‘1974-2024: Annie Ernaux’s Years – a Global Perspective’, 3-5 October 2024

Co-organised by Dr Elise Hugueny-Léger and Dr Fabien Arribert-Narce, the international conference ‘1974-2024: Annie Ernaux’s Years – a Global Perspective’ was the first English-speaking conference devoted to the works of 2022 Nobel-Prize laureate Annie Ernaux, whose first book Cleaned out was published half a century ago. With nearly forty speakers coming from across the world, the conference was the opportunity to discuss the global reach of Ernaux’s work and the universal dimension of her autobiographical writings.

The conference opened at the French Institute in Edinburgh with a screening of The Super 8 Years, a plenary lecture on ‘Trauma and agency’ by Prof. Barbara Havercroft (University of Toronto) and a livestream discussion with Annie Ernaux who reflected on the evolution of her writing since #metoo. The second day of the conference, at the University of Edinburgh, included a round table bringing together the voices of Ernaux’s English and German translators, Alison Strayer (who provided written notes before the event) and Sonja Finck, with eminent Ernaux scholar Lyn Thomas (the author of the first monograph in English on Ernaux) and interpreter Julia Hartley. It also featured two creative responses (a reading and a performance) to Ernaux’s work; stimulating postgraduate plenary panels on intersectional readings and abortion stories; and a screening of Audrey Diwan’s Happening. The third and final day of the conference, at the University of St Andrews, included a range of panels on topics such as consumerism, ageing, the creative process, life-writing forms, and text-image dialogues. The day ended with the award of the best postgraduate paper (sponsored by Women in French UK-Ireland) to Sophie Feng (University of Toronto) for her paper entitled ‘On life-writing as Maieutics: Feminist praxis and a poetics of telling in L’Événement (Happening)’. The conference closed with the launch of the art exhibition ‘Palimpself’, at the Byre Theatre in St Andrews. The exhibition, which consists of new visual work by artist Susan Diab made in response to reading Ernaux, and exploring visual and material representation of memory, will be displayed until 28 October 2024 and feature a ‘Meet the Artist’ event.

The organisers would like to thank the sponsors who made this event possible:

• The Ambassade de France au Royaume-Uni
• The Institut Francais d’Ecosse (IFE), Edinburgh
• The SELF – Société d’étude de la littérature de langue française du XXe et du XXIe siècles
• The Society for French Studies
• The University of St Andrews Impact and Innovation fund
• The School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, University of Edinburgh – Impact fund
• WIF (Women in French)-UK-Ireland