Quoting, Copying, Invoking: Scholarly Models at Work
Citer, copier, convoquer : les modèles savants en travail
Published on Thursday, July 10, 2025
Abstract
Ce colloque propose d’explorer les formes, les enjeux et l’évolution des pratiques de la citation savante depuis l’époque moderne.
Announcement
Argument
At a time when regimes of truth and forms of scholarly authority seem increasingly unstable—especially with the rise of digital tools that obscure the provenance of the sources they draw upon—the practice of textual quotation takes on renewed critical importance. It stands as a key mechanism in scholarly discourse, establishing dialogic relations between texts and enabling a critical examination of how knowledge is produced, legitimized, and disseminated.
Starting from this contemporary perspective, the conference seeks to explore the forms, stakes, and historical developments of quotation practices in scholarly writing from the early modern period to the present. The aim is less to address intertextuality or textual genetics—as featured in several recent studies—than to focus on the act of quoting itself, as a gesture that engages regimes of legitimacy, strategies of authority, and forms of knowledge organization.
By scholarly quotation, we mean any explicit textual reuse—whether brief or extended—that contributes to the construction and circulation of what are considered scholarly models within a particular context. Quotation is thus treated as a privileged analytical lens through which to examine how knowledge is shaped, transmitted, and debated across a wide range of writings, from the sixteenth century to the present. It allows us, in particular, to investigate the construction of epistemological models, the evolution of academic institutions, the making of intellectual and media authorities, and the role of intermediary sources (popularizations, newspapers, anthologies, treatises, compendia, etc.) in the circulation and structuring of knowledge.
Proposals may address one or more of the following themes (non-exhaustive), using either a synchronic or diachronic approach:
- The authority of quotation: On what foundations does a quoted text or author gain authority? When is a quotation considered scholarly? How does it circulate materially within networks of discourse? Through what processes is it legitimized? What kind of truth value is ascribed to it, and what discursive frameworks does it support?
- The deployment of scholarly models through quotation: How are such models activated and made operative within texts? What cultural, epistemological, or axiological systems of value underlie them? How do authors stage their relationship to models through quotation practices?
- Shifts in quotation paradigms: In what contexts and historical moments is textual quotation used, from the humanist period to the present? What are the stakes involved in quoting in a given context? How do quotation practices evolve in response to developments such as bibliometrics or automated text generation?
- Genres of discourse and modes of mediation: What kinds of discourse are invoked through scholarly quotation? What role does quotation play in the emergence or definition of disciplinary boundaries? Which texts act as intermediaries in the transmission and reconfiguration of knowledge? How do quotation practices vary across different textual genres?
- Methodological approaches: What tools—manual or digital—are available to researchers for analyzing scholarly quotation within defined corpora?
This conference invites interdisciplinary dialogue, bringing together approaches from philology, literary theory, linguistics, history, and sociology. It is intended for scholars of all disciplines working on scholarly practices in texts from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries.
Submission Guidelines
Proposals (title, abstract of approximately 500 words, and a short biographical note) should be submitted to the four organizers:
- Céline Bohnert (celine.bohnert@univ-reims.fr)
- Yann Calbérac (yann.calberac@univ-reims.fr)
- Léa Gariglietti (lea.gariglietti1@etudiant.univ-reims.fr)
- Marine Riguet (marine.riguet@univ-reims.fr)
by 15 September 2025.
Papers may be delivered in either French or English.
Selected proposals will be announced at the end of November.
The conference will take place in late May 2026 at the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne (Reims, France).
Organizing Committee
- Céline Bohnert
- Yann Calbérac
- Léa Gariglietti
- Marine Riguet
Suggested Bibliography
Andries Lise (dir.), Le Partage des savoirs, Lyon, Presses universitaires de Lyon, 2003.
Beugnot Bernard, « Un aspect textuel de la réception critique : la citation », La Mémoire du texte. Essais de poétique classique, Paris, Champion, « Lumière classique », 1994.
Callon Michel et Latour Bruno (dir.), La Science telle qu’elle se fait, Paris, La Découverte, 1991.
Compagnon Antoine, La Seconde Main ou Le Travail de la citation, Paris, Seuil, 1979.
Delattre Pierre et Tellier Michel (dir.), Élaboration et justification des modèles, t. I, Paris, éd. Maloine SA, 1979.
Foucault Michel, L’Ordre du discours, Paris, Gallimard, « Nrf », 1971.
Jacob Christian, Qu’est-ce qu’un lieu de savoir ? Marseille, OpenEdition Press, 2014.
Roqueplo Philippe, Le Partage du savoir. Science, culture, vulgarisation, Paris, Seuil, 1974.
Waquet Françoise, L’Ordre matériel du savoir. Comment les savants travaillent, XVIe-XXIe siècles, Paris, CNRS, 2022.
Subjects
Event attendance modalities
Hybrid event (on site and online)
Date(s)
- Monday, September 15, 2025
Keywords
- citation, savoir, intermédiaire, transmission
Reference Urls
Information source
- Céline Bohnert
courriel : celine [dot] bohnert [at] univ-reims [dot] fr
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« Quoting, Copying, Invoking: Scholarly Models at Work », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Thursday, July 10, 2025, https://doi.org/10.58079/14b6e
