[Bilimsel Haber] CFP: Adaptation(s): Transfers and Society (4/17/06; 11/15/06-11/17/06)

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

Adaptation(s) : transferts et societe /
Adaptation(s) : Transfers and Society

Du 15 au 17 NOVEMBRE 2006 / November 15-17, 2006
Montreal, Canada

Colloque international bilingue organise sous la direction de /
Bilingual international conference organized by

Michael Eberle-Sinatra, Danielle Aubry, Celine Lafontaine et Gilles Visy
avec le soutien du / with the help of
Centre de recherche sur lintermedialite, l'Universite de Montreal et
l'Universite de Quebec, Montreal

Conferenciers pleniers /
Keynote Speakers :

- Prof. George Elliott Clarke (University of Toronto), E.J. Pratt
Professor of Canadian Literature, recipient of numerous awards,
including the Governor General's Award for Poetry, and author of many
publications, including poetry, verse plays, an opera, a novel, and
academic publications including Treason of the Black Intellectuals? and
Odysseys Home: Mapping African-Canadian Literature

- Prof. Alain Gras (Sorbonne, Paris 1), directeur du Centre d'Etude des
techniques, des connaissances et des pratiques et auteur, entre autres,
de La fragilite de la puissance. Se liberer de l'emprise technologique.


Adaptation stands for the labor-saving adjustment of an object to the
shape of a new social and cultural setting. Adaptation stands for scale,
projection, transfer process, and thus begs the question of the
unchangeable and the new, of agreement and distortion--in sum, of
difference: difference in discourse, as well as in aesthetic and
artistic shape, material and technique.

This concept acts as a frame that allows us to consider the processes of
exchange and transfer which animate our contemporary world, while it
also serves as a model for the production of cultural and media
practices, as well as one which encourages standardization.

This notion permeates the humanities as well as social sciences but,
surprisingly, few attempts have been made so far to compare the varying
definitions of adaptation across the disciplines of the social sciences,
humanities, fine arts and literature. Yet these comparisons would shed a
welcome light on the different reference and value systems which shape
studies of adaptation.

This conference aims:

1. to look at adaptation as both a practice in the field of cultural
production, as well as a concept that is defined, programmed, proposed
and, sometimes, imposed;

2. to revisit the theme of adaptation in order to track the theoretical
changes from the early studies on intertextuality, and particularly all
the studies done in the structuralist, linguistic, and semiotic fields
from 1970 to 1990, to the concept of adaptation as "ubiquitous and
central to the human imagination" put forward by Linda Hutcheon;

3. to confront the different theoretical models of adaptation,
understood as an intermedia process, or as a new set of rules for
intermedia space.

We hope that this conference will fruitfully contribute to the ongoing
debate on adaptation, and will foster a better understanding of one of
the key concepts of the last two centuries=92 cultural production. This
concept will also constantly evolve thanks to the broadening of the
notion of art and the relationships and transfers which in turn result
from it; in fact,adaptation is already engaged with multiple systems
simultaneously.

In order to facilitate the consideration of various aspects of the
question, and to foster fruitful exchange, we have identified three
research themes, each one encompassing a number of sub-topics
(obviously, these are not intended as being restrictive):

I. Sociology and adaptation

- From biology to social science: a critique of the Darwinian model
- The myth of economic adaptation
- Frames, codes, and programs of adaptation for social institutions
- Violence of adaptation/ refusal of adaptation
- Controlling adaptation: migration and society
- Cyborg, posthuman, and transhuman: new faces of adaptation?

II. Adaptation as creation

- Fiction and adaptation: travelling across novel, film, theatre, and
comics
- Are new media a special case?
- "Seriality": vectors of formal and technical hybridity
- Intertextuality as a forerunner of an intermedia reading of cult
series
- Opera adaptations

III. The anthropology of adaptation

- Normative adaptation: psychology and clinical psychiatry
- Selective adaptation: the new shapes of exclusion and inclusion
- Adapting sexuality
- Adaptation and technique
- Nature/culture: frontiers of adaptation
- Darwinian theories of adaptation and science fiction

Please send your 500-word proposal and 1-page CV before April 17, 2006, to
michael.eberle.sinatra at umontreal.ca




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