History in Travel Narratives 1589-1826, Paris > December 2010

Joint conference organised by PRISMES (CREA XVIII, Epistémè), Sorbonne nouvelle, and CIERL, Quebec 

Paris, Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3, 11-12 December, 2010 

Call for papers 

This conference will examine the representation of history in travel 
narrative. A European's perception of countries and peoples with no «history » is not the same as that of « civilised » nations. What model of 
historical change do travel narratives project?history as a decline from 
some mythical or mythicised origin, cyclical history, history as the 
unfolding of a providential design, as progress ? The evolution of those 
categories over the period considered will be investigated ; this period 
stretches from 1589, which saw the publication of Richard Hakluyt's 
Principal Navigations, to 1826, when William Ellis's Narrative of a Tour 
through Hawaii came out. 

What is the influence of historiography at any given time on the 
representation of history as experience in travel literature ? How does 
travel narrative validate its status as historiography ? 

>From a more anthropological viewpoint, does the discovery of new or 
different spaces or places shape the perception and construction of time 
? Is there any interaction between the conception of space and that of 
time, between the depiction of spaces and that of time, especially of the 
time needed for the evolution of manners, customs and institutions which 
differ from those familiar to the traveller ? Does this entail a 
relativisation of time ? How does a European (or Europeanised) nation?s 
past constrain the analysis of the fabric and customs of the areas 
visited ? Is the historicisation of lived experience limited ? What is 
the impact of measuring instruments on this experience and the account 
thereof. 

Those are some of the questions which will be addressed in this conference. 

Voyages from and to Great-Britain will be of particular, but not 
exclusive, interest. 

Please send proposals?200-250 words for papers not exceeding 30 minutes 
before 15 June 2010 to Isabelle Bour (Isabelle.Bour@univ-paris3.fr), Line 
Cottegnies (Line.Cottegnies@univ-paris3.fr) and Thierry Belleguic 
(Thierry.Belleguic@lit.ulaval.ca). 

L. Cottegnies 
Professor 
Institut du Monde anglophone 
Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3