During the last decades, new concepts revolving around mediality and intermediality entered the arena of theoretical debates concerning the links between cinema and the established arts. Our conference aims to reassess two of these terms, namely transmédiagénie (transmediatization) and transécriture (transwriting). André Gaudreault and Philippe Marion’s concept of transécriture distances itself from the old paradigm of “fidelity” toward the original text and rethinks adaptations in accordance with the specific semiotical reconfigurations of the target medium. Transmédiagénie, on the other hand, is a wider notion defined by Philippe Marion as “a narrative’s capacity for star-like expansion, circulation and transmedial propagation.”

Argument

The swift and prestigious development of cinema would be even more surprising if one would not take into account its links with the other arts, and more particularly with literature. For a long time, the majority of the theoretical debates concerning these links were limited to the issue of cinematic adaptations, which were not seen as being mutually enriching, but rather as a service magnanimously granted by literature to a younger art form. When cinema obtained its aesthetic autonomy and raised firmly to the level of “His Majesty the Verb” (to use Godard’s formula), theoretical studies also tried to move beyond the sterile perspective of the ancillary condition of cinema in regard to literature and to keep up with the new aesthetic reality. The development of semiotics helped orient research towards the examination of the codic specificities of cinema, adaptations thus being increasingly perceived as a distinct form of semiotization.      

The proliferation of studies on mediality and intermediality has made possible the addition of an anthropological perspective to the semiotic one. According to Nelson Goodman, the latter presents the advantage of integrating a reconceptualisation of the symbolic which is mindful of the diversity and multiplicity of its modes of presentation and reception, as well as of its operating modalities. Therefore, during the last decades, new concepts entered the arena of theoretical debates concerning adaptations. 

Our conference aims to reassess two of these terms more pointedly, namely transmédiagénie and transécriture. Introduced by André Gaudreault and Philippe Marion during the Cérisy symposium in 1993, the term transécriture will gradually replace that of adaptation, because it has the advantage of distancing itself from the old paradigm of “fidelity” toward the original text and of rethinking adaptation in accordance with the new creator’s poetics as well as with the specific semiotical reconfigurations of the target medium. Transmédiagénie is a notion established by Philippe Marion in 1997, in an essay which attempted to lay the foundations of a mediatic narratology. Defined as “a narrative’s capacity for star-like expansion, circulation and transmedial propagation”, this notion complemented the one of médiagénie, also put forth by Marion two years before the Cérisy symposium and which designated “a subject matter or a narrative project’s capacity to unfold under optimal conditions by choosing the mediatic partner that best suits it” (Philippe Marion, “Narratologie médiatique et médiagénie des récits”) 

We are expecting theoretical as well as applied proposals which embrace this transdisciplinary perspective and which comment upon the multiple migrations happening between media forms (litterature, cinema, painting, comics, television, video games, advertising, etc.). Migrations of subject matters, of course, but also of individual or genre-specific techniques, all these phenomena reflecting to varying extents the homogenization of the modes of reception caused by digitalisation. 

Submission guidelines

Proposals can be either in French or English. The title of the proposal, as well as a summary and a short bio, will be sent to:

• chapelanmihaela@yahoo.com
• chapelanliri@yahoo.fr 

Deadline: 1st of September 2022

The conference will take place between the 17th and the 18th of November 2022, at the National University of Theater and Film I.L. Caragiale in Bucharest, Romania, in hybrid format (online and offline).

The participants are asked to specify whether they intend to participate in-person or virtually.

The organizers reserve the right to modify the format of the event in accordance with the health situation.

The conference papers will be published.   

Scientific committee

• Camelia Manolescu, maître de conférences, Université de Craiova
• Monica Tilea, maître de conférences, Université de Craiova
• Valentina Rădulescu, maître de conférences, Université de Craiova
• Christian Ferencz-Flatz, chargé de cours, Université Nationale d’Arts Théâtraux et Cinématographiques I.L. Caragiale
• Andrei Gorzo, maître de conférences, Université Nationale d’Arts Théâtraux et Cinématographiques I.L. Caragiale

Organizers

National University of Theater and Film I.L. Caragiale

Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literature, University of Bucharest