• Prof. dr. Peggy Phelan, Stanford, US:

  "More Mothering: On Art/ Writing and the Conundrum of Analysis"

• Prof. dr. Nizan Shaked, California State University Long Beach, US:

  “What does it mean to write a square? Adrian Piper and the (non) Representation of the Self"

Stemming from the project “Mapping performative writing and the page as an expanded field (1966- the present): experimental, exophonic and ecstatic literatures in transcultural Anglophone spheres”, this conference will focus on performative writing. 

We understand this to be writing wherein the materiality of a text and the act of writing in itself are strategic, creative-critical devices that fuse form and content. Performative writing is an urgent theme given its enactment of self and/as language. This can broaden our understanding of what literature is or can be on and beyond the page. Perhaps more importantly, we find it to be uniquely capable of reflecting a rich, complex world. In her essential text “Performing Writing” (1998), Della Pollock identified one of performative writing’s core characteristics as its intersubjective ability to “bring the reader into contact with ‘other-worlds’ [...]: worlds of memory, pleasure, sensation, imagination, affect and in-sight.” (80). 

• Experimental: conceptual writing (from poetry to fiction) that employs conceptual strategies, typically in the second half of the 20th century. Its origins can be found in the art and literature of the late 1960s and 1970s. Strategies such as appropriation, typographical experiments, collage, insertion of multiple genres, found text, image/text juxtapositions, repetition, artistic/objectual conceptions of the book, etc. contribute to the performativity of the work on the page.

• Exophonic: located outside the “monolingual paradigm”, this writing prioritises the voices (in the largest sense of the term) through which meaning is transmitted, especially when “understanding” is compromised. Outside language(s) as we are used to conceiving of them, it may even attempts to escape language itself. Devices used here are explicitly multilingual writing, self-translation and bilingual versions, accents free of relation to identifiable language.

• Ecstatic: invested in citational practices, this writing uses (and acknowledges) other people’s words not only to scaffold critical discourse, but also as a creative device. This may have implications in the way we theorise and narrate the self (for example, in autotheory, see Fournier, Brostoff); and it is, inevitably, political (Ahmed). Katherine McKittrick, writing from a Black studies perspective, asks that referencing “takes us outside ourselves” (16), an unhinging of the self (16). By using citations as creative literary devices, the textual body ecstatically stands outside itself. New meaning emerges as the text is iterated and performed anew.

• Henry Andersen (KASK, Ghent, BE)

• Delphine Grass (U. Lancaster, UK)

• Sharon Kivland (Ma Bibliothèque editorial, UK + FR)

• Roy Claire Potter (Liverpool John Moores U., UK)

• Lily Robert Foley (U. Paul Valéry Montpellier 3, FR)

• Thierry Roustan (independent, FR)

THU 13TH

9.00registration

9.20 housekeeping

9.30 EXPERIMENTAL / EXOPHONIC / ECSTATIC.

INTERACTIVE LIBRARY (intro + interactive lecture in clusters)

H. Van Hove (VUB, BE) + T. Veneboer (Gent, BE) + M. Gil Ulldemolins (UHasselt, BE) + C. Mole (Sorbonne Nouvelle, FR) + A. Murphy (Sorbonne Nouvelle, FR)

11.00 Coffee

11.15 Carol Laurent (Université Libre de Belgique, BE)

Lecture: "Ana Mendieta & Jayne Cortez / A Machete Scraping Across Polished Gallery Floors"

12.00 Cat Auburn (independent)

Performative lecture: "Gorse Returned: Craft as Co-theorist"

12.30 joint discussion

13.00Lunch

14.00 Keynote lecture

Nizan Shaked (California State University, Long Beach, US)

“What does it mean to write a square? Adrian Piper and the (non) Representation of the Self"

14.45  response&Q&A

15.30 break

15.45 Sharon Kivland (Kingston U. + Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research, London, UK)

Reading: "Her Discourse"

16.30 Coffee

17:00 Amanda Murphy (Sorbonne Nouvelle, FR) + Thierry Roustan (independent

Lecture + performance: "La voix, le souffle/Echoes of Elsewhere"

18.00 Pre-dinner casual gatherings, followed by symposium dinner

FRI 14TH

9:00 registration

9:30 Workshop

Delphine Grass (U. Lancaster, UK) + Lily Robert Foley (U. Paul Valéry Montpellier 3, FR)

“Unending Translation: Creative Critical and Experimental Workshop”

11:00 Coffee

11:30 Participants’ conversation clusters

12.30 Lunch

13:30 Contributions

Henry Andersen (KASK Gent), BE

Lecture: Readers Digest

Rebecca McKenzie (U. Glasgow, UK)

Performative lecture: "Father Figure: show notes"

Kristin Sanders (independent)

Performative lecture: "Sexual, Aging, and Alone: A Collaborative Search for Beauty"

15:00 joint discussion

15:30 Coffee

16:30 Keynote lecture (online)

Peggy Phelan (Stanford University, US)
"More Mothering: On Art/ Writing and the Conundrum of Analysis"

16:45  response & Q&A

17:30 Closing remarks

coming soon

• Maria Gil Ulldemolins, Assistant Professor, Universiteit Hasselt

• Christopher Mole, ATER, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle

• Amanda Murphy, Maîtresse de conférences, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle

• Kris Pint, Associate Professor, Universiteit Hasselt

• Arvi Sepp, Professor, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)

• Hannah Van Hove, Postdoctoral Researcher, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)

• Tessel Veneboer, Doctoral Student, Universiteit Gent

maria.gilulldemolins [at] uhasselt.be

Conference will take place at USquare, Brussels.

> Located at the intersection of Boulevard Général Jacques and Avenue de la Couronne, Ixelles.

We have a discount code for CityBox Hotel in Ixelles, a 2km tram ride away:

EEE_conference2025 

(valid for stays 12/11 - 15/11 )