CFP – International Conference – Women artists in the Atlantic Space: Migrations, Creation, Emancipation
Call for papers
Women artists in the Atlantic Space:
Migrations, Creation, Emancipation
International Conference
Abbaye de Royaumont (France)
April 4-5, 2025
Voir l’appel à communications en français : https://tracs.hypotheses.org/4276
Para leer la convocatoria a ponencias en español : https://tracs.hypotheses.org/4321
This international conference aims to explore the effects of transatlantic cultural circulations over the individual and collective experiences of women artists (18th-21st c.), in the various fields of creation (cinema, literature, visual arts, performing arts, music, architecture…). The contributions will examine how geographical trajectories open creative spaces and possibilities for emancipation, to consider the history of cultural circulation from the perspective of women. This approach invites us to look beyond the canonical history of the arts, towards other genres, alternative temporalities, expansive networks and actors. Addressing women’s artistic creation means bypassing the mythological stature of the most celebrated artists, and widening the focus to include cultural productions and genres sometimes considered “minor” but widely invested by women, such as children’s literature, textile arts, travel narratives or translation. The aim of this conference is both to re-read the history of key figures in the light of these transatlantic exchanges, and to (re)discover less visible personalities.
The aim is to identify, retrace and analyze the transatlantic circulations of women in the worlds of art and culture, in order to question the effect of these journeys (temporary or permanent, voluntary or forced, individual or collective) on both their political emancipation and the legitimization of artistic practices. In the wake of the social sciences’ analysis of artistic production, which encompasses all the actors who contribute to the production of works, this conference focuses on the artists themselves as well as on the other actors involved in the circulation and legitimization of their production. Without being mutually exclusive categories, these two roles –artist and intermediary– are sometimes encompassed in the same person. All the more so since circulation itself turns artists into go-betweens between different countries, cities, circuits and artistic fields. On the one hand, presentations will focus on women artists (photographers, actors, dancers, painters, writers, musicians, but also weavers, craftswomen, ceramists, graffiti artists, draughtswomen, performers…), trying to cross the vernacular divisions between “fine” and “minor” arts, or between “art” and “crafts.” On the other hand, we will also explore women as go-betweens or cultural intermediaries, looking at translators, collectors, publishers, patrons, teachers, as well as women heading social circles (salons, bookshops, galleries) or activist networks (mobilizations for cultural rights, creation of cultural policies, among others). These women intermediaries are often overshadowed by the authors or artists whose work they highlight. And yet, by building bridges between cultural scenes, they play an essential role in the circulation of works and ideas.
Contributions will focus on women’s journeys towards emancipation: those for whom the journey played a foundational role in their work, their creation or their political and feminist commitment, opening up horizons that had previously been closed; but also the figures or models traveling on both sides of the Atlantic to become referents broadening cultural imaginations, redefining in the process gender norms and notions of femininity to include gender-expansive artists. The conference will examine the characteristics of these migratory trajectories. Our hypothesis is that the history of women’s emancipation is shaped by these cultural exchanges, and in turn brings with it transformations and innovations that continue to irrigate our societies. Asking the question of women’s specific place and pathways thus offers a stimulating motor for renewing research themes and shedding light on forgotten, despised or obscured figures. The analysis of these trajectories may also enable us to identify other practices and strategies of cultural and artistic circulation, sometimes less “institutionalized,” sometimes less “public,” but which nonetheless show us the importance of informal socialization circles or networks of solidarity between women.
Contributions to this conference will serve as a starting point for publications on the online cultural history platform Transatlantic Cultures. This platform analyzes how intellectual, literary and artistic works have circulated between Europe, Africa and the Americas, contributing to cultural diversitý but also to the broader process of globalization – in its economic, social and political dimensions. These contributions will take part in a new “Atlantic Women and Feminisms” collection on the platform, with possible additions to enrich the texts (metadata, media, dynamic mapping, etc.).
Organizing team
This conference is organized with the support of the Graduate School Humanities–Heritage Science Paris Saclay, of the International Research Project « Transatlantic Cultures » (CNRS) and of the Royaumont Foundation by:
Clara Bouveresse, Associate professor, American Studies, Évry Paris Saclay University
Ana Paula Cavalcanti Simioni, Sociology of art professor, Université de São Paulo
Florencia Dansilio, Postdoctoral researcher in sociology, Paris Cité University and Universidad de la República (Montevideo)
Anaïs Fléchet, Contemporary history professor, Sciences Po Strasbourg
Thomas Vernet, Head of the Resources and Library Department, Royaumont Foundation
Scientific committee
Marie Buscatto, Sociology professor, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University
Laurence Cossu–Beaumont, English Studies professor, Sorbonne Nouvelle University
Pierre Couprie, Musicology professor, d’Évry Paris Saclay University
Lara Cox, Associate professor, English Studies, Toulouse Jean Jaurès University
Claire Demoulin, Associate professor, Film Studies, Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3 University
Deborah Dorotinsky, researcher, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Charlotte Foucher Zarmanian, Art historian, CNRS researcher
Clara Lévy, Sociology professor, Paris 8 University
Laura Malosetti Costa, Art history professor, Universidad Nacional de San Martìn, Buenos Aires
Gabriela Pellegrino Soares, Contemporary history professor, São Paulo University
Julie Verlaine, Contemporary history professor, Tours University
Natalie Zelt, Visiting Scholar and Lecturer, Department of African & African Diaspora Studies, The University of Texas at Austin
Submission deadline: October 25, 2024
Please send one pdf entitled FemmesAtlantique_surname_firstname_2025 an abstract in French, English, Spanish or Portuguese (maximum 2000 characters) with a title and a biography (maximum 800 characters) to: colloquefemmesatlantique@gmail.com
Acceptance will be notified by December 3, 2024.
The conference will take place on April 4-5, 2025.
Provisional bibliography
Adair, Zakiya R. « Transgressive (Re)presentations: Black Women, Vaudeville, and the Politics of Performance in Early Transatlantic Theater ». In Understanding Blackness through Performance, edité par Anne Crémieux, Xavier Lemoine, Jean-Paul Rocchi. New York: Macmillan, 2013.
Anderson Cordell, Sigrid. Fictions of Dissent. Reclaiming Authority in Transatlantic Women’s Writing of the Late Nineteenth Century. Routledge, 2010.
Buscatto, Marie, Femmes du jazz. Musicalités, féminités, marginalisations, Paris, CNRS Editions, 2007.
Clavaron, Yves, « Des autrices transatlantiques ? ». Vozes transatlânticas, Cadernos de Literatura comparada 40 (2019): 67-89.
Chaudet, Chloé. « Circulations et reconfigurations transatlantiques de l’engagement littéraire féministe. Les Caraïbes francophones, un espace emblématique », EIFe XX-XXI 6, 2016.
Cossu-Beaumont, Laurence. Deux agents littéraires dans le siècle américain. William et Jenny Bradley, passeurs culturels transatlantiques. Lyon : ENS Éditions, 2023.
Fassin, Éric. Le sexe politique. Genre et sexualité au miroir transatlantique. Paris : Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 2009.
Gianoncelli, Eve. « Les voies de la (re)connaissance. Claude Cahun, artiste et intellectuelle au miroir transatlantique ». Genre, sexualité & société16 (2016).
Gerund, Katharina. Transatlantic Cultural Exchange: African American Women’s Art and Activism in West Germany. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2013.
Gilbert, Sandra et Susan Gubar. Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer in the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984.
Giunta, Andrea. Feminismo y arte latinoamericano. Historias de artistas que emanciparon el cuerpo. Buenos Aires, Siglo XXI Editores, 2018.
Greet, Michele. Transatlantic Encounters: Latin American Artists in Paris between the Wars, 1918-1939. Yale University Press, 2018.
Greet, Michele, « “Exhilarating Exile”: Four Latin American Women Exhibit in Paris », Artelogie 5 (2013).
Hirschi, Stéphane. « Cinquante ans de duos : modalités transatlantiques ». Canadian Studies 93 (2022) : 11-32.
Jones, Kellie. « Nancy Elizabeth Prophet and Augusta Savage: Sculptural Habits of Black Modernism ». In Black Modernisms in the Transatlantic World, Huey Copeland and Steven Nelson eds. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2023.
Joyeux-Prunel, Béatrice. Les avant-gardes artistiques (1918-1945). Une histoire transnationale, Paris, Gallimard, 2017.
Mathé, Sylvie. « Entre histoire collective et histoire personnelle. Texte et contexte de L’Amérique au jour le jour 1947 de Simone de Beauvoir ». Revue Française d’Études Américaines 127 (2011) : 47-74.
Maurel, Chloé. « De récentes recherches féministes outre-Atlantique sur des femmes antillaises pionnières ». Cahiers d’histoire. Revue d’histoire critique 156 (2023).
Monnier, Gérard. « Figures du monde de l’art à Paris: Eileen Gray, Charlotte Perriand, Jeanne Bucher ». French Cultural Studies 7(20), (1996): 141-147.
Moura, Jean-Marc. « Des voyages au féminin dans l’Atlantique au XXe siècle ». In Volume 2 Literary Translation, Reception, and Transfer, édité par Norbert Bachleitner. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2020, 281-290.
Gambrell, Alice. Women Intellectuals, Modernism, and Difference: Transatlantic Culture, 1919-1945. Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Palmer, Stephanie. Transatlantic Footholds: Turn-of-the-Century American Women Writers and British Reviewers. Routledge, 2019.
Raiford, Leigh and Heike Raphael-Hernandez, eds. Migrating the Black Body: the African Diaspora and Visual Culture. University of Washington Press, 2017.
Ricard, Virginia, « Edith Wharton, Translator », Transatlantica, dossier thématique « Passeurs de la littérature des Etats-Unis en France », 2022.
Richard, Nelly. Feminismos, género y diferencia(s), Santiago de Chile, Palinodia, 2008.
Sandu, Corina. « Le discours médiatique transatlantique avant 1900: L’exemple de la première tournée de Sarah Bernhardt en Amérique. » Nineteenth-Century French Studies 52 : 1 (2023): 123-138.
Schneller, Katia, « Sur les traces de Rosalind Krauss », Études photographiques 21, (2007): 123-143.
Slettedahl, Macpherson, Heidi. Transatlantic Women’s Literature. Edinburgh University Press, 2008.
Walter, Tracey L. Not Your Mother’s Mammy: The Black Domestic Worker in Transatlantic Women’s Media. Rutgers University Press. 2021.
Weber, Brenda R. Women and Literary Celebrity in the Nineteenth Century: The Transatlantic Production of Fame and Gender. Routledge, 2012.
Zabunyan Elvan, Réunir les bouts du monde. Art, histoire, esclavage en mémoire. Montreuil: éditions B42, 2024.
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Tracs (11 septembre 2024). CFP – International Conference – Women artists in the Atlantic Space: Migrations, Creation, Emancipation. Transatlantic cultures. Consulté le 9 novembre 2024 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/12aa3