of the imaginary dialogue between Benjamin Cohen de Azevedo and Tituba, the black witch of Salem in her eponymous novel. But Damas, long before her, had pondered the skewed relationship between two figures of oppression. It is in his unpublished poems, sealed by the rightful owner, that he draws attention to the difficult problem of the “knot of memory” (not yet “conceptualized” at the time). In “A la rubrique des chiens crevés”, he confronts the question of Black and Jewish memory, lamenting the invisibility of the victim of colour under Nazism, and the war of memories that he foresees long in advance. His “compatriot” Taubira will have fulfilled his cultural and political wishes… and it’s also Taubira who admires and respects her big sister Condé…
For Condé has tirelessly weaved homosexuality, a major taboo in the West Indies, Africa and beyond, into her novels, where mixed couples are numerous, but also increasingly openly gay or bisexual. For Damas, the transgression of the last Line, that of gendered identity, is addressed in unfinished, unpublished poems. Damas, who had twice been censored, pounded for Pigments and censored for Retour de Guyane, no longer dares to self-destruct, but instead “balance son porc” [call out the swine, similar to #MeToo].
What a pity the great Irreverent didn’t cross paths with the Intersectional of Cayenne! On three occasions, she thus disowned, even betrayed, the third man of négritude who, with far less pomp than his colleagues (Senghor, Césaire), was preparing the difficult road to Damas/Damascus that Condé has also chosen. Crossing the obstacles of “race”, “class”, “gender”… such were their “byroads”, which makes them both “marronneurs” often neglected, if not misunderstood, by “intra muros” theorists…]
Kathleen Gyssels (HDR Sorbonne nouvelle) est professeure de littérature et de culture postcoloniales à l’université d’Anvers. Ses publications portent principalement sur les auteurs et les sujets africains américains, caribéens et francophones dans une perspective largement comparative et interdisciplinaire. Ses recherches actuelles ont étendu son champ d’action à des questions conflictuelles, telles que les lois mémorielles et les guerres de la mémoire dans la République française et en Europe. Dans des publications récentes, elle a abordé l’invisibilité de la présence juive dans la « pensée archipélique », tant dans ses littératures (tant théoriques que fictives) ; de même que l’absence de musées et de statues pour les héros et héroïnes « autochtones » (la « Memory 3D » : du roman à la statue, de la statue au musée, donnant l’exemple de Solitude d’après le roman éponyme d’André Schwarz-Bart). A cela s’ajoutent les questions tabou de la résurgence de l’antisémitisme dans les Caraïbes, des sexualités non-hétéronormatives (la «queerolization »).
Gyssels déconstruit les Manifestes comme les mouvements martiniquais qui, tout en critiquant la mainmise de la métropole, passent sur l’écocritique, la « misogynoire » ou encore l’excentricité des Guyanes (hollandaise, anglaise et néerlandaise), restées périphériques dans la pensée décoloniale française. Auteure de plusieurs monographies, elle a [co-]dirigé des numéros spéciaux sur Léon-Gontran Damas, René Maran, Suzanne Comhaire-Sylvain, et les Schwarz-Bart. Sa thèse Filles de Solitude. Essai sur les [auto-]biographies fictives de Simone et André Schwarz-Bart (L’Harmattan, 1996) est mise en ligne sur les « Classiques des Sciences Sociales ». Passes et impasses dans le comparatisme postcolonial caribéen(Honoré Champion, 2010) illustre à travers « cinq traverses » les convergences et divergences entre des auteurs jumelés (Toni Morrison et Maryse Condé, James Baldwin et Léon G. Damas, ou encore Wilson Harris et Edouard Glissant). Sa critique décoloniale consiste aussi à renégocier le canon postcolonial, toutes langues européennes confondues. En 2024, elle publia A ti pas avec l’antillectuel Léon Damas. Vers une France décoloniale ? (Brill) et Mine de riens : L G Damas, le passant intégral (Ed. Traverses, Caen). Elle est l’auteure de plusieurs monographies et de numéros spéciaux sur Régine Robin, Hélène Cixous, L.G. Damas, les Schwarz-Bart et René Maran.
[Kathleen Gyssels (HDR Sorbonne nouvelle) is Professor of Postcolonial Literature and Culture at the University of Antwerp. Her publications focus mainly on African American, Caribbean and Francophone authors and subjects from a broadly comparative and interdisciplinary perspective. Her current research has extended her focus to conflictual issues, such as memory laws and memory wars in the French Republic and Europe. In recent publications, she has addressed the invisibility of the Jewish presence in “archipelic thought”, both in its literatures (both theoretical and fictional); and in the absence of museums and statues for “native” heroes and heroines (“Memory 3D”: from novel to statue, from statue to museum, giving the example of Solitude after André Schwarz-Bart’s novel of the same name). Added to this are the taboo issues of the resurgence of anti-Semitism in the Caribbean, and non-heteronormative sexualities (“queerolization”).
Gyssels deconstructs both the Manifestes and the Martinique movements, which, while criticizing metropolitan control, pass over ecocriticism, “misogynoire” and the excentricity of the Guyanas (Dutch, English and of the Netherlands), which have remained peripheral in French decolonial thought. The author of several monographs, she has [co-]edited special issues on Léon-Gontran Damas, René Maran, Suzanne Comhaire-Sylvain and the Schwarz-Barts. Her thesis Filles de Solitude. Essai sur les [auto-]biographies fictives de Simone et André Schwarz-Bart (L’Harmattan, 1996) is available online at Classiques des Sciences Sociales. Passes et impasses dans le comparatisme postcolonial caribéen (Honoré Champion, 2010) illustrates through “five cross-encounters” the convergences and divergences between paired authors (Toni Morrison and Maryse Condé, James Baldwin and Léon G. Damas, or Wilson Harris and Edouard Glissant). Her decolonial critique also involves renegotiating the postcolonial canon, in all European languages. In 2024, she published A ti pas avec l’antillectuel Léon Damas. Vers une France décoloniale? (Brill) and Mine de riens : L G Damas, le passant intégral (Ed. Traverses, Caen). She is the author of several monographs and special issues on Régine Robin, Hélène Cixous, L.G. Damas, the Schwarz-Barts and René Maran.]
(S2P3) Kate HODGSON, Le paradoxe haïtien: Maryse Conde and Haitian women’s protest novels
Haiti and the “Haitian neighbor” (Moudileno, 2006) is a recurrent theme in the work of Maryse Condé, featuring prominently in several of her novels, including Haïti Chérie/Rêves amers and En attendant la montée des eaux. Condé is also one of the first literary critics to have offered a sustained analysis of Haitian women’s writing in its own right, with her groundbreaking La parole des femmes. Writing in 1979, during the Duvalier dictatorship, Condé reads the renaissance of Haitian women’s writing during the late 60s and 70s as “une littérature engagée”, concerned with social, political and class issues related to Haiti’s condition under dictatorship. This paper will follow Condé’s lead in considering Haitian women’s writing of the mid-late twentieth century as a protest literature. I will also consider what Condé calls the ‘Haitian paradox’ (that is, the “ambivalence” surrounding the revolution and its legacies) from the perspective of the exclusion/inclusion of women in revolutionary politics; tensions with which Haiti’s revolutionary women have grappled over several generations. I will examine to what extent twentieth-century fictional landscapes continue to be shaped by the collective memory of previous generations of female revolutionaries, and why taking gendered and intergenerational perspectives into account can be a useful way of diversifying our understanding of the legacies of revolution.
Kate Hodgson is Lecturer in French at University College Cork in Ireland, where she co-convenes a research cluster in the College of Advanced Studies in Languages and Cultures on memory, commemoration and the uses of the past. She is author and co-editor of a recent volume with Routledge, Memory, Mobility & Material Culture (2022). Her research focuses on the Haitian revolution and its afterlives, the abolition of slavery and postcolonial memory.
(S1P2) Daniel HUGHES, The Medical Humanities and Maryse Condé’s Moi, Tituba, Sorcière… Noire de Salem
With an interpretive lens drawn from the medical humanities, this presentation will examine evolving conceptions of medicine, science, and healing within Maryse Condé’s Moi, Tituba, Sorcière… Noire de Salem. The analysis will consider the way that Condé charts Tituba’s power and actualization, alongside her persecution, in their intersection with her prowess as a medical practitioner in both Salem and Barbados. Voices within contemporary medical education have argued for more examination by medical students of narratives that present healing and disease within a complex, occasionally ambiguous framework. In this light, Condé’s Moi, Tituba…, while historically grounded, provides a rich narrative with complex ideas regarding doctors, healing, and medicine. Discussion and analysis of the text will present medical students with interpretive challenges, which may thereby foster learning and even perhaps practical wisdom. In Moi, Tituba…, Condé delineates a moral and scientific universe full of irony, complexity, and supernatural involvement, and yet where ideas of good and bad, health and sickness are not relativistic. The novel is thus fertile ground for analysis via a medical humanities framework for the lessons it may impart to contemporary medical providers operating within a diverse, contested medical landscape but with an abiding intention to heal and function as a “good doctor.”
Daniel Hughes is an independent scholar who is currently enrolled as a third-year student in the M.D. (Doctor of Medicine) program at the Medical College of Wisconsin in the United States. He has a strong interest in French literature and its relationship to medicine and history. Daniel recently published articles on anatomical and medical themes in the poetry of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (Grand Valley Journal of History) and Ebola quarantine in historical context (Columbia University Journal of Global Health). Prior degrees include an A.B. in History and Literature (Harvard University) and a J.D. (Georgetown Law).
(S1P2) Kathryn LACHMAN, Tituba’s Ever Radical Peregrinations in Contemporary Fiction
In the inaugural Rajat Neogy Memorial lecture at Harvard in April 2023, Maryse Condé recognized five works by women artists as transformative. Among these, in true provocative form, she chose to single out her own 1986 novel I Tituba, Black Witch of Salem. The figure of Tituba also resurfaced later this year in Teju Cole’s novel, Tremor, a work concerned with unearthing spectres of colonial and gendered violence lurking beneath the veneer of contemporary life in New England and Lagos, Nigeria. Thus, Tituba continues to circulate in fiction. Whereas Cole explores the traumatic and haunting aftermath of unacknowledged violence, Condé’s impulse is much more affirmative and emancipatory: by writing from Tituba’s perspective, and not relegating her to a shadowy apparition (as Cole does), Condé revels in the freedom of the creative imagination, its capacity to reclaim voice and to envision opportunities for healing, love, and cross-cultural understanding despite legacies of extreme cruelty and oppression. Despite these differences in approach, both authors use Tituba to pose important questions about the relationships among the Black experience, antisemitism, and indigenous peoples. This paper revisits I, Tituba against the work of Wendy Sharpe, Achille Mbembe, Cole, and Véronique Tadjo, to interrogate what remains radical and necessary about Condé’s intervention. Though bookended by violent events (Tituba’s mother’s rape during the middle passage and Tituba’s own hanging), Condé’s novel defiantly champions the humanity, resilience, and compassion of its heroine. By writing Tituba into fiction, Condé refuses the historical erasure to which 17th-century Black female subjects have been consigned and demonstrates what fiction can offer in the face of marginalization, xenophobia and oppression.
Professor Kathryn Lachman teaches Comparative Literature and French at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Borrowed Forms: The Music and Ethics of Transnational Fiction (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2014), a co-edited volume Feasting on Words: Maryse Condé, Cannibalism and the Caribbean Text (Princeton: PLAS, 2006), articles in Esprit créateur, Yale French Studies, Research in African Studies and Music, Sound and the Moving Image, and numerous book chapters on African and Francophone literatures. She has translated essays and short fiction by Ghislaine Dunant and Assia Djebar for The Massachusetts Review. Her award-winning translation of Dunant’s Charlotte Delbo: A Life Reclaimed, was published by the University of Massachusetts Press in May 2021. Her research and teaching interests include African Literature, Contemporary French and Francophone film and literature, intermedial relations between music and literature, Holocaust literature and literatures of testimony, and literary translation.
(S2P4) Elidio LA TORRE LAGARES, A Novel is a Mangrove: Hyperglossia as the Rhizomatic Future of the Novel
Maryse Condé’s Crossing the Mangrove functions as a rhizomatic narrative that weaves and meanders through non-linear errancy. The story revolves around Francis Sancher, who, embodying the concept of a “man-grove,” extends and expands throughout the novel without a fixed pattern, intertwining with other lives, and taking root in various identities. The voices of the characters amplify and propagate like an actual mangrove, forming the central rhizome of the text. As the novel wanders and moves by concession of a relational poetics, the reader faces the uncontained polyphony that is immanent to the confines of the story, demanding reader involvement in forging connections. This textual “overspill,” I posit, works as hyperglossia. If heteroglossia is language dialogized from within, hyperglossia is dialogized from without. If heteroglossia happens when the language of a character or the narrator changes from its normal discourse, speech, registries, as, for example, in social position, class, or nationality, hyperglossia enters the operative materialism of the contextual culture(s) of the text and amplifies its languages.
The sudden appearance of the deceased Francis Sancher in Rivière au Sel astonishes the community. Even in death, the story of Sancher functions like a mangrove, fluid and boundaryless: a metaphor for Caribbean identity. As the story unfolds, Sancher’s multiple masks and identities map the territory of the immanent. The narrative is conveyed through (seemingly) overlapping oral accounts in Rivière au Sel. Carol Boyce Davies’s critique of linear writing as phallocentric finds resonance here. The novel grows into a narrative mangrove, displaying linguistic diversity and transcending the text’s boundaries. As Condé focuses on fluid interconnections that supersede fixed identities, hyperglossia induces textual reproduction in parallel to contexual data. Thus, Condé engineers a future for the novel as a dispositif, a complex network or apparatus that balances rootedness and wandering in the Caribbean.
Elidio La Torre Lagares is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Texas-El Paso. His most recent books include his essay «Textociudad: la erosión de la modernidad en ‘En Babia,’ la novela de José de Diego Padró» (Centro Investigaciones Iberoamericanas, 2016); his poetry book «Wonderful Wasteland and other natural disasters» (University Press of Kentucky, 2019); and his novel Correr tras el viento (Editorial Verbum, 2022). He was shortlisted to the Juan Felipe Herrera Poetry Award 2020 and the Paz Poetry Prize (National Poetry Series) in 2022. He is currently working on a study titled Hyperglossia: The Novel as Dispositif in the Production of Textual Space.
(S3P6) Julie LE HEGARAT, “Cannibal Time”. Colonial Crossings in Histoire de la femme cannibale
Histoire de la femme cannibale, first published in 2005, is exemplary of Maryse Condé’s crossings. In Histoire, her strategy of literary cannibalism is pushed to the extreme in the book, akin to a “postcannibalism” (Rosello, Loichot) which parodies all sorts of discourses and genres. She also blurs the lines between autobiography and fiction, and flirts with the hybridity of autofiction (Ionescu). As her protagonist wanders the globe, the readers are taken through back and forths without clear temporal indications. It is often difficult to pinpoint the narrative voice and narrative points of view. While it makes for a frustrating reading experience at times, I propose to analyze the novel through an intermedial lens, with a concept I call ‘cannibal time.’
In this novel, I define ‘cannibal time’ as a narrative and aesthetic mélange deployed through Condé’s use of free indirect style and I argue that it is a means to superimpose temporalities, in particular the contemporary moment of the book and 19th century colonial culture, in order to make visible the duress (Stoler) of European colonialism on a global scale. I show how ‘cannibal time’, rather than relying on linearity and singularized voice, is a constant crossing which resists the idea that there exist distinct colonial and postcolonial moments. Instead, ‘cannibal time’ forces us to critically investigate perduring coloniality to make sense of our contemporary moment, not only in the plot, but also in stylistic devices.
First, in Histoire, Condé’s free indirect style is a cannibalism of Flaubert. References to Madame Bovary also abound and are contextualized in Caribbean thought on ‘bovarisme’ (Joseph-Gabriel). Second, free indirect style coincides with developments in optical technologies, which have contributed to framing how we see and depict the world and ourselves. Colonial cultures have benefitted from such tools which were used to cement racial and racist ideologies in the fabric of visuality. Finally, I analyze her reworking of the trope of the madwoman in the attic to show that cannibalism is not a curse but rather a mode of liberation.
Dr. Julie Le Hegarat is a researcher, educator, and video essayist located in Vancouver, BC. Her first book project manuscript called Violent Ingestions looks at anti-assimilationist and decolonial gestures in film and literature from the Global Atlantic. Her forthcoming publications include an article on Rosine Mbakam’s documentaries for Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media and a piece for the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies on Critical Pedagogy in hostile climates. She obtained her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Indiana University, Bloomington in 2022.
(S3P6) Xavier LUCE, Prolégomènes à une traversée cannibale
Présentée sous le signe du Manifeste anthropophage d’Oswald de Andrade, l’œuvre condéenne se donne à lire comme une relation de voyages à l’envers du monde inauguré par Christophe Colomb. « Dans les livres d’histoire, on appelle nos ancêtres les Découvreurs » déclare un des héros de Traversée de la mangrove. Quant à la « voyageuse paumée » du premier roman de Maryse Condé, elle part à la recherche d’une terre où n’aurait point abordé le funeste Découvreur. Le « Moi, Caliban-Cannibale » de l’autrice du roman Histoire de la femme cannibale se réalise comme une traversée de l’imaginaire du monde postcolonial. Dans cette communication, on s’attachera à montrer que le déplacement physique, dans la tradition des Lumières, sert de prétexte à un déplacement de la pensée : à l’instar de Voltaire, l’espace que parcourt Maryse Condé d’une marche forcenée n’est pas un espace d’exploration, c’est un espace d’arpenteur visant à reconnaître et cartographier la Société du Spectacle où l’Afrique s’avère la materia prima de la communauté terrestre. Si Voltaire est, selon Roland Barthes, le dernier écrivain heureux, en inventant sa naissance un jour de Mardi-Gras comme un masque rhétorique par lequel « dissimuler les plus grands chagrins sous un abord riant », Maryse Condé se met en scène comme la plus heureuse des écrivaines de notre temps : « Mon premier roman s’intitulait En attendant le bonheur, ce livre affirme : il finit toujours par arriver. »
[“Prolegomena to a cannibal crossing”. Presented under the sign of Oswald de Andrade’s Anthropophagous Manifesto, Condé’s opus can be read as a report of the voyages to the other side of the world inaugurated by Christopher Columbus. “In history books, we call our ancestors the Discoverers” declares one of the heroes of Traversée de la mangrove. As for the “lost traveler” of Maryse Condé’s first novel, she sets off in search of a land where the fatal Discoverer would not have landed. The “I, Caliban-Cannibal” of the author of the novel History of the Cannibal Woman is realized as a journey through the imagination of the postcolonial world. In this paper, we will endeavor to show that physical movement, in the tradition of the Enlightenment, serves as a pretext for a movement of thought: like Voltaire, the space that Maryse Condé covers at a frenzied pace is not a space of exploration, it is a space for a surveyor aiming to recognize and map the Société du Spectacle [Society of the Spectacle] where Africa proves to be the materia prima of the terrestrial community. If, according to Roland Barthes, Voltaire is the last happy writer, by inventing her birth on Mardi Gras as a rhetorical mask through which to “hide the greatest sorrows under a laughing approach”, Maryse Condé portrays herself as the happiest writer of our time: “My first novel was entitled Waiting for happiness, this book affirms: it always ends up arriving.”]
Xavier Luce est docteur de l’Université Sorbonne, chercheur associé à l’équipe Manuscrits francophones de l’Institut des textes et manuscrits modernes (ITEM). Sa thèse, soutenue en 2023 sous la direction de Romuald Fonkoua, s’intitule “Maryse Condé et sa critique: une relation cannibale”. A l’ITEM, il a co-animé avec Claire Riffard le séminaire René Maran et un dossier consacré au prix Goncourt 1921 pour la revue Continents manuscrits. Il a publié des articles sur Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, René Maran et Maryse Condé, notamment “Maternal Genealogies: Reading Condé’s Novelistic Universe from Quidal to Kidal” dans le dossier “Maryse Condé, un écrivain pour notre temps” coordonné par Kaiama Glover et Madeleine Dobie pour Yale French Studies.
[Xavier Luce holds a Ph.D. from Sorbonne University and is a research associate with the Francophone Manuscripts team at the Institute of Texts and Modern Manuscripts (ITEM). His thesis, defended in 2023 under the supervision of Romuald Fonkoua, is titled “Maryse Condé and her Critique: A Cannibalistic Relationship”. At ITEM, he co-led the seminar on René Maran and contributed to a dossier on the 1921 Goncourt Prize for the journal Continents manuscritsalongside Claire Riffard. He has published articles on Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, René Maran, and Maryse Condé, including “Maternal Genealogies: Reading Condé’s Novelistic Universe from Quidal to Kidal” in the dossier “Maryse Conde, A Writer For Our Times” coordinated by Kaiama Glover and Madeleine Dobie for Yale French Studies.]
(S2P3) Maeve McCUSKER, Cross(ed) words: language as weapon and wound in Maryse Condé’s Le Coeur à rire et à pleurer
While Antillean writers such as Pineau, Chamoiseau and Confiant were relatively early adopters of the autobiographical genre – their récits d’enfance emerged while they were in their thirties and early forties, alongside their becoming established as novelists – Maryse Condé largely shied away from autobiography until she was in her mid-sixties. The publication of Le Coeur à rire et à pleurer. Contes vrais de mon enfance(1999) signalled at once a notable departure, and the start of an intergenerational autobiographical (La Vie sans fards 2012) and alto-biographical turn (Victoire, les saveurs et les mots 2006). Although the mother’s death is here relegated to a single line, and although, as Louise Hardwick observes, “Jeanne is positioned against a tradition of poteau-mitan mothers who display boundless affection and represent a bond with Creole culture”, maternal loss suffuses the entire narrative.
If the text defiantly rewrites the classic narrative of Antillean matrifocality, it is also an exploration of language, writing and literature more generally; the text can be read as both a reflection on the inadequacy of words, and, more specifically, as a dissection of the painful transition from preoedipal to symbolic. The stories told to the child by her mother are primarily sources of hurt, judgement and confusion, rather than, as is so common in work by Black women writers, wellsprings of familial history or maternal wisdom. The mother’s words function primarily as pain-inducing capsules which become lodged in the memory and whose effect endures long beyond their utterance. Yet pain crosses back to the mother through the daughter’s discourse; Condé’s early forays into writing in particular are received by her mother with hostility, shock and hurt. Words in this text are destructive entities that wound and distort all relationships, but especially that between mother and daughter, igniting a sustained yearning to achieve physical and emotional intimacy with the mother, and to return to the haptic security of the prelinguistic pre-oedipal.
Maeve McCusker is Professor of French and Caribbean Studies at Queen’s University Belfast. Her most recent book, Fictions of Whiteness. Imagining the Planter Caste in the French Caribbean Novel (Virginia University Press, 2021), was awarded the Gapper Prize (2022) by the Society for French Studies, for the best book in French Studies in the UK and Ireland. She has written extensively on contemporary narrative (Chamoiseau; Condé; Glissant; Placoly), and on nineteenth-century fiction from the French Antilles (Traversay; Levilloux), and produced a scholarly edition of an early novel by Martinican author Louis de Maynard (Outre-mer 2010 [1835]). She has also published on topics such as autobiography, memoir, and the oral tradition, and an essay on decapitation in plantation fiction, ‘Headless Horror’, is forthcoming in PMLA. She is currently President of the Society for Francophone Postcolonial Studies.
(S3P5) Mame Birame NDIAYE, Traversée et déchéance : Regard amont sur la condition nègre
Dans « Traversée et déchéance : Regard amont sur la condition nègre », on montre la manière dont Maryse Condé aborde, dans ses romans, des événements constitutifs de l’histoire africaine. Ce procédé révèle les origines d’un récit qui se développe à travers les manifestations de l’histoire racontée du point de vue africain. Maryse Condé met ainsi en lumière l’atrocité de phénomènes tels que l’esclavage et la colonisation, en soulignant les diverses étapes de chacun de ces fléaux. Ainsi, elle dénonce des événements et leurs impacts néfastes sur différentes catégories de personnes, originaires d’Afrique et devenues Antillaises après la traversée. Simultanément, elle établit un dialogue entre la terre d’origine, et les Antilles, lieu d’exil. Dès lors, son exploration revisite des moments historiques, mettant en évidence la rupture des normes sociales causée par ces évènements précités. Elle examine aussi le déplacement des terres d’origine vers les territoires de déportation. Son examen relève les transgressions religieuses et morales, donnant naissance à des personnages aux caractéristiques empruntées à l’histoire et à la fiction, oscillant entre héros problématiques et figures tragiques. Cela facilite la mise en relief des aspects imaginaires du récit et prouve la décadence à travers des phénomènes identitaires et des sites historiques situés en Afrique. Issue d’une lignée d’esclaves, Maryse Condé adopte une perspective qui la sépare du récit du passé pour refléter la situation actuelle d’une antillaise qui, dans le présent de l’écriture, séjourne en Afrique. Ainsi, on explore les conséquences sociales et morales de l’itinérance nègre, mettant en avant la nécessité de transcender les récits officiels et de donner voix aux expériences passées sous silence. Il s’agira de s’appuyer sur des romans historiques, pour voir comment ils favorisent le renouvellement, la réhabilitation de l’histoire, et exposent les réalités brutales tout en célébrant la résilience des nègres dont l’identité a été bafouée.
[“Crossing and Decline: An Upstream Look at the Negro Condition” shows how Maryse Condé deals with events in African history in her novels. This approach reveals the origins of a narrative that develops through the manifestations of history told from the African point of view. Maryse Condé sheds light on the atrocity of phenomena such as slavery and colonization, highlighting the different stages of each of these scourges. She denounces the events and their harmful consequences on different categories of people, originally from Africa, who became West Indians after the crossing. At the same time, she establishes a dialogue between the land of origin and the West Indies, the place of exile. Her exploration revisits historical moments, highlighting the breakdown in social norms caused by these events. She also examines the displacement from lands of origin to territories of deportation. Her examination highlights religious and moral transgressions, giving rise to characters with characteristics borrowed from history and fiction, oscillating between problematic heroes and tragic figures. This makes it easier to highlight the imaginary aspects of the narrative, and provides evidence of decadence through phenomena of identity and historical sites located in Africa. Descended from a line of slaves, Maryse Condé adopts a perspective that separates her from the narrative of the past to reflect the current situation of a West Indian woman who, in the present of writing, is living in Africa. The social and moral consequences of Negro homelessness are explored, highlighting the need to transcend official narratives and give voice to experiences that have gone untold. Historical novels will be examined to see how they promote renewal and the rehabilitation of history, exposing brutal realities while celebrating the resilience of Negroes whose identity has been scorned.]
Mame Birame NDIAYE, est enseignant-chercheur. Il est membre du laboratoire des littératures africaines de langue française de l’école doctorale Art, Civilisation et Culture (ARCIV) à l’université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar. Il a soutenu avec succès une thèse de doctorat unique en études africaines francophones, portant sur le sujet « Récit historique et fiction romanesque dans l’œuvre de Maryse Condé ». Il est diplômé de la faculté des sciences et technologies de l’enseignement et de la formation (FASTEF), où il a obtenu les certificats d’aptitude à l’enseignement moyen (CAEM) et secondaire (CAES). M. Ndiaye exerce les fonctions de professeur de lettres modernes au lycée Malick Sy de Thiès et d’enseignant vacataire en techniques littéraires, rédactionnelles, argumentatives et de communication à l’Université Iba Der THIAM de la même ville. En tant que spécialiste des littératures postcoloniales, africaines et antillaises, Mame Birame a pour domaines de recherche la nouvelle histoire, les tombeaux littéraires et leur réécriture dans le roman, en s’appuyant sur des exemples tirés des œuvres de Maryse Condé, Ahmadou Kourouma, Ousmane Sembène, Léopold Sédar Senghor, entre autres.
Travaux de recherche et publications : Articles récents : « Les Bouts de bois de Dieu de Sembène Ousmane : un roman de commémoration » ; « La poétique de l’intronisation dans l’œuvre de Léopold Sédar Senghor » ; Thèse de Doctorat : « Récit historique et fiction romanesque dans l’œuvre de Maryse Condé ».
[Mame Birame Ndiaye is a teacher-researcher. He is a member of the Laboratoire des Littératures Africaines de Langue Française of the Ecole Doctorale Art, Civilisation et Culture (ARCIV) at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar. He successfully defended a unique doctoral thesis in French-speaking African studies, on the subject of “Récit historique et fiction romanesque dans l’œuvre de Maryse Condé” [Historical narrative and fiction in the work of Maryse Condé]. He is a graduate of the Faculty of Science and Technology of Education and Training (FASTEF), where he obtained the Certificat d’aptitude à l’enseignement moyen (CAEM) and the Certificat d’aptitude à l’enseignement secondaire (CAES). Mr. Ndiaye is a modern literature teacher at Lycée Malick Sy in Thiès, and a part-time lecturer in literary, writing, argumentative and communication techniques at Université Iba Der THIAM in the same city. As a specialist in postcolonial, African and Antillean literature, Mame Birame’s areas of research include the new history, literary tombs and their rewriting in the novel, drawing on examples from the works of Maryse Condé, Ahmadou Kourouma, Ousmane Sembène and Léopold Sédar Senghor, among others.
Research and publications: Recent articles: “Les Bouts de bois de Dieu de Sembène Ousmane : un roman de commemoration”; “La poétique de l’intronisation dans l’œuvre de Léopold Sédar Senghor”; Doctoral thesis: « Récit historique et fiction romanesque dans l’œuvre de Maryse Condé ».]
(S3P5) Terry Aigbovbiosa OSAWARU, The Journey motive, Self search and the notion of societal inequality
Maryse Condé’s writings, commitment, thoughts, ideas and opinions have arguably made her the most recognized and accomplished female writer from the French Caribbean Islands. As a Guadeloupean writer, Condé has always demonstrated an unquenchable taste and passion for the redefinition of the identity and the edification of the black Caribbean person. Most of her Literary works and thought-provoking interviews centre firstly on recognizing and appreciating the past and, by extension, the black Caribbean person’sAfrican cultural affiliation. Beyond this acknowledgement, she also concerns herself with charting a new course and pathways for a renewed and contemporary aligned Caribbean people, space, culture, traditions and values. To achieve this, Condé has had to explore and highlight the divergent thoughts, feelings and experiences the black Caribbean person now share in the bid to self-discover. In this paper, our objective is to x-ray Condé’s representations of the desire of the black Caribbean person to have an improved life, one devoid of the psychological trauma of his or her slave history, to question the racial and economic domination of the present and to lay the foundations of an egalitarian future. To this end, Condé could be perceived in her literary works to always place premium on the numerous geographical movements that the black Caribbean person is engaged in in the quest for economic equality and social wellbeing, while not conforming to age long cultural, class and racial stereotypes. As our study touches greatly on the mentality and state of mind of the black Caribbean person, the psychological approach would be employed.
Dr. Terry Aigbeovbiosa Osawaru is a Senior Lecturer and Head, Department of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Arts, University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria, where he teaches Francophone Caribbean Literature. He obtained his doctorate in 2017 from the University of Benin, Nigeria with a thesis on “L’Ailleurs et le roman antillaus Francophone”. He has published well researched articles in Revue de l’Association Nigeriane des Enseignants Universitaires de Franςais, In Ethiopiques, in Néohelicon and in Journal de Recherche Scientifique de l’Université de Lomé, Togo, just to mention a few.
(S1P2) Cíntia PEÑA RUÉ, Souvenir imaginaire: Hermeneutical Identity and Postmemory in Desirada
This study aims to offer concise insights into the intricate interplay of memory, imagination, and trauma within the context of narrative identity construction in Desirada (1997).
To do so, it delves into the ethical and aesthetic conflict of what it means to choose to represent or to elide an elusive traumatic experience, an inevitable question that arises when one reads Desirada, through the concept of souvenir imaginaire. The silence that follows Reynalda’s presumable rape creates fundamental narrative and witnessing crises. As a way to fill this gap, the inventive nature of Marie-Noëlle’s memory creates important faux memories that (re)construct her deeply scarred family’s history and provide a problematic approach to Marie-Noëlle’s main quest: build her own story.
Through an analysis grounded in Paul Ricœur’s notion of narrative identity, Hannah Arendt’s idea of language as action, and Marianne Hirsch’s concept of post-memory, this paper unravels the impact that problematic origins marked by structural and systematic violence inherited from imperialist, colonialist, racist and patriarchal discourse have on Marie-Noëlle’s hermeneutical identity.
The (re)composition of past stories through multiple souvenirs imaginaires allows her to integrate her family’s intergenerational trauma (which she owns as her monstruosité) and empowers Marie-Noëlle to embark on a path of self-discovery and self-narration.
Born in Lleida (Catalunya) in 1999, Cíntia Peña Rué is an independent scholar with a bachelor’s degree in Literary Studies and a master’s degree in Construction and Representation of Cultural Identities from the University of Barcelona (UB). Her primary research interests encompass literary and philosophical hermeneutics, along with a focus on the tension between ethics and aesthetics.
(S3P6) Felisa Vergara REYNOLDS, Maryse Condé’s L’évangile du nouveau monde: one final crossing.
Maryse Condé’s 2021 oeuvre, L’Évangile du nouveau monde, which is presumed to be her last, opens with a description of an island in the Antilles. The choice to open with a description of the topography points to idea that geographical crossings and multiple locations will play important roles in this novel. Crossings set the ambiance for a novel that proposes an alternate tale of the Christian Messiah, one not born in the Middle East but in the Caribbean—in the 21st century. Although it may at first seem odd for Maryse Condé to center a messianic trope as the subject of her novel, if we look at L’Évangile du nouveau monde as a re-writing, or a literary cannibalization as Maryse Condé might refer to it, then we are in familiar territory. In the case of L’Évangile du nouveau monde and the transposition of this well-known “gospel” to the 21st century, and its relocation to various milieus with ties to colonialism, is of particular interest to this analysis. What Condé has done with this Gospel According to the New World (which is the English translation title of L’Évangile du nouveau monde) is ask us to re-consider a messianic character through the lens of modernity, magical realism, as well as Caribbean motifs. Accordingly, this paper will consider the mix of these various themes in the context of Condé’s nod, throughout her novel to a bigger picture which like in her previous re-writing, La migration des cœurs, aims to bring attention to the ever-lasting legacy of colonialism. And, as she had previously done with La migration des cœurs she resets the events and geography of Wuthering Heights to the Antilles, amongst other locations.
Felisa Vergara Reynolds is Associate Professor of French for the Department of French and Italian at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her focus is on literature in French from the Antilles, West Africa, and North Africa. She primarily works on the legacy and impact of colonialism on literature in French, from the former colonies. Her research is particularly concerned with the continued influence of colonialism in the post-colonial era, and how it is represented in cultural production.
Her book The Author as Cannibal: Re-Writing in Francophone Literature as a Postcolonial Genre (1969-1995) was released in 2022 via the University of Nebraska Press.
She is currently at work on her second book: (tentatively titled) French or Francophone: The Legacy of the Manifesto for a World Literature in French.
Recent articles include:
“Black bodies and French Colonial History: Beyoncé and Jay Z’s Apeshit at the Louvre.” Journal of European Popular Culture. (2024) 14:2
“Minority identities amidst an oppressive universalisme: The role of the podcast Kiffe ta Race in France.” In the volume “Podcasting Disruptive Voices: New Narratives of Race, Gender & Sexuality.” Contemporary French Civilization-Intersections, (Fall 2023) 2:1
“The Politics of Colonization in Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther.” Black Camera: An International Film Journal. (Spring 2023) 14:2.
(S3P5) Ethmane SALL, Maryse Condé : une « double conscience » transatlantique
Dans le questionnement de Maryse Condé, l’individuation prend une dimension transatlantique : elle entrerait en relation avec des sociologies culturelles qui favoriseraient le change à travers une poétique de la mobilité et du déplacement qui interroge l’étant dans sa densité et dans sa complexité [l’étantconceptualisé par Edouard Glissant dans le sillage des philosophes grecs comme Aristote, s’oppose à la question de « l’absolu de l’être » qui correspond aux cultures ataviques et qui ne consentent pas à la relation à l’autre]. Ainsi, la démarche identitaire de la romancière guadeloupéenne se démarque de l’ « antillo-centrisme » au profit d’un cheminement transatlantique qui se déploie sensiblement dans son œuvre. Pour interroger sur elle-même et vivre réellement sa transatlanticité [E. Sall, La Transatlanticité francophone, 2023], M. Condé a habité de nombreuses régions d’Afrique, d’Europe et des Amériques. Dans son regard de voyageuse devant l’éternel, Maryse Condé s’efforce de fendre l’armure de la fixité territoriale et l’atavisme dilatoire pour investir dans une identité-espace où les différences se diffracteraient et créoliseraient. Elle s’approprie des paysages qu’elle découvre et les utilise pour nourrir sa narration en les épuisant dans une description pléthorique.
Pour mettre en évidence la « double conscience » transatlantique chez Maryse Condé, nous étudierons le cheminement du personnage de Cathy de La Migration des cœurs. La romancière décrit les tourments du déchirement de sa protagoniste sous l’angle d’une sociologie culturelle guadeloupéenne caractérisée par la désarticulation des traces africaines et les termes d’une résilience erratique liés à « l’exil du mental » [C. Vidal, Voyage au cœur de soi. Petit manuel pour « être » vivant, heureux et libre, 2015].
[“Maryse Condé: a transatlantic ‘double consciousness’”. In Maryse Condé’s questioning, individuation takes on a transatlantic dimension: it is related to cultural sociologies that favour change through a poetics of mobility and displacement that interrogates being in all its density and complexity [“being” as conceptualized by Edouard Glissant in the wake of Greek philosophers such as Aristotle, as opposed to the question of the “absolute of being” that corresponds to atavistic cultures that do not consent to the relationship with the other]. In this way, the Guadeloupean novelist’s approach to identity distances itself from “West Indian-centrism” in favour of a transatlantic journey that unfolds noticeably in her work. In order to question herself and truly experience her transatlanticity [E. Sall, La Transatlanticité francophone, 2023], Condé has lived in many parts of Africa, Europe and the Americas. Through her gaze as a traveller before the eternal, Maryse Condé strives to crack the armour of territorial fixity and dilatory atavism, to invest in an identity-space where differences diffract and creolize. She appropriates the landscapes she discovers and uses them to nourish her narrative, exhausting them in plethoric description.
To highlight Maryse Condé’s transatlantic “double consciousness”, we shall study the journey of Cathy’s character in La Migration des cœurs. The novelist describes the torments of her protagonist’s heartbreak from the angle of a Guadeloupean cultural sociology characterized by the disarticulation of African traces and the terms of an erratic resilience linked to “the exile of the mental” [C. Vidal, Voyage au cœur de soi. Petit manuel pour “être” vivant, heureux et libre, 2015].]
Enseignant-chercheur et poète, Ethmane Sall est l’auteur de plusieurs ouvrages dont Les Promesses de la folie (2022) et La transatlanticité francophone (2023). Il a également codirigé plusieurs ouvrages théoriques : Les Francophonies noires (2018), Les Rébellions francophones (2019) et Les Utopies francophones (2021). Ses axes de recherches portent sur les éléments suivants : lettres transatlantiques : littératures africaines et caribéennes du XX-XXIe siècles.
[A teacher-researcher and poet, Ethmane Sall is the author of several books, including Les Promesses de la folie (2022) and La transatlanticité francophone (2023). He has also co-edited several theoretical works: Les Francophonies noires (2018), Les Rébellions francophones (2019), and Les Utopies francophones (2021). His research focuses on the following: transatlantic letters: African and Caribbean literatures of the 20th and 21st centuries.]
(S2P4) Marshall SMITH, The Swamp Trope as Roving Movement: Queerness and Creolization as a fugue space.
In Éloge de la créolité, Patrick Chamoiseau, Raphaël Confiant, and Jean Bernabé refer to creolization as a process, a non-identity, a “doing”. These Antillean theorists position creoleness as an annihilation of a false universality – “notre soupe primitive et notre prolongement, notre chaos originel et notre et notre mangrove de virtualités” (28). When we reflect on how the histories and realities of the Caribbean “proper” and the American South were born out of the fractures made possible by (or in spite of) the Middle Passage, it becomes necessary to place these two regions in conversation based on their “plantation relation”. We will “re-map” the boundaries of the circum-Caribbean and cultural memory including the U.S. South and the Francophone Caribbean.
Expressed in literature, performance (the performative), and other ways of knowing through the theoretical vectors of Creolization and Queer Theories, this “in-between” zone produces what Michel Augé refers to as a “non-place”, or an unrooted location that is in “relation” as opposed to being fixed by superficially drawn cartographical lines and thus, predatory and hierarchical roots.I t is here that we privilege “routes” in this meditation. This fact holds true when we think about the spaces of the plantation in the Americas where, according to Édouard Glissant in Faulkner, Mississippi (1996), creole towns be it Havana, New Orleans, Port-au-Prince, Kingston, or Belém were born out of the plantation system, and it was the same everywhere.
In sum, this presentation positions “de muck” of the hemispheric American plantation as a fugue space of black freedom struggle in theory and praxis for alternative archivists including philosophers, novelists, poets, performers, and other cultural producers within the extended circum-Caribbean unrooted in space, place, and body. I use the term “fugue” pointedly as both a musical composition that is introduced by one part and successively taken up by others and thus, developed by interweaving the integral parts much like Glissant’s Poetics of Relation. I also employ this term to describe a loss of awareness including one’s identity, often coupled with flight from one’s usual environment associated with certain forms of hysteria and epilepsy much like Haitian writer Franketienne’s “Spiralism”. A fugue space provides for lines of flight into the Black Fantastic much like Afro-surrealism did for Aimé and Suzanne Césaire in Tropiques out of “dead-end situations”.
As an investigator, I will focus on Maryse Conde’s Crossing the Mangrove, Simone Schwarz-Bart’s The Bridge of Beyond and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God as my literary objects of analysis. By placing these three Inter-American writers in conversation (and their work) based on their view of the mangrove/morne/ swamp as a polyphonic/fugue space bound by entanglements much the like rhizomatic roots of mangrove and cypress trees that populate this “in-between” zone albeit in multiplicitous ways, I will demonstrate how these literary narratives of cultural memory and the afterlives of the postplantation do not necessarily highlight the neat processes of “creolization” in the Americas. In fact, these critical cross-cultural encounters were quite messy-making “bloody moves” nodding more towards Alejo Carpentier’s conception of “marvelous realism”. This talk will equally gestures toward a poetics of sanguinity in order to highlight the hybridized processes that have led to creative lines of flight in the spaces of the plantation through Black Expressive Arts in the Plantation Americas. In sum, blackness in the Americas is queerness for it is unfixed, always in motion and moving toward a line of flight out of “dead-end situations” in spite of the hegemonic atmosphere that surrounds its body.
Marshall L. Smith is an Assistant Professor of French and Francophone and Black Studies at Swarthmore College (USA). They are also affiliated with the Gender and Sexuality Studies Program. Smith has a PhD from Cornell University (New York). Smith is a specialist on literatures of the Plantation Americas, Black France/Black Europe, and Black Queer Studies. Smith is in the process of completing articles/book contributions entitled “Transoceanic Fabulations, Archival Recovery, and Knots of Memory: Kara Walker and Barbara Chase Riboud’s Poetics in Relation”, in Women, Theory, Praxis and Performativities: Transoceanic Entanglements, edited by Jacqueline Couti and Anny D. Curtius (Liverpool U.P.). Equally, Smith also currently working on “Revisiting Christiane Taubira: French Republicanism, blackness, and ‘queerness’ on the 10th year Anniversary of the ‘Mariage pour tous’ law and its aftermath in the French Antilles”, in Queer Realms of Memory, edited by Denis Michael Provencher et al., under contract with Liverpool U.P. Smith’s publications include “Blood Isn’t Always Thicker Than Water: Delineating the Grotesque Gaze and Locating the ‘Flesh’ in Victor Séjour’s “Le mulâtre” (1837)”, L’Esprit Créateur, vol. 60 no. 2, 2020, pp. 26-40 and “Corporeal Conceptions: Refashioning the Body Politics of French Republicanism in Banlieue Literature” in Pour le sport: Physical Culture in French and Francophone Literature edited by Roxanna Curto and Rebecca Wines (Liverpool University Press 2022). Nelumbo lutea: Reassembling Cultural Memory in American Plantation Shatter Zones is the first book project where Smith reimagines the mangrove or swamp which is often represented as a space of underdevelopment or one that is inhospitable for “civilized” subjects as a place of transformation. What are the cultural products that fill in the breaks of history for those of us that have come out on this side of the Atlantic remade, remixed, anew? This book seeks to respond to all these questions “seen”, “read”, and “performed” through the vernacular tradition of Middle Passage-descended people in the Americas. Sanguineous Poetics: Tracing the Middle Passage in the Marvelous Real Americas (the second book project) grapples with the relationship between water and blood in forging/forcing a poetics in the Americas through enslavement and indentured servitude that gave birth to creolization as we know it in the Caribbean, and other ‘American’ outposts including the Gulf South through the archives of literature, poetry, visual art, history, and philosophy.
(S2P3) Angelos TRIANTAFYLLOU, Peut-on traverser les idées comme la mangrove ? Quand Maryse Condé dialogue avec Edouard Glissant sur la recherche des vérités
Les avant-gardes annonçaient la traversée des idées : « il faut être nomade, traverser les idées comme on traverse les pays ou les villes » (Picabia).
Or, Condé a un rapport contradictoire avec le nomadisme l’acceptant progressivement tout en s’opposant à Édouard Glissant, à la pensée/écriture collective de la créolité, avant de se reconnaître dans sa critique du nomadisme en quête d’une errance enracinée parmi des paysages, origines, écritures, langues rhizomatiques.
La critique montra comment Condé rejoint Glissant dans la description rhizomatique de la mangrove. Faut-il ajouter que par la traversée de la mangrove, par sa pensée à racines/vérités multiples, Glissant (Lézarde, Malemort) répond à la traversée individualiste, transcendantale de Condé.
Condé retourne contre Glissant, la conclusion de l’Éloge de la créolité, le mot d’ordre « il faut chercher nos vérités », lui reprochant de ne pas avoir fait la grande traversée des idées, de ne pas avoir abandonné comme elle l’écriture collectiviste de Césaire et Fanon, au profit de l’individu/écrivain, interrogeant même les religions.
La poétique de Condé conduirait à une mise en question postmoderne des vérités. Décrivant Célanire, elle conclue que « Tout pouvait être vrai comme tout pouvait être faux dans ce qu’elle racontait. Il ne cherchait surtout pas à faire la part de vérité dans ses créations. » Chez Condé, la traversée serait le « chemin » vers la « vérité vraie » quoique non unique, parce que propre à chacun, « travestie » par les fables mais saisie par les « odeurs ». Sa recherche des origines aboutirait à l’unique vérité, au miracle de la naissance de l’enfant.
Pour Glissant, toute traversée reproduit celle des négriers. Il cherche la vérité en traversant la subjectivité, au-delà du rêve et du souvenir, des apparences individuelles. Aussi postmoderne, chez Glissant, la poétique de la relation consisterait à un cri, qui ferait exploser l’apparence de la norme de l’histoire. La vérité ne serait pas subjective mais insoupçonnée.
Condé metttrait en cause toute possibilité de traversée, de vérité finale, concluant sans illusion « On ne traverse pas la mangrove. On s’empale sur les racines des palétuviers. »
Optimiste, Glissant attendrait que la traversée des idées/paysages aboutisse à un nouveau continent-archipel, à un Tout-Monde, remontant du gouffre de la traversée, à un fils du gouffre, comme Obama, à un enfant portant l’espoir sans illusions. Ne serait-il pas aussi l’horizon de Condé ?
[“Can we cross ideas like mangroves? When Maryse Condé dialogues with Edouard Glissant on the search for truths”. The avant-gardes heralded the crossing of ideas: “one must be nomadic, crossing ideas as one crosses countries or cities” (Picabia).
Yet Condé’s has a contradictory relationship with nomadism, as she progressively accepts it while opposing Édouard Glissant and the collective thought/writing of créolité, before recognizing herself in his critique of nomadism in search of a rooted wandering among rhizomatic landscapes, origins, writings and languages.
Criticism has showed how Condé joins Glissant in the rhizomatic description of the mangrove. It should be added that, by the multiple roots/ truths of his thinking, Glissant (Lézarde, Malemort) responds to Condé’s individualistic, transcendental crossing of the mangrove.
In the conclusion to Éloge de la créolité, Condé turns the motto “we must seek our truths” against Glissant, reproaching him for not having made the great crossing of ideas, for not having abandoned the collectivist writing of Césaire and Fanon, like her, in favour of the individual/writer, even questioning religions.
Condé’s poetics would lead to a postmodern questioning of truths. Describing Célanire, she concludes that “Everything could be true as well as false in what she told. Above all, he did not seek to determine the truth in his creations.” For Condé, the crossing would be the “path” to the “true truth”, albeit not the only one, because it is unique to each person, “disguised” by fables but captured by “smells”. Her search for origins would lead to the only truth, the miracle of the child’s birth.
For Glissant, every crossing reproduces that of the slave traders. He seeks truth through subjectivity, beyond dreams and memories, beyond individual appearances. In Glissant’s style, also postmodern, the poetics of relation consists of a cry that would explode the appearance of the norm of history. Truth would be not subjective, but unsuspected.
Condé would call into question any possibility of a crossing, of a final truth, concluding without illusion, “One doesn’t cross the mangrove. One impales oneself on the roots of the mangroves.
An optimist, Glissant would expect the crossing of ideas/landscapes to result in a new continent-archipelago, a Tout-Monde [the entire world] rising from the abyss of the crossing, a son of the abyss, like Obama, a child bearing hope without illusions. Could he not be Condé’s horizon, too?]
Docteur-ès-lettres (Paris-7), Angelos Triantafyllou a enseigné à Versailles (UVSQ). Spécialisé à la philosophie d’A. Breton et de G. Deleuze. Il a collaboré avec des groupes du CNRS, du Arts Council et des écrivains (Y. Bonnefoy, A. Badiou). Il contribua à 70 colloques [Sorbonne, Cambridge, Oxford, Louvain, Zurich], publications universitaires (Beckett, Glissant,) et littéraires. Il a publié : Images de la dialectique et dialectique de l’image dans l’œuvre d’André Breton (Septentrion, 2001) ; « André Breton ou l’objectivation de (et par) la poésie », revue Travaux de Littérature (Droz), numéro spécial : « Poétique(s) de l’objet », 2021 (pp. 207-218); « L’écriture inobjective d’André Breton », Actes du Colloque International LANGARTS 2020 « L’auteur dans son œuvre, entre présence et effacement », INHA, Paris, 29 juin – 1er juillet 2020, L’Harmattan, 2021 (pp. 186-199); « Mallarmé, Breton et la crise : de Crise de vers à Crise de l’objet », EAM Etudes sur L’avant-garde et le modernisme en Europe volume 7 : Crise. L’avant-Garde et le Modernisme en Modes Critiques, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin & New York, 2022; « Roussel, Deleuze et les machines », Cahiers Roussel n°7, Chr. Reig et H.Salceda (dir.) Garnier, 2022.
[Doctor of Letters (Paris-7), Angelos Triantafyllou has taught at Versailles (UVSQ). Specialized in the philosophy of A. Breton and G. Deleuze. He has collaborated with research groups at the CNRS, the Arts Council and with writers (Y. Bonnefoy, A. Badiou). He has contributed to 70 colloquia [Sorbonne, Cambridge, Oxford, Louvain, Zurich], academic publications (Beckett, Glissant) and literary publications. His publications include: Images de la dialectique et dialectique de l’image dans l’œuvre d’André Breton (Septentrion, 2001) ; « André Breton ou l’objectivation de (et par) la poésie », revue Travaux de Littérature (Droz), numéro spécial : « Poétique(s) de l’objet », 2021 (pp. 207-218); « L’écriture inobjective d’André Breton », Actes du Colloque International LANGARTS 2020 « L’auteur dans son œuvre, entre présence et effacement », INHA, Paris, 29 juin – 1er juillet 2020, L’Harmattan, 2021 (pp. 186-199); « Mallarmé, Breton et la crise : de Crise de vers à Crise de l’objet », EAM Etudes sur L’avant-garde et le modernisme en Europe volume 7 : Crise. L’avant-Garde et le Modernisme en Modes Critiques, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin & New York, 2022; « Roussel, Deleuze et les machines », Cahiers Roussel n°7, Chr. Reig et H.Salceda (dir.) Garnier, 2022.]
(S1P1) Keithley WOOLWARD, Cutting the ties that bind: Exploring Maryse Condé’s Queer Caribbean Universe.
In his description of Maryse Condé’s literary œuvre, Michael Dash argues that “this relationship between enigmatic sexuality, transgressive contact and individual emancipation” (“Vital Signs in the Body Politic: Eroticism and Exile in Maryse Condé and Dany Laferrière” 113) is a crucial foundational theme. Dash states further that troubled female sexuality focused on the “over-determined black female body” is often at the core of Condé’s literary explorations. Condé’s attention to sexuality is understood to be the “subversive force” in her novels according to Dash. He hastens to add however that “the need for transgression, for obvious garrulousness on this subject, is not necessarily a sign of liberation but a symptom of a deeper sexual conflict” (“Eroticism and Exile” 113). But what of the Queer characters that too populate Condé’s literary universe? Or to put it pointedly, what of the overdetermined black male body and troubled male sexuality? For example, Désinor and Carlos who discover homosexual rapture by chance, or the libidinally over-determined Xantippe in Traversé de la Mangrove. Then there is Hakim, who openly rejects women because of his albeit closeted sexual orientation and is caught in a complicated affair with Bokar, Célinare and Amarante in Célinaire, cou-coupé. Not to mention Dieudonné who remembers his childhood explorations with a crossdressing macoumé, as a result of being fondled by Luc as an adult in La belle Créole. If, as Dash posits, transgression of the sexual order is nothing more than the expression of a “deeper sexual conflict,” then what potential do black male queer individuals have to open up alternative kinship relations? This paper argues that the black male queer relations presented across the novels above transgress the ties that bind individuals and communities together challenging postcolonial power relations in new and often liberatory ways.
Keithley Woolward is Associate Director of the Masters program in History and Literature at Columbia University’s Global Center (Reid Hall) in Paris. Deploying the tools of “postcolonial reading”—informed by African Diaspora; Contemporary Theory; Performance, Gender and Sexuality Studies— Woolward’s work focuses on the texts, images and cultural practices that constitute the anti-colonial and post-independence corpus of Francophone Africa and the Caribbean dating from the mid 1950’s to our contemporary moment.
