Kaleidoscopic Nabokov
Récupérations critiqes: la recherche nabokovienne en France

Organized by Lara Delage-Toriel and Monica Manolescu (Dept. of English, Université Marc Bloch), this conference aims at reflecting upon the state of Nabokov studies in France. Sixteen specialists from three disciplines that do not usually converse in France (Russian, English and Comparative Literature) will converge to exchange the fruits of their respective research and knowledge. Alongside these academic presentations and discussions, artists will present work inspired by Nabokov and created especially for this event. An evening of public readings in a major Strasbourg bookstore will allow specialists to share their most cherished passages from Nabokov's works. The staged readings will be performed in English, French, and Russian by students of the Drama School of Strasbourg's National Theatre, as well as a Russian reader.

Abstracts and more information can be found at the conference Web site.

Presenters and their topics include:

Maurice Couturier (Nice, English): "Nabokov’s Reception in France: Interpretation or Recuperation?"

Agnès Edel-Roy (Paris Sorbonne Nouvelle, Russian and Comp Lit): "Nabokov Today, or ‘Magic Democracy’"

Déborah Lévy-Bertherat (ENS Ulm, Comp Lit) : "The Perils in Crossing from East to West: the Case of Pnin"

"Nabokov in the Classroom": a sound report by Lara Delage-Toriel, in collaboration with Xavier Fassion (Click here for the sound file in mp3 format [29 MB])

Géraldine Chouard (Paris 9, English) : "Speak, Memory or the Time of Images"

Marie Bouchet (Toulouse, English) : "Hybridity and Mimicry: Two Notions for a Possible Approach to Kaleidoscopic Nabokov"

Alexia Gassin (Sorbonne, Russian) : "German Expressionist Movies as Subtext in Nabokov’s Russian Novels"

Tatiana Victoroff (Strasbourg, Comp Lit) : "Nabokov’s Drama: Its ‘Multiple Crossroads’"

René Alladaye (Toulouse, English) : "The Soft Detonation of Recognition’: Some Aspects of the Rewriting of Lolita in John Banville’s Eclipse"

Didier Machu (Pau, English) : "Some Aspects of Beheading in Nabokov"

Jacqueline Hamrit (Lille, English) : "The Ordeal of Undecidability in Lolita"

Laurence Guy (Aix-en-Provence, Russian) : "Polenka and Russia’s Half-Smile to a Young ‘Barin’: a Jungian Interpretation of the Nymphet"

Anne-Marie Lafont (Sorbonne, Russian) : "Feminine Figures and Erotic Stories in Vladimir Nabokov’s Russian Novels"

Isabelle Poulin (Bordeaux, Comp Lit) : "Nabokov as ‘Rabelais’s Friend’ : The Issues at Stake in a Multilingual Approch to Literature"

Yannicke Chupin (Besançon, English) : "Ada or Ardour, a Literary Chronicle or the Traditional Devices of the Novel Revisited"

Chloé Deroy (Tours, Comp Lit) : "Bookish Incest in Ada"

Sonia Philonenko (Strasbourg, Comp Lit) : "Nabokov Translates Lewis Carroll"