CFP – Francosphères Journal – The “Trembling” of Édouard Glissant

Open Call for Papers: Édouard Glissant – Special issue of Francosphères Journal (December 2021).

Deadline for ABSTRACTS: 1 October 2020

Deadline for ARTICLES (MHRA Style): 1 February 2021

Submit to: jegoussoj@hollins.edu

Publication: December 2021 in Francosphères

“Le monde a toujours été un perpétuel devenir [The world has always been in perpetual becoming]” says Édouard Glissant in 1994 in an interview published in the journal Passages (12). Here, he announced the grounds of the “unpredictable”, “disconcerting”, “complex”, and “intricate” nature of what constituted for him “l’objet le plus haut du poème [the highest purpose of the poem]” (La Terre le Feu l’Eau et les Vents. Une anthologie de la poésie du Tout-monde, 19). However, if the world was a double object of poetry and thought for Glissant, it was also subject to variations in different and successive forms during the course of its literary production (poetry, essay, novel, theater play …). Although imagined and thought of as a “totality”, the world could just as well be “unique” as Glissant writes in his first essay, Sun of Consciousness (1956), asserting then “que tout être vient à la conscience du monde par son monde d’abord ; d’autant universel (pour parler large) qu’il est particulier ; d’autant généreux et commun qu’il a su devenir seul, et inversement ? [that every being comes to the consciousness of the world through his world first; as universal (broadly speaking) as it is unique; as generous and common as it became solitary, and vice versa?]” (18).

An indefatigable thinker of the world, a poet attentive not to reduce it, nor to standardize it or to essentialize it, Édouard Glissant has elaborated many world notions through his writings: chaos-monde, échos-monde, totalité-monde, mondialité, themselves subsumed in Tout-monde, defined as “notre univers tel qu’il change et perdure en changeant et, en même temps, la “vision” que nous en avons [our universe as it changes and endures by changing and, concurrently, the ‘vision’ that we have of it]” (Treatise on the Whole-World, 176). Considering these worlds of Édouard Glissant, the following questions will guide our study: How does this poetic thought of the world(s) evolve in his work? What are its origins and possible influences? How do the first writings of Édouard Glissant remain current? And if his work is a mirror of our contemporary world, how does it help us understand our world?

This special issue does not seek to summarize, introduce or define what would be the thought of Édouard Glissant’s world. Rather, he intends to highlight his “trembling”, that is to say the multiplicity of his worldly thoughts, their variations, their origin(s), the evolution of their development, as well as their place in the work of the thinker. Ten years after Glissant’s passing, as his oeuvre continues to inspire scholarly works across languages, borders and disciplines, we will examine this “monde à créer mais qui est déjà là, et dont nous n’avons pas encore une connaissance disons évidente [world to be created but already there, and of which we do not yet have, let’s say, a thorough knowledge]” (L’Imaginaire des langues, 116). This issue welcomes approaches related to Édouard Glissant’s work in fields such as literature, philosophy, history, anthropology, sociology, and the arts. The studies may relate to one or more text (s), as well as to one or more Glissant worldly thoughts. Articles should not exceed 6000 words (bibliography and notes included) and respect the journal’s guidelines (see the style guide).

Abstracts in French or English (between 250 and 400 words, and a bio-bibliographic notice of 120 words maximum) should be emailed to Jeanne Jégousso (Hollins University), Raphaël Lauro (Université de Montréal), and Charly Verstraet (University of Alabama at Birmingham) at jegoussoj[at]hollins.edu.

Above adapted from emailed announcement.