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Risk at work

Le risque à l'œuvre

Il Rischio All'opera

Literary paradigms and research perspectives

Paradigmes et perspectives de recherche en littérature

Paradigmi e prospettive di ricerca in letteratura

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Published on Thursday, May 15, 2025

Abstract

Ce colloque se propose d’explorer la centralité et la complexité du concept de risque dans la littérature de langue française dès le début du XXe siècle jusqu’à nos jours. L’initiative s’insère dans le cadre du projet de recherche Déclinaisons du risque : pour une archéologie des imaginaires littéraires des XXe et XXIe siècles (PRIN 2022), développé par les équipes de recherche en Littérature française des universités de Turin, Bergame et Naples Federico II. Adoptant une approche interdisciplinaire, le projet vise à mettre en lumière la manière dont le risque — communément étudié dans les sciences exactes et sociales — revêt, dans les pratiques littéraires, la signification d’une incertitude intrinsèque à tout projet créatif. 

Announcement

19-20-21 November 2025, University of Turin

Organisation

International conference organised by the Department of Humanities of the University of Turin, the Department of Literature, Philosophy and Communication at the University of Bergamo and the Department of Humanities at the University of Naples Federico II in collaboration with CSAM (Centro Studi Arti della Modernità Torino), the Universities of Bordeaux Montaigne, Picardie Jules Verne, Université Grenoble-Alpes, Sorbonne Université.  

Argument

This conference intends to explore the complexity and importance of the concept of risk in French-language literature from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. It is part of the research project Déclinaisons du risque: pour une archéologie des imaginaires littéraires des XXe et XXIe siècles (PRIN 2022), funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MUR), developed and led by the French Literature research teams at the Universities of Turin, Bergamo and Naples Federico II.

Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the project aims to highlight the way in which risk - commonly studied in the hard and social sciences - assumes, in literary practices, the significance of an uncertainty intrinsic to any creative project. No longer considered solely as the anticipation of a threat, but also as an opportunity for reflection and experimentation, the management of literary risk allows us to question our relationship to the future, by tracing new forms of thought, action and care for the world, opening the way to a possible literary management of risk. Through a dialogue between literary texts and theories of risk, this conference will explore how risk is involved in and expressed through literary and artistic practices and redefines models of rationality that go beyond the limits of a deterministic and predictable vision of reality.

In the context of this general reflection, the conference will focus on the following subjects:

  • literary and artistic works that involve representations or actualisations of risk, from the European avant-gardes of the early 20th century to the contemporary;
  • the meta-literary reflection of the notion of risk and its aesthetic and ethical implications in the redefinition of contemporary literary work;
  • literary thematizations of the ‘risk society’ (U. Beck);
  • theoretical discourses on literary and artistic works that directly or indirectly thematise representations or enactments of risk;
  • theoretical discourses from other fields (philosophy, science, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, etc.) that explicitly serve as a reference for the individuation of the specificity of the notion of risk in literature and for the critical reading of texts dealing with risk-taking;
  • the relationship between translation, literary prize and reception in the French and francophone context, which enables the study of the risk inherent in the dynamics of work selection. In this perspective, translation choices can be seen as risky when they are influenced by editorial strategies or by confrontation with a new cultural context.

Submission guidelines

Submissions of approximately 250 words should be sent to the organising committee by email to colloquerisque2025@gmail.com

before 15 June 2025.

They will be accompanied by a brief bio-bibliographical profile and will be evaluated before 30 June 2025. The speaking time is 20 minutes. The conference languages will be English, Spanish, French and Italian. 

For further information and to follow the scientific activities of the research group, find out more on the website.

A selection of the conference contributions will be published by the peer-reviewed international journal: Cosmo. Comparative Studies in Modernism 
(ISSN 2281-6658), June 2027.

Organising Committee

Carlotta Ariano, Franca Bruera, Chiara Elefante, Franca Franchi, Roberto Gilodi, Alessandro Grosso, Shannon Magri, Valeria Marino, Benoît Monginot, Francesca Pagani, Adelaide Pagano, Nunzia Palmieri, Francesca Quey, Giacomo Raccis, Valeria Sperti, Lorenza Valsania.

Scientific Committee

Margherita Amatulli, Alessandro Bertinetto, Elisa Bricco, Franca Bruera, Alberto Cevolini, Maxime Decout, Andrea Del Lungo, Laurent Demanze, Anne Duprat, Chiara Elefante, Alessandra Ferraro, Franca Franchi, Stefano Genetti, , Arnaud Maillet, Benoît Monginot, Nunzia Palmieri, Dominique Rabaté, Pascale Sardin, Niccolò Scaffai, Valeria Sperti.

Bibliographie

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ANDERS, G. (2008), Hiroshima est partout, Paris, Seuil.
AUGÉ, M. (2012), Les Nouvelles peurs, Paris, Payot.
BAUMAN, Z. (2007), Modus vivendi. Inferno e utopia del mondo liquido, Roma-Bari, Laterza.
BAUMAN, Z. (2008), Paura liquida, Roma-Bari, Laterza.
BECK, U. (1986), Risikogesellschaft, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp Verlag. [La società del rischio. Verso una seconda modernità (2008). Roma, Carocci.]
BECK, U. (2000 [1994]), I rischi della libertà. L’individuo nell’epoca della globalizzazione, Bologna, Il Mulino.
BECK, U. (2008b), Living in World Risk Society, Torino, Giappichelli.
BECK, U. (2008 [2007]), Conditio humana. Il rischio nell’età globale. Roma-Bari, Laterza.
BENEDETTI, C. (2021), La letteratura ci salverà dall’estinzione, Torino, Einaudi.
BERTINETTO, A.; RUTA, M. (2021), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Improvisation in the Arts, London, Routledge.
BERTINETTO, A.; MONGINOT, B. (2023), Declinazioni dell’estetica del rischio, in Estetica. Studi e Ricerche, Il Mulino, 3/2023.
BERTRAND, D. (2014), Penser le risque à l’âge classique, Clermont-Ferrand, Presses Universitaires Blaise Pascal.
BOSTROM, N.; ĆIRKOVIĆ M. M. (2008), Global Catastrophic Risk, Oxford, Oxford University Press
BRUERA, F.; DUPRAT, A.; FRANCHI F.;  MCINTOSH-VARJABEDIAN, F. (2023), Déclinaisons du risque : pour une archéologie des imaginaires littéraires des XXe et XXIe siècles, in Cahiers de littérature française, Classiques Garnier, n. 22.
BRUERA F.; MANCINI L. (2024), Dossier Declinazioni del rischio, in Il Castello di Elsinore, Edizioni di Pagina, n. 89.
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DOUGLAS, M.; WILDAVSKY, A. (1982), Risk and Culture, Berkeley, University of California Press.
DUPUY, J.-P. (2002), Pour un catastrophisme éclairé, Paris, Seuil.
DUPUY, J.-P. (2005), Petite métaphysique des tsunamis, Paris, Seuil.
ENGÉLIBERT, J.-P. (2019), Fabuler la fin du monde. La puissance critique des fictions d’apocalypse, Paris, La Découverte, 2019.
ENGÉLIBERT, J.-P. (2013), Apocalypses sans royaume. Politique des fictions de la fin du monde (XXe-XXIe siècles), Paris, Classiques Garnier.
FRANCHI, F.; GLAUDES, P. (sous la direction de, 2019), Faire peur : aux limites du visible, Cinisello Balsamo, Silvana Editoriale. 
FRESSOZ, J.-B. (2012), L’Apocalypse joyeuse. Une histoire du risque technologique, Paris, Seuil.
FREEDGOOD, E. (2000), Victorian Writing about Risk, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
GIDDENS, A. (1990), The Consequences of Modernity, Cambridge, Polity Press. 
GODARD, O., HENRY C., LAGADEC P., MICHEL-KERJAN E. (2002), Traité des nouveaux risques, Paris, Gallimard.
HARAWAY, D. (2016), Staying with the Trouble, Durham, Duke University Press.
HOYDIS, J. (2019), Risk and the English Novel, Berlin, De Gruyter.
KERMISCH, C. (2010), Le Concept de risque. De l’épistémologie à l’éthique, Paris, Tec & doc.
KERMISCH, C. (2010), Les Paradigmes de la perception du risque, Paris, Tec & doc.
LATOUR, B. (2015), Face à Gaïa. Huit conférences sur le nouveau régime climatique, Paris, La Découverte.
LE BRETON, D. (2000), Passions du risque, Paris, Métailié.
LINO, M. (2015), L’Apocalisse postmoderna tra letteratura e cinema, Firenze, Le Lettere.
LUHMANN, N. (1991), Soziologie des Risikos, Berlin, De Gruyter.
MAFTEI, M.M. (2023), Les Récits du posthumain, Presses Universitaires du Septentrion.
MERCIER-FAIVRE A.-M., THOMAS C. (2008), L’Invention de la catastrophe au XVIIIe siècle, Genève, Droz. 
MORONI, M.F. (2012), La catastrofe nel pensiero occidentale. La filosofia dell’irrimediabile. Milano: Il Saggiatore.
NANCY,  J.-L. (2012), L’Équivalence des catastrophes, Paris, Galilée.
PETITCLERC, M. (2012), Pour une histoire du risque, Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes.
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PRADIER, P. (2006), La Notion de risque en économie, Paris, La Découverte.
PUSKAR, J.R. (2012), Accident Society. Fiction, Collectivity, and the Production of Chance, Stanford University Press.
SCAFFAI, N. (2017), Letteratura e ecologia. Forme e temi di una relazione narrativa, Roma, Carocci.
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Places

  • Via Sant'Ottavio 20
    Turin, Italian Republic (10123)

Date(s)

  • Sunday, June 15, 2025

Keywords

  • risque, littérature, histoire des idées, théorie littéraire

Contact(s)

  • Risque Colloque
    courriel : colloquerisque2025 [at] gmail [dot] com

Reference Urls

Information source

  • Benoît Monginot
    courriel : benoit [dot] monginot [at] unito [dot] it

License

CC0-1.0 This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.

To cite this announcement

« Risk at work », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Thursday, May 15, 2025, https://doi.org/10.58079/13xnt

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