Dominique Carlini Versini and Michèle Schaal are delighted to announce the publication of their co-edited issue of CFC Intersections “Virginie Despentes: an Intersectional Author(?)/Virginie Despentes : une autrice intersectionnelle (?)”.

On 2 March 2020, Virginie Despentes published “Césars: désormais, on se lève et on se barre” in Libération, a “tribune” in support of actor Adèle Haenel. In June of that same year, Despentes issued her “Lettre adressée à mes amis blancs qui ne voient pas où est le problème…,” broadcast on France Inter. While these two opinion pieces triggered antagonistic responses, commentators agreed that Despentes wrote them using an intersectional lens. However, these same commentators seemed to believe that embracing an intersectional perspective constituted a new development in her work or approach to feminism. In reality, they failed to acknowledge or were unaware that Despentes had adopted an intersectional standpoint to issue her social critique before publishing these two texts. Since the early 2000s, countless academic studies have stressed (even when not explicitly using the term “intersectionality”) that her novels highlight the intersection of gender, class, race, and capitalism. The CFC Intersections Special Issue “Virginie Despentes: an Intersectional Author(?)/Virginie Despentes : une autrice intersectionnelle (?),” co-edited by Michèle A. Schaal (Iowa State University) and Dominique Carlini Versini (Durham University), is the first academic anthology approaching Despentes’s work from an intersectional perspective. Contributions by Carlini Versini, Nadia Louar (University of Wisconsin Oshkosh), Isabelle Marc (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Thomas Muzart (Pomona College), and Schaal examine and question how and whether (or not) Despentes has articulated intersectional politics in her fiction and lesser-studied productions such as podcast interviews or shorter non-fiction pieces.

Table of contents for CFC Intersections 5.1 (“Virginie Despentes: an Intersectional Author(?)/Virginie Despentes : une autrice intersectionnelle (?)”)

1. Michèle A. Schaal - “Introduction: Virginie Despentes: an intersectional author(?) / Virginie Despentes : une autrice intersectionnelle (?)” (1-9)

2. Nadia Louar - “Intersectional aesthetics: negotiating legibility and resistance in Virginie Despentes’s Les Jolies choses and Marie NDiaye’s ‘Les sœurs’” (11-30)

3. Isabelle Marc - “Une tendresse de femme adulte:” une nouvelle politique des liens dans Vernon Subutex de Virginie Despentes”(31-50)

4. Dominique Carlini Versini - “Intersections de crises dans Cher connard” (51-66)

5. Michèle A. Schaal - “Quand Despentes pense l’intersectionnalité” (67-85)

6. Thomas Muzart - “From calling out to calling in: Virginie Despentes’s feminist ethics in podcasting” (87-103)

 

Queer Kinships: Resisting Erasure, Queering Relation in Contemporary France by Dr. CJ Gomolka (DePauw University) is now available from Liverpool University Press as part of its Studies in Modern and Contemporary France series.

Queer Kinships explores how French queer communities resist erasure through innovative practices of kinship. Examining activism, digital cultures, and feminist movements, the book introduces new frameworks for thinking affiliation beyond identity politics or universalism, offering fresh insights for queer studies, French cultural studies, and transnational debates on solidarity and belonging.

Here is a link to the publisher’s website: https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9781805968603

Dear WIF Members,

Please see the attachment below from WIF President Stephanie Schechner about an event on September 24th at Arcadia University in Glenside, PA. 

WIF President Event Sept 24.pdf

You can also see it on LinkedIn here.

For those of you in and around Philadelphia and DC, please consider joining WIF President Stephanie Schechner for these events to promote her translations of novels by Mireille Best and spread the word with anyone who might be interested!  

The event in DC is in collaboration with Alice Centamore, translator of Monique Wittig. The conversation will be moderated by WIF member Dr. Miléna Santoro of Georgetown University.

June 5, 2026 6:30 pm Philadelphia 

https://www.afphila.com/event-rsvp/book-signing-event-stephanie-schechner-mireille-bests-translator/

June 17, 2026 7 pm Washington, DC  

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/exploring-lesbian-literature-through-writings-of-french-feminist-authors-tickets-1988485422427?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

It's the first book-length study of Keralio (1756-1822) and the first publication to treat her entire corpus of over 40 volumes and her countless newspaper articles. It counters the critical commonplace that she is a "sexist republican." Vicki Mistacco argues instead that she is an intellectual of the Enlightenment and a surprisingly modern feminist. She traces the evolution of her thinking from arguments in favor of including a matrimoine in patrimony to the elevation of the maternal to the level of philosophy. Promoting maternal Enlightenment, Keralio ultimately theorizes a new social contract based on an ethics of care. 

For more information, click here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/louise-de-keralio-enlightenment-intellectual-9780198988311?lang=3n&cc=ge 

For more information, please click here: Moi_qui_ai_vecu.jpg

SdBS Featured Translation 2024 (any language to French)

Deadline: March 15, 2024 

Prize: Republication of the translated article, accessible to wider audiences

Consistent with its mission of promoting international and cross-cultural exchange, Simone de Beauvoir Studies selects annually one outstanding work that has already been published and translates it into either English or French to emphasize its significance to the field and increase its readership. The SdBS Featured Translation showcases writing of the highest quality, often authored by established scholars, full professors, or others who have produced exceptional work. 

Nomination Letter 

Nominations for the SdBS Featured Translation should take the form of a letter of approximately one page in length that includes the following information: 

1. The original publication details of the work (title, publisher, publication date, pages). 
2. The estimated word count of the work: 8,000 words maximum, including footnotes—all mentioned work should be referenced in footnotes (see Authors’ Guide).
3. A summary or abstract (100-200 words) of the work that emphasizes its central arguments and contributions. 
4. A short narrative that explains why the proposed work should be chosen for the SdBS Featured Translation and that references the selection criteria outlined below. (Please keep in mind that many exceptional works are nominated each year. Letters should speak to why a given work should be selected over other exceptional works.) 
5. A PDF copy of the original publication attached to the nomination letter. 

Nomination letters should be sent to the Editor-in-Chief at sdbs.journal@gmail.com by March 15, 2024. Multiple nomination letters for the same work, multi-authored nomination letters, and self-nominations are welcome. 

Criteria 

The SdBS Featured Translation is selected according to the following criteria: 

• the quality of the work in regard to research, scholarship, and writing 
• he originality of the work in regard to content, scholarship, and arguments 
• the significance of the work’s contribution to Beauvoir studies or to the advancement of themes in conversation with Beauvoir’s legacy such as gender studies, cultural studies, existentialism, feminism, autobiography, and so on. 
• the work’s potential to draw new and diverse audiences to Beauvoir studies in terms of field, discipline, social location, cultural location, geographical region, and so on 
• the status of the work as under-recognized in certain disciplines, fields, cultures, and/or geographical areas 

Eligibility 

Eligible works for the 2024 nomination cycle are any article or book chapter (ideally less than 10,000 words) that was published recently or long ago in any language other than French.

WIF Studies now has digital volumes.

Head to WIF's new Webpage to gain access to the very first volume.

There is still time to submit your articles for the 2022's edition of the Prix des amis de Colette. You can send it until 31th of December 2021 to:

Le Prix de la Société des amis de Colette, association reconnue d'utilité publique fondée en 1956, a été créé en 2015. Il vise à encourager et favoriser la recherche érudite sur la vie et l’œuvre de Colette en récompensant des travaux innovants portant sur tout ou partie de son œuvre. L’objectif de ce Prix étant de contribuer à renouveler l’approche de l’auteur par rapport aux nombreuses études déjà existantes. 

Le texte choisi par le jury, réunissant les meilleurs spécialistes de Colette, sera publié dans les Cahiers Colette, publication de référence depuis 1977, et l'auteur se verra récompensé d'un chèque de 1.500 euros. 

L’Édition 2022 

Le Prix sera remis au mois de mai 2022. Les travaux soumis au jury devront prendre en compte les éditions de référence des textes de Colette (Œuvres en 4 volumes de la Pléiade, Œuvres Complètes « du Centenaire ») et témoigner d’une bonne connaissance des principales études et biographies publiées à ce jour. 

Les textes des candidats sont à adresser par courriel à l’adresse contact@amisdecolette.fr  ou par courrier à Société des amis de Colette 8-10 rue Colette 89520 Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye avant le 31 décembre 2021. 

Extraits du règlement 

Les travaux soumis au jury (articles, originaux, ou extraits de mémoire - entre 30.000 et 50.000 signes) seront écrits en français ou traduits intégralement (la traduction accompagnera l’envoi du document original). Pour les travaux publiés, la date de publication ne doit pas excéder deux ans précédant la date de remise du prix ; pour les travaux universitaires, la date de soutenance ne doit pas excéder deux ans précédant la date de remise du prix. Les textes seront envoyés par voie électronique (au format .pdf) ou en deux exemplaires pour les ouvrages imprimés déjà publiés. Un ou plusieurs prix obtenus par ailleurs ne disqualifie pas un travail proposé au prix de la Société des amis de Colette mais les lauréats antérieurs ne pourront se présenter de nouveau. Le jury se réserve le droit, le cas échéant, de ne pas remettre de prix s’il juge que la qualité des textes proposés est insuffisante. 

Pour plus de renseignements, veuillez consulter le site www.amisdecolette.fr à la rubrique "Association", "Prix de la Société des amis de Colette", ou envoyez un courriel à l'adresse flaviefouchard@us.es.

Congratulations to Dawn M. Cornelio for the recent publication of her translation of Chloé Delaume’s recent feminist manifesto, Mes bien chères soeurs, under the title Sisters are you with me?

The title is currently available only in Canada on at the following link:

https://www.amazon.ca/Sisters-Are-You-Chlo%C3%A9-Delaume/dp/0228858887/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3US7R7M5TK78U&dchild=1&keywords=sisters+are+you+with+me&qid=1635856784&sprefix=sisters+are+you+with+me%2Caps%2C307&sr=8-1