In literature, the city became a major subject from the 19th century onwards, with the emergence of large industrial cities. Writers have begun to explore its darker aspects, highlighting poverty, disease, violence and alienation.
A questioning of literary geography helps to identify the ways in which a new narrative is created, placing at the center of its aesthetic a city that is by turns spectacle, text and landscape.
But the city is also a place of hope and creation.
“Every city has its soul. Every city has its body, its skin, its intelligence, its stupidity, its monster side, its poetics, its share of mystery…”, Sony Labou Tansi, “Kinshasa ne sera jamais”
In modern literature, writers have sought to represent the city as a place of freedom where people can live independently and creatively. The city has become a symbol of civilization. But this city, as cruel as it was in colonial times, according to Eza Boto in Ville Cruelle, has a few surprises in store, for alongside its radiant center lies the shantytown, where pollution and misery reign. In this regard, Tagne points out that, on a physical level, the city appears in the Cameroonian novel with a double face. It’s the beautiful, seductive city, the site of happiness when you dream of it from the countryside. When you get there, it’s a melting pot of misery, suffering and vices, where disease, prison and death are a permanent threat
At the start of the 21st century, it has become tautological to say that the city plays a dominant role in our lives in every cultural, economic, political and sociological sphere. Rapid urbanization is having a profound effect on all spheres of our existence. . This is why the city, where new popular modes of expression and meaning-making are emerging, and which inspires literary narratives, is essential to understanding the way in which postcolonial societies try to “make the present era intelligible, […] to find coherence in scattered events, apparently too incoherent and disordered” (Mbembe 1988: 23). Literary narratives show how often violent events leave a lasting mark on the existence of Africans, their way of rereading the past, situating themselves in space and time, and anticipating what is likely to happen.
This panel invites researchers from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds to contribute to a rich, multidisciplinary discussion on the subject of the city and the influence of the urban on literature.
Papers from the humanities, literature, architecture, history, linguistics, geography and the social sciences will be welcome.
How does the city present itself in the detective novels and real-life fantasy texts of African authors?
Does the gloomy, terrifying atmosphere have anything to do with history, or is it a framework imposed by the literary genre?
Proposed themes:
I – The city and the urban:
– notions, conceptual issues and epistemological questions
– Fragmentation of the city: boundaries and limits
– Ecocriticism of cities
– Paths and ways of encountering otherness
– Childhood and woman : symbol and word of wandering in the city
— Discourse and representation of city politics through texts
– Semiotics of light and color in the city
– Polysensoriality and identity
– Housing in the city/periphery
– Urban intertextuality and intermediality
II – Cities and social dynamics :
– societal transformations and mutations
– town/country dialectic
– Urban planning (issues and challenges)
-City, mobility and spatio-temporal articulations: public space/private space,…
– Shapes of the urban fabric and network of social relationships: hospitality/hostility, etc.
III – City and discourse:
– Image of the city, city/memory, city/imaginary, city/body, city/text…)
-The city and literary and artistic productions
-The city and linguistic and (inter)cultural diversity.
– Cultures of the city and local/global articulations.
This gives us the real possibility, if not of understanding, at least of being able to describe, through the analysis of a series of telling examples, how fiction and reality relate to each other. Far from being exhaustive, this list of suggestions is purely indicative. It would be possible to add other axes to these, in line with the issues raised and proposed for debate.
Each proposal must be accompanied by an abstract́ (maximum 250 words signs, spaces included) and a brief biographical note (maximum 500 signs, spaces included).
The time allotted to each presentation is 15 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of discussion/questions.
