Untitled Document

Lecture by Matthew Kneale about English Passengers (2000): "What brings a British novelist to write about the wickedness of the British Empire?"

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PUBLICATION

Matthew Kneale's lecture and most of the papers read at the conference will be published in March 2006 in:

Gallix François, Vanessa Guignery, Jean Viviès et Matthew Graves, eds.. Récits de voyage et romans voyageurs. Aspects de la littérature contemporaine de langue anglaise. Aix-en-Provence: Presses Universitaires de Provence / collection "écritures du voyage", 2006.

REVIEW

Vanessa Guignery reviews the following book on travel writing:

VIVIES Jean éd., Lignes de fuite. Littérature de voyage du monde anglophone. Récits de voyage de la littérature anglaise, Aix, Publications de l'Université de Provence, 2003.

***

The conference was organised by the ERCLA (Ecritures du Roman Contemporain en Langue Anglaise) research centre of the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne (François Gallix, Vanessa Guignery) in collaboration with the LERMA (Laboratoire d’Etude et de Recherche du Monde Anglophone) research centre of the University of Provence (Jean Vivies, Matthew Graves), with the support of the British Council, and the Scientific Committee and Doctoral School IV of Paris IV-Sorbonne.

Vendredi 19 mars 2004

9h00-12h00
Présidence de séance : François Gallix (Paris IV-Sorbonne)

9h00 Accueil des participants et du public
9h15 Jean Viviès (Université de Provence) : Présentation générale
9h30 Françoise Dupeyron-Lafay (Université Paris 12) : " Bitter Lemons (1957) de Lawrence Durrell : le patchwork et le palimpseste "
10h Jan Borm (Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines) : " The Songlines de Bruce Chatwin : du voyage philosophique à l'ethnographie poétique "

10h30 Pause

11h00 Arnaud Schmitt (Bordeaux IV): " Sur les pas de John Rebus à Edimbourg : pérégrinations symboliques dans l'oeuvre de Ian Rankin. "
11h30 Jean-Louis Vidalenc (Aix-en-Provence): " Récit de voyage et progrès scientifique (à partir de Dr Copernicus et Kepler de John Banville ) "

12h15 Pause déjeuner

14h30-19h00
Présidence de séance : Vanessa Guignery (Paris IV-Sorbonne)

14h30 Christian Gutleben (Strasbourg) : " Stratégies de l'errance: le voyage baroque dans Nights at the Circus d'Angela Carter "
15h Susan Barrett (Bordeaux III): " Revisiting the elephant bird: Christopher Hope, Rian Malan, Dan Jacobson, Justin Cartwright "

15h30 Pause

16h Matthew Graves (Université de Provence) : " The renaissance of the travel book "
16h30 Catherine Pesso-Miquel (Paris IV Sorbonne): " Inventer le voyage dans une langue d'emprunt : English Passengers, de Matthew Kneale ".
17h Pause

17h30: Conference by MATTHEW KNEALE on English Passengers (2000): "What brings a British novelist to write about the wickedness of the British Empire?"

Samedi 20 mars 2004

9h30-12h00
Présidence de séance : Jean Viviès (Université de Provence)

9h30 Marlène Junius (Montpellier) : " Le chant de marins au sein de quelques récits de voyage et romans voyageurs contemporains de langue anglaise "
10h Florence Labaune-Demeule (Lyon 3) : " L'écriture du voyage dans The Enigma of Arrival et Half a Life de V.S. Naipaul "

10h30 Pause

11h Catherine Mari (Pau) : " Fluctuations génériques et mystifications en tous genres : l'étonnant périple de Star of the Sea de Joseph O' Connor "
11h30 Nicole Terrien (Rouen): " Stanger on a Train de Jenny Diski entre récit de voyage et roman "

12h15 Pause déjeuner

14h30-17h00
Présidence de séance : Matthew Graves (Université de Provence)

14h30 Robin Gerster (Melbourne Australia): " Itineraries of war: Reading Military Narratives as Travel Books - An Australian case study "
15h Igor Maver (Ljubljana, Slovénie): " Literary Walkabouts: Australian writers in Europe "
15h30 Michèle Hita (Montpellier 3): " The Saddest Pleasure, A memoir by Moritz Thomsen: travel narrative as ego trip."
16h15 Fin du colloque

***

This international conference aims to investigate the discourse of travel in contemporary English language narratives and novels (in Great Britain and countries of the Commonwealth). Rather than treat the travel book in generic isolation, we feel it worthwhile to explore the porosity of the genre and the interaction between travel narratives and novels involving journeys, which we shall label for convenience’s sake “travel novels”.

In 1977, when Bruce Chatwin published his landmark travel book In Patagonia, he revived a genre that had lost much of its lustre since the golden age of 1930s travel literature (Peter Fleming, Robert Byron, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene) by injecting it with a generous dose of fiction: an experiment that he would take to its logical conclusion a decade later with his hybrid novel-cum-travelogue, The Songlines. It is significant in this regard that Chatwin should persistently reject the label of travel writer in preference to that of novelist. A succession of dedicated travel writers were to follow in Chatwin’s creative footsteps: in the 1980s, Redmond O’Hanlon, Paul Theroux, Jonathan Raban, Patrick Leigh-Fermor and Colin Thubron; and into the 1990s, William Dalrymple, Jason Elliot and Simon Winchester. Thus it appears that the renaissance of the travel book derives from the blurring of generic and ontological contours, as well as a sustained challenge to the travel narrative’s purely referential status.

At the same time, a number of contemporary novelists such as Salman Rushdie, Graham Swift, Julian Barnes or Michael Ondaatje began to work the discourse of travel, nomadism and exile into their novels, juggling with generic frontiers and conventions in a broader trend towards the re-enchantment of literature and its codes. More recently, the novelist Alain de Botton has shown how travel has been inscribed in literature through his own hybrid work, The Art of Travel (2002). These travel novels, which are notable for their keen sense of space, tackle through fictional devices issues that are more routinely developed in travel narratives: journeys, migrations, discovery of unknown lands, wanderlust….

The field of enquiry of our conference will therefore revolve around the notions of travel writing, the intermingling of novel and travel narrative and the overlapping of the fictional and the referential domains. We shall examine contemporary English language works drawn from the dual spheres of travel writing and the novel, displaying the multiple forms of travel discourse. We also propose to include reworkings of past travel narratives, the better to reveal the historic background of the genre and the original contributions of contemporary writers.

Organising committee:

François Gallix, fgallix@noos.fr
Vanessa Guignery, vanessaguignery@wanadoo.fr
Jean Viviès, vivies@up.univ-aix.fr
Matthew Graves, Matthew.Graves@up.univ-aix.fr

	International conference
Matthew Kneale	"Travel narratives and travel novels in contemporary literature in English " 19 and 20 March 2004 Louis Liard lecture room, Paris IV Sorbonne	Audio extract (39min) All rights reserved
*Lecture by Matthew Kneale about English Passengers* (2000): "What brings a British novelist to write about the wickedness of the British Empire?" * PUBLICATION Matthew Kneale's lecture and most of the papers read at the conference will be published in March 2006 in: Gallix François, Vanessa Guignery, Jean Viviès et Matthew Graves, eds.. Récits de voyage et romans voyageurs. Aspects de la littérature contemporaine de langue anglaise. Aix-en-Provence: Presses Universitaires de Provence / collection "écritures du voyage", 2006. * REVIEW Vanessa Guignery reviews the following book on travel writing: VIVIES Jean éd., Lignes de fuite. Littérature de voyage du monde anglophone. Récits de voyage de la littérature anglaise, Aix, Publications de l'Université de Provence, 2003. * The conference was organised by the ERCLA (Ecritures du Roman Contemporain en Langue Anglaise) research centre of the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne (François Gallix, Vanessa Guignery) in collaboration with the LERMA (Laboratoire d’Etude et de Recherche du Monde Anglophone) research centre of the University of Provence (Jean Vivies, Matthew Graves), with the support of the British Council, and the Scientific Committee and Doctoral School IV of Paris IV-Sorbonne. Vendredi 19 mars 2004 9h00-12h00 Présidence de séance : François Gallix (Paris IV-Sorbonne) 9h00 Accueil des participants et du public 9h15 Jean Viviès (Université de Provence) : Présentation générale 9h30 Françoise Dupeyron-Lafay** (Université Paris 12) : " Bitter Lemons (1957) de Lawrence Durrell : le patchwork et le palimpseste " 10h Jan Borm (Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines) : " The Songlines de Bruce Chatwin : du voyage philosophique à l'ethnographie poétique " 10h30 Pause 11h00 Arnaud Schmitt (Bordeaux IV): " Sur les pas de John Rebus à Edimbourg : pérégrinations symboliques dans l'oeuvre de Ian Rankin. " 11h30 Jean-Louis Vidalenc (Aix-en-Provence): " Récit de voyage et progrès scientifique (à partir de Dr Copernicus et Kepler de John Banville ) " 12h15 Pause déjeuner *14h30-19h00* Présidence de séance : Vanessa Guignery (Paris IV-Sorbonne) 14h30 Christian Gutleben (Strasbourg) : " Stratégies de l'errance: le voyage baroque dans Nights at the Circus d'Angela Carter " 15h Susan Barrett (Bordeaux III): " Revisiting the elephant bird: Christopher Hope, Rian Malan, Dan Jacobson, Justin Cartwright " 15h30 Pause 16h Matthew Graves (Université de Provence) : " The renaissance of the travel book " 16h30 Catherine Pesso-Miquel (Paris IV Sorbonne): " Inventer le voyage dans une langue d'emprunt : English Passengers, de Matthew Kneale ". 17h Pause *17h30: Conference by MATTHEW KNEALE on English Passengers* (2000): "What brings a British novelist to write about the wickedness of the British Empire?" Samedi 20 mars 2004 9h30-12h00 Présidence de séance : Jean Viviès (Université de Provence) 9h30 Marlène Junius (Montpellier) : " Le chant de marins au sein de quelques récits de voyage et romans voyageurs contemporains de langue anglaise " 10h Florence Labaune-Demeule (Lyon 3) : " L'écriture du voyage dans The Enigma of Arrival et Half a Life de V.S. Naipaul " 10h30 Pause 11h Catherine Mari (Pau) : " Fluctuations génériques et mystifications en tous genres : l'étonnant périple de Star of the Sea de Joseph O' Connor " 11h30 Nicole Terrien (Rouen): " Stanger on a Train de Jenny Diski entre récit de voyage et roman " 12h15 Pause déjeuner 14h30-17h00 Présidence de séance : Matthew Graves (Université de Provence) 14h30 Robin Gerster (Melbourne Australia): " Itineraries of war: Reading Military Narratives as Travel Books - An Australian case study " 15h Igor Maver (Ljubljana, Slovénie): " Literary Walkabouts: Australian writers in Europe " 15h30 Michèle Hita (Montpellier 3): " The Saddest Pleasure, A memoir by Moritz Thomsen: travel narrative as ego trip." 16h15 Fin du colloque * This international conference aims to investigate the discourse of travel in contemporary English language narratives and novels (in Great Britain and countries of the Commonwealth). Rather than treat the travel book in generic isolation, we feel it worthwhile to explore the porosity of the genre and the interaction between travel narratives and novels involving journeys, which we shall label for convenience’s sake “travel novels”. In 1977, when Bruce Chatwin published his landmark travel book In Patagonia, he revived a genre that had lost much of its lustre since the golden age of 1930s travel literature (Peter Fleming, Robert Byron, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene) by injecting it with a generous dose of fiction: an experiment that he would take to its logical conclusion a decade later with his hybrid novel-cum-travelogue, The Songlines. It is significant in this regard that Chatwin should persistently reject the label of travel writer in preference to that of novelist. A succession of dedicated travel writers were to follow in Chatwin’s creative footsteps: in the 1980s, Redmond O’Hanlon, Paul Theroux, Jonathan Raban, Patrick Leigh-Fermor and Colin Thubron; and into the 1990s, William Dalrymple, Jason Elliot and Simon Winchester. Thus it appears that the renaissance of the travel book derives from the blurring of generic and ontological contours, as well as a sustained challenge to the travel narrative’s purely referential status. At the same time, a number of contemporary novelists such as Salman Rushdie, Graham Swift, Julian Barnes or Michael Ondaatje began to work the discourse of travel, nomadism and exile into their novels, juggling with generic frontiers and conventions in a broader trend towards the re-enchantment of literature and its codes. More recently, the novelist Alain de Botton has shown how travel has been inscribed in literature through his own hybrid work, The Art of Travel (2002). These travel novels, which are notable for their keen sense of space, tackle through fictional devices issues that are more routinely developed in travel narratives: journeys, migrations, discovery of unknown lands, wanderlust…. The field of enquiry of our conference will therefore revolve around the notions of travel writing, the intermingling of novel and travel narrative and the overlapping of the fictional and the referential domains. We shall examine contemporary English language works drawn from the dual spheres of travel writing and the novel, displaying the multiple forms of travel discourse. We also propose to include reworkings of past travel narratives, the better to reveal the historic background of the genre and the original contributions of contemporary writers. Organising committee: François Gallix, fgallix@noos.fr Vanessa Guignery, vanessaguignery@wanadoo.fr Jean Viviès, vivies@up.univ-aix.fr Matthew Graves, Matthew.Graves@up.univ-aix.fr

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