Mutation refers to a process by which matter is changed. French and francophone authors are
no strangers to mutation: from Rabelais’s grotesque bodies to Baudelaire’s changing Paris, from
20th-century autofiction writers experimenting with written form to francophone Pacific writers
facing nuclear fallout and genetic mutation, the French-language tradition employs mutation in
myriad forms to interrogate what we are. And as languages, cultures, and bodies within and
beyond the Francophonie encounter one another, these deformations may also manifest
through various artistic techniques. Often burdened with negative connotations, mutation
evokes notions of uncontrollable and random genetic shifts that disrupt perceived norms, and
hybrid monstrous figures. Yet, mutation’s acknowledgment of change, however negative, can
also be an essential mechanism for adaptation, survival, and evolution.

As a uniting conceptual thread, mutation offers a framework for engaging the complexities of our
current moment marked by environmental degradation, mass displacement, political instability,
and economic volatility. Mutation’s arsenal of techniques – distortion, refraction, diffraction,
reflection, reproduction, replication – provides a wide array of examples for discussing these
pressing issues. Potential papers under this mutation frame could explore topics such as:
transformation of information dissemination and representation in the digital age, or the
existence of fluid and flexible identities in the contemporary era. If mutations frequently occur at
the margins, how might we understand them from the perspective of human and non-human
beings marginalized in these border spaces? Mutation also foregrounds the limits of
representation and the dissolution of fixed meanings: what aesthetics of mutation exist? More
broadly, mutation unsettles categories and challenges boundaries, whether corporeal, cultural,
or geographical – how can it help us rethink division and articulate “becoming”?

This graduate student conference invites interdisciplinary papers in English or in French that
consider mutations from the perspective of cultural and literary studies with a focus on French
and Francophone contexts. We also invite abstracts from graduate student scholars in film and
media studies, comparative literary studies, postcolonial studies, art, history, philosophy, and
social sciences, and any other field considering mutation in innovative and interdisciplinary ways
as they relate to French and Francophone culture and experience or Franco-global exchanges.
 

We ask that interested applicants send a 300-word abstract and a 50-word personal bio
statement by November 1Oth to bfgsa@berkeley.edu.