Narrative Ethics and Character in Representations of the Past
16-17 June 2023
Milldam Building, University of Portsmouth
Following on from the success of Event 1 in Caen in October 2022, this conference further explores how the past is a key component of contemporary literature.
Current years have seen an increased return of history and of the historical novel in mainstream fiction, from the historiographic metafictions of the 1990s to the “fresh commitment to what we might call the reality of history” (Boxall 2013) in 21st-century novels.
Considering that character remains central to the novel, this two-day conference jointly organised by the Universities of Portsmouth and Caen wishes to address the issue of the past in contemporary fiction through the question of the choice of protagonists and their representation.
Indeed, if we believe with Paul Ricoeur that narrative is the foundation of textual memory, if “narrative imagination is an essential preparation for moral interaction” since it develops compassion and understanding in the reader (Nussbaum 1998), then the question that begs to be asked is: can one write anything about the past in the name of the freedom of fiction and art or is there an ethical limit to representations of the past in contemporary fiction?
The conference includes a public event with acclaimed novelist Patricia Duncker
5.30pm - 7.00 / 7.30pm
Friday, 16 June
Included in conference ticket or £6 for non-conference attendees
‘On Character’
What is a character? And what are the abstract materials a novelist needs to build a fictional character? What complications arise if you re-create a character who once lived in the material world? What are the risks of autofictions?
If creating characters seems to be a minefield of hazards and risks, well that's the dangerous terrain that every novelist has to navigate. But there are pleasures and rewards in store for the readers.
Patricia Duncker is an acclaimed novelist, writer and academic. Her first novel, Hallucinating Foucault (1996), won the Dillons First Fiction Award and the McKitterick Prize and has been translated into fifteen languages. Further information available at patriciaduncker.com.
Call for papers
Call for papers is now closed.
Conference programme*
Friday 16 June: 9.00am - 7.00 / 7.30pm (breaks for coffee and lunch)
Milldam Building, LE0.05
9.00am - Welcome by Prof Anne Murphy, Dean of Faculty
9.30am - Panel 1: Mythologies
Chair: Armelle Parey
- Isabelle Roblin - Université du Littoral-Côte d’Opale, France
‘Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles, or Patroclus Redux’ - Else Cavalié - University of Avignon, France
‘“The power of imagination […] is usually far richer than the truth”: divine narration and emotional “reality” in Claire North’s Ithaca - Felix Behler - University of Paderborn, Germany
‘(Re-)inventing Biblical Traditions’: The Representation of Pontius Pilate in Contemporary Historical Fiction
11.00am - Coffee break
11.30am - Panel 2: American Literature
Chair: Paraic Finnerty
- Sini Eikonsalo - Prague University, Czechia
‘Narrative Ethics in 9/11 Novels: The “Correct” and “Taboo” Reactions to 9/11’ - Anca Cristofovici - University of Caen, France
‘Responsibility and Empathy in Restoring a Life: Dawn Raffel’s The Strange Case of Dr Couney. How a Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands of American Babies’ - Sylvie Maurel - Université Toulouse-Jean Jaurès, France
'Julie Otsuka's The Buddha in the Attic (2011): Bearing Witness in the Choral Voice’
1.00pm - Lunch
2.00pm - Panel 3: Postcolonial Literature
Chair: Hannah Coombs
- Cédric Courtois - University of Lille, France
‘“[W]riting about real people” in Namwali Serpell’s The Old Drift (2019)’ - Raheen Fatimah Khan - University of La Rochelle, France
'Socio-political reality in the fictionalized narrative of Amina Ahmad’s The Return of Faraz Ali’ - Trajanka Kortova Jovanovska - University of Avignon, France
'Post-Mughal Consciousness in Salman Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh: An Ethics of Authorship’
3.30pm - Coffee break
4.00pm - Panel 4: National Identities
Chair: Christine Berberich
- Elisa Santoro - University of Siena, Italy
‘“An idol of the past”: female protagonists in Brexit historical novels’ - Esther Hudson - Manchester Metropolitan University
‘The Song of the Banshee: the ethics of representing and voicing the silenced, historical Other in a new work of folk-gothic fiction’
Milldam Building, LE1.01
5.30pm - 7.00 / 7.30pm - Evening event with Patricia Duncker
Pay-as-you-go dinner at Gunwharf Quays
Saturday 17 June: 9.00am - 5.00pm (breaks for coffee and lunch)
Milldam Building, LE0.05
9.00am - Panel 5: World Literatures
Chair: Maggie Bowers
- Eugenia Ossana - University of Zaragoza, Spain
'Re-assembling Ugandan Historical “Ghost Archive” through Collective Voices in Jennifer Makumbi’s Kintu (2014, 2018)’ - David Waterman - University of La Rochelle, France
‘Historiography and the Question of “What Happened?”: Uzma Aslam Khan’s The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali’ - Archana Ravi - University of Giessen, Germany
‘Reading Trauma and Resilience in Ruta Sepetys’s Between Shades of Gray’
10.30am - Coffee break
11.00am - Panel 6: Historical Narratives
Chair: Alberto Lázaro
- Christoph Ehland and Christoph Singer - Universities of Paderborn, Germany and Innsbruck, Austria
‘“It was not her.” Elizabeth Belle, the Slave-Trade and the Ethics of Representation in Lawrence Scott’s Dangerous Freedom’ - Andrea Schlosser - University of Bochum, Germany
‘“Anonymity runs in their blood”: The Representation of Women in Lauren Gunderson’s The Book of Will’ - Michael Mitchell - Universities of Warwick, and Paderborn, Germany
‘Debts to the Past: Accounts of John Smith and the Demerara Uprising of 1823 in today’s books — Thomas Harding’s White Debt and Karen King-Aribisala’s The Hangman’s Game’
12.30pm - Lunch
1.30pm - Panel 7: Contemporary Engagement with the Past
Chair: Armelle Parey
- Alberto Lázaro - University of Alcalá, Spain
‘Uncovering Ethical Complexity and Historical Context in Colm Tóibín’s Summer of ’38’ - Peri Mirza - University of York
‘The contrapuntal past: ethics and character in Rachel Cusk’s Second Place'
2.30pm - Coffee break
3.00pm - Panel 8: Gender and Media
Chair: Christoph Ehland
- Maureen Fielding - Penn State Brandywine, USA
‘Authority and Ethics in 21st Century Representations of “Comfort Women”’ - Sheila Passey - University of Wolverhampton
‘Using historical fiction as a means to protect women's herstories’
5.00pm - Closing remarks and end of conference
*programme subject to change
Contact us
For more information about the conference, please contact Christine Berberich.
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