On the occasion of the 100^th anniversary of The Waste Land’s first publication, the LARCA (Laboratoire de recherches sur les cultures anglophones, UMR CNRS 8225, université de Paris) is very pleased to invite T.S. Eliot scholars, and specialists of Modernism more generally, to share and discuss their (re)assessment of the reception of T. S. Eliot’s works and ideas in the various languages of Europe. We are especially, but not exclusively, interested in probing the role of translation in reception and canonization processes, that is, in the formation and reshaping of literary canons and their effect on the circulation of literary theory.

Paris, October 13-15, 2022

Argument

On the occasion of the 100^th anniversary of The Waste Land’s first publication, the LARCA (Laboratoire de recherches sur les cultures anglophones, UMR CNRS 8225, Université deParis) is very pleased to invite T.S. Eliot scholars, and specialists of Modernism moregenerally, to share and discuss their (re)assessment of the reception of T. S. Eliot’s worksand ideas in the various languages of Europe. We are especially, but not exclusively,interested in probing the role of translation in reception and canonization processes, that is,in the formation and reshaping of literary canons and their effect on the circulation ofliterary theory. Conversely, examining translation processes and their effects on literaryreception may shed new light on reading, criticizing and teaching Eliot.

According to his correspondence, Eliot appears to have been very eager to have TWL, andlater major pieces, translated into foreign languages, building in the process what may becalled a translated corpus. That corpus could be appraised along several lines : as a vehiclefor and a measure of the diffusion of Modernism in Europe; as an agent that shaped theperception of Modernism in various linguistic and cultural areas; as an influence on culturalproductions in vernacular languages; as the outcome of a strategy of self-canonization. Anassessment of the translated corpus could raise other issues such as locating and analyzingspatial and literary relations between the multilingual translated corpus and Eliot’s travels,the geographics of his body translation so to speak; assessing what the translated texture ofthe texts and its discrepancies with the source texts reveal of Eliot, his works and theirreaders and critics; exploring how the timing of translations and the effects of time affectthe translated texts and corpus and their originals in return; searching for poetic andaesthetic filiations, echoes and resonances in the production of Eliot’s readers whether theyread him in English and/or in translations.

In a nutshell, this conference will focus on what could be called T.S. Eliot’s “translationalafterlives” if we bear in mind Walter Benjamin’s concept of fortleben as one of the tasks of the translator (The Translator’s Task, 1923).

We therefore welcome papers along the following lines of critical investigation:

Traductology

• Translational issues of Modernism: translating illegibility, translating multilingualism, translation as a modernist language and technique.
• Issues of translation: Influence of the first translation(s) and ethos of the translators; whowere Eliot’s first translators, why and how have they translated his work? How did Eliot relate to them; retranslating Eliot: emancipation of the second and third generation oftranslators and of their translations from the first translation(s), and from the canon.

Legal issues

• Legal constraints weighing on translations and the circulation of works; legal constraints as part of canonization and canon building.
• Canonizations and decanonizations

Eliot as a magnet (or a foil) in the reshaping of European and national literary canons:evaluating the combined roles of academics, publishers, translators and critics in theelevation of an “author” to iconic status, or their dismissal; the political and institutionalimpact on the literary sphere and its autonomy; the politics of translation, politics of the canon: teaching and criticizing Eliot at school and university outside the USA, Great-Britain and the anglosphere; materialities of the canon, materialities of translation,publishers and author’s strategies

Transmedialities

Though Eliot was reluctant to see his poetry translated into other arts, European artists havenevertheless been inspired by his lines and images, producing new forms and languages:visual arts (Francis Bacon, Julian Peters); music, dance, live performance (BenjaminBritten, Pam Tanowitz, Pippo Delbono); movies (Michael Petronie, Karl Verkade), to namea few. How do these explorations contribute to Eliot’s reading and criticism and to theunderstanding of how transposition and translation work, from both a practical andtheoretical standpoint?

Submission guidelines

Please submit 250-word long proposals and a short biographical note to Pascale-MarieDeschamps : pascale-marie.deschamps@etu.u-paris.fr before April 30^th, 2022.

Scientific committee

• Antoine Cazé, Université de Paris, LARCA
• Jayme Stayer, Loyola University Chicago
• Jean-Marie Fournier, Université de Paris, LARCA
• Jennifer Kilgore-Caradec, Université Caen Normandie, LARCA
• Jean Daniel, Université de Paris, LARCA
• Benoît Tadié, Université Rennes 2
• Magdalena Heydel, Jagiellonian University
• Amélie Ducroux, Université Lumière-Lyon 2
• Olivier Hercend, Université Paris Nanterre
• Fabio L. Vericat, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
• Stefano Maria Casella, IULM Universita
• Cécile Varry, Université de Paris, LARCA ; Oxford University