Call for papers issue 19
This edition proposes some reflexions on how their manner of conversing defines human societies. Nowadays the word conversation can refer to interactions without voice or body using predictive text and artificial intelligence: chat, GPT-3 and chatbot, also called a dialoguer or conversational agent, this software becoming our privileged interlocutor on many internet sites.
Can this type of communication meet the needs of human beings? Is not face-to-face conversation a necessity, almost an urgency at the moment? La Maison de la Conversation, founded in Paris in 2021 seems to provide an active reply to this question. As for sociologists, they have observed that “small talk” -indispensable to social cohesion as it bonds socially different people (phatic function)- tends to be disappearing making humans “under social” or under socialised.
La Rochefoucauld wrote that “confidence does more for conversation than wit” (maxime 421) which suggests something other than verbal engagement is involved. Indeed, it is about an “art de vivre” in good company as defined by Baldassare Castiglione in his Book of the Courtier and a manifestation of manners and etiquette for social life according to Gracián.
It has gone from familiarity to intimacy, then in the XVIIth century from masculine to feminine with Mme de Scudéry not to mention the disparate or heterogeneous dynamics observed by Diderot (letter to Sophie Volland).
The salons, spanish tertulias, conversational style literature (Méré, Scudéry, La Bruyère, Diderot, Mallarmé, etc.) bear witness to the vitality of conversation and its social and cultural importance.
This vast panorama gives opportunities for much research involving humanistic and anthropological dimensions. We will be particularly interested in the following themes:
- Delimiting the notion of conversation (etymology, history, semantics) with respect to terms of the same lexical field
- Analysis of the body’s relationship with conversation:
- presence, spontaneity and company (voice, body, gestures, facial expressions) which make conversation a living action incapable of being transcribed.
- pictorial and theatrical representation of conversation (Conversation pieces, sacred conversation or holy conversation, pictorial subgenre in the 16th century)
- A study of conversation as a sign of society through its literary representations: among others “coloquios”, Coloquios matrimoniales by Pedro de Luján (1550), Conversación en la cathedral by Mario Vargas Llosa (1969), but also the Conversations dans le Loir et Cher by Paul Claudel (1935), Le silence de la mer by Vercors (1942), Cinco horas con Mario by Miguel Delibes (1966), The Silence by Don DeLillo (2020)
- Investigate contemporary modalities of conversation confronted by the diversification and mondialisation of linguistic exchange.
Proposed article summaries (about 10 lines maximum) should be addressed by September 15th to mireille.ruppli@unv-reims.fr et à florence.dumora@univ-lemans.fr, with full contact details of the author (mail, university and laboratory).
The number coordinators’ response will be given no later than in October.
Articles with a maximum of 40,000 signs (including spaces) will be sent at the end of January 2024, accompanied by a short bio-bibliography and a summary in two languages, including French. After an appraisal, the article in its final form will be returned to the coordinators on 15 May 2024 for publication in September 2024.
Bibliography
Literary opus:
Castiglione, Baldassare, Le livre du courtisan (Il libro del cortegiano), 1528.
Claudel, Paul, Conversations dans le Loir-et-Cher, 1935; Gallimard, « L’Imaginaire », 1984.
Delibes, Miguel, Cinco horas con Mario, 1966.
DeLillo, Don, Le silence, traduction française, 2023
Diderot, Denis, Le Rêve de d’Alembert. Le Neveu de Rameau, Œuvres, éd. L. Versini, Robert Laffont, « Bouquins », tome IV
Diderot, Denis, Lettres à Sophie Volland, Gallimard, « Folio », 1984.
La Bruyère, Jean (de), « De la société et de la conversation », Caractères, livre V, 1687.
La Rochefoucauld, François (de), Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales, 1664.
Luján, Pedro (de), Coloquios matrimoniales, 1550.
Méré, Antoine Gombaud, chevalier de, De l’esprit de conversation, 1677, in J. Hellegouarc’h (dir.), L’art de la conversation. Anthologie, Classiques Garnier, 1997.
Scudéry, Madeleine (de), De la conversation, 1653-1680.
Vargas Llosa, Mario, Conversación en la catedral, 1969.
Vercors, Le silence de la mer, Minuit, 1942.
Critical studies:
Buffat, Marc, « Conversation par écrit », Recherches sur Diderot et sur l’Encyclopédie, n°9, 1990, 55-69.
Capdeville,Valérie, L’Âge d’or des clubs londoniens (1730‑1784), Paris, Honoré Champion, 2008
Cerezo Galán, Pedro, «Sabiduría conversable», Conceptos. Revista de Investigación Graciana, 3 (2006), p. 11-21.
Chen, Ching-Jung, “Tea Parties in Early Georgian Conversation Pieces”, Art Journals Ltd, The British art journal, 2009, Vol.10 (1), p. 30-39.
Chen, Chin-Jung, “From Genre to portrait: The etymology of the conversation piece”, The British Art Journal in association with the Berger Collection Educational Trust, The British art journal, 2012, Vol. 13 (2), p. 82-85.
Craveri, Benedetta, L’Âge de la conversation, Gallimard, 2002.
Cosner, J. et Kerbrat-Orecchioni, C. (dir.), Décrire la conversation, P.U. Lyon, 1987.
Frantz, Pierre, Dialogue et conversation selon Diderot », L’Harmattan, « Études théâtrales », 2004/2, n° 31-32, p. 36-45.
Génétiot, Alain, « Aux origines de la conversation classique », Littératures classiques, n° 33, 1998, p. 45-66.
Guérin, Philippe, « La civile conversation de Stefano Guazzo : du dialogue à la conversation », in Le dialogue ou les enjeux d’un choix d’écriture (pays de langues romanes), P.U. Rennes, 2006, 235-296.
Kerbrat-Orecchioni, Catherine, « Dialogue littéraire vs conversations naturelles : le cas du dialogue romanesque », Champs du Signe : Sémantique, Poétique, Rhétorique, Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 1996, p. 207-224.
Laisney, Vincent, « Choses dites : petite histoire de la parole au XIXe siècle », RHLF, 2003, n° 3, p. 643-653.
Millan, Gordon, Les mardis de Stéphane Mallarmé. Mythes et réalités, Nizet, 2008.
Moeschler, Jacques, Argumentation et conversation. Éléments pour une analyse pragmatique du discours, Hatier, 1985.
Patrin-Leclère, Valérie (dir.) « La Communication revisitée par la Conversation » (dossier), Communication et langages, 2011/3, n°169, 15-86.
Retford, Kate, The Conversation Piece: Making Modern Art in Eighteenth Century Britain, Yale UP, 2017.
Tadié, Alexis, « Conversation et représentation en Angleterre », in XVII-XVIII. Bulletin de la société d'études anglo-américaines des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, N°40, 1995, p. 163-184 Conversation et représentation en Angleterre (persee.fr)
Thomas, Chantal, L’esprit de conversation, 2021, Rivages « poche ».
Some recent scientific seminars about “conversation”:
2007
https://www.fabula.org/actualites/19980/dialogue-conversation.html
2013
2017
https://www.fabula.org/actualites/79997/le-dialogue-et-la-conversation-la-croisee-des-approches.html
2023
https://www.fabula.org/actualites/111801/corporeal-conversations-conversations-corporelles.html
