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&#171;&#160;The Mediterranean is the human norm. When men leave that exquisite lake /&#8230;/ they approach the monstrous and the extraordinary&#160;&#187;. Cette opinion, formul&#233;e par un personnage de A Passage to India illustre &#224; merveille, ce que fut, port&#233;e &#224; son paroxysme, la &#171;&#160;passion de&#160;la M&#233;diterran&#233;e&#160;&#187; dont John Pemble traita dans un de ses livres. Cependant la fascination dont les Europ&#233;ens du Nord (et un peu plus tard les Am&#233;ricains) firent montre, tr&#232;s t&#244;t, pour &#171;&#160;ce lac exquis&#160;&#187;, fut rarement assez forte pour que, venant d&#8217;un contexte politique, culturel, social tr&#232;s diff&#233;rent, ils ne d&#233;couvrent pas aussi du &#171;&#160;monstrueux&#160;&#187; et de &#171;&#160;l&#8217;anormal&#160;&#187; sur les rivages de la M&#233;diterran&#233;e. Mais si la beaut&#233;, la vitalit&#233;, la spiritualit&#233;, la sensualit&#233; des soci&#233;t&#233;s m&#233;diterran&#233;ennes vues du Nord ont fait l&#8217;objet d&#8217;&#233;tudes nombreuses et fouill&#233;es, on s&#8217;est moins syst&#233;matiquement arr&#234;t&#233; sur ce que des &#171;&#160;peuples s&#233;v&#232;res &#224; qui l&#8217;hiver convenait bien&#160;&#187;, pour reprendre un jugement de Charles Kingsley, devaient in&#233;luctablement trouver de sombre en celles-ci. C&#8217;est cet envers o&#249; dominent cruaut&#233;, d&#233;cr&#233;pitude, ignorance et oppression que ce colloque se propose d&#8217;explorer plus avant, non pas tant pour rechercher la &#171;&#160;v&#233;rit&#233;&#160;&#187; sur les &#171;&#160;horreurs&#160;&#187; du Sud m&#233;diterran&#233;en que rapportent et d&#233;crivent (parfois imaginent) les &#233;crits et les arts du Nord que pour tenter de cerner les conditions historiques, culturelles, sociales, esth&#233;tiques, personnelles qui dict&#232;rent leur perception (ou leur invention) et inspir&#232;rent leur repr&#233;sentation. A partir de l&#224;, on t&#226;chera d&#8217;&#233;baucher quelques conclusions sur ce que les r&#233;pulsions, phobies et indignations contenues dans ces repr&#233;sentations r&#233;v&#232;lent quant aux m&#339;urs, valeurs et certitudes des civilisations du Nord de l&#8217;Europe et de l&#8217;Am&#233;rique &#224; divers moments de leur histoire &#8211; de la chute de Constantinople &#224; la fin de la guerre d&#8217;Espagne. Par monde m&#233;diterran&#233;en on entendra l&#8217;espace g&#233;ographique s&#8217;&#233;tendant du d&#233;troit de Gibraltar au Bosphore et aux pays du Levant (on pourra y ajouter d&#8217;une part les r&#233;gions occidentales de la mer Noire, notamment la Bulgarie, et de l&#8217;autre le Portugal). Pour les limites nord et sud on s&#8217;en tiendra aux crit&#232;res de Fernand Braudel&#160;: de Donz&#232;re &#224; Timgad, du premier olivier que l&#8217;on rencontre en venant du Nord aux palmeraies qui se dressent en bordure du d&#233;sert.&#160;&#160; Les axes de r&#233;flexion qui suivent ne sont pas limitatifs. Leur but est de fournir quelques rep&#232;res quant &#224; l&#8217;orientation souhait&#233;e du colloque&#160;:    la violence dans le monde m&#233;diterran&#233;en&#160;: guerres, massacres,&#160; assassinats, pers&#233;cutions, migrations forc&#233;es&#8230;.&#160;    les d&#233;sastres naturels&#160;: &#233;ruptions volcaniques, tremblements de terre&#8230;    maladies et &#233;pid&#233;mies&#160;: peste, malaria&#8230;    les horreurs de la religion&#160;: catholicisme et obscurantisme&#8230;    de la grandeur antique aux horreurs du pr&#233;sent&#160;: m&#233;ditations sur la d&#233;cadence    les g&#233;ographies de l&#8217;horreur&#160;: villes et villages du Sud, &#171;&#160;so much ruin and neglect&#160;&#187; (Dickens)&#8230;    l&#8217;exotisme de l&#8217;horreur et l&#8217;horreur de l&#8217;exotisme&#160;: auberges l&#233;preuses, crasse et punaises, brigands et mendiants&#8230;    quand l&#8217;horreur vient du Nord&#160;: la d&#233;naturation par le tourisme&#8230;    quand l&#8217;horreur monte vers le Nord&#160;: la menace papiste, migrations et mafias&#8230;    quand les horreurs du Sud s&#8217;emparent de l&#8217;imaginaire&#160;: le drame jacob&#233;en, le roman gothique&#8230;&#160;Les propositions de communications (qui ne devront pas exc&#233;der 25 min), de 250 mots environ, en fran&#231;ais ou en anglais, accompagn&#233;es d&#8217;une courte biographie,devront parvenir avant le 20 novembre 2011.Elles sont &#224; adresser &#224; Martine Monacelli, mmonacelli.faraut@aliceadsl.fr ou &#224; Gilbert Bonifas, gilbert.bonifas@wanadoo.fr. Les frais d&#8217;inscription au colloque seront de 30 euros.Call for Papers&#160;&#8220;The Mediterranean is the human norm. When men leave that exquisite lake /&#8230;/ they approach the monstrous and the extraordinary.&#8221; This view, expressed by a character in A Passage to India, is a perfect example, in its extreme form, of that &#8220;passion for the Mediterranean&#8221; that John Pemble discusses in one of his books.&#160; However, the fascination that Northern Europeans (and, a little later Americans also) felt very early for this &#8220;exquisite lake&#8221; was rarely so strong that, coming from a very different political, social and cultural context, they did not also discover features of the &#8220;monstrous&#8221; and &#8220;extraordinary&#8221; on the shores of the Mediterranean. While Northern perceptions of the beauty, vitality, spirituality and sensuality of Mediterranean societies have been the subject of numerous scholarly studies, less attention has been paid to what &#8220;stern people that winter suited&#8221;,&#160; to cite Charles Kingsley, inevitably found troubling about them. It is this reverse side of the coin, where cruelty, decrepitude, ignorance and oppression dominate, that this conference sets out to explore, less with a view to revealing the &#8220;truth&#8221; about the &#8220;Southern horrors&#8221; of the Mediterranean that the arts, literatures and other forms of writing (travel narratives and memoirs, diaries, journalism, political speeches, diplomatic dispatches...) of the North reported, described (and sometimes imagined) than to attempt to establish the historical conditions - cultural, social, aesthetic and personal - that determined their perception (or their invention) and inspired their representation. From there, an effort will be made to sketch out some conclusions concerning what the repulsion, indignation, phobias found in these representations tell us about the customs, values and certainties of the civilisations of Northern Europe and America at different phases of their history &#8211; from the fall of Constantinople to the end of the Spanish Civil War.&#160;By Mediterranean World is understood the geographical area extending from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Bosphorus and the Levant (to these can be added on the one hand the western regions of the Black Sea, notably Bulgaria, and on the other Portugal). Fernand Braudel&#8217;s criteria will be adopted for the northern and southern limits of this world: from Donz&#232;re to Timgad, from the first olive trees encountered when coming from the North to the clusters of palm trees growing on the edge of the desert.&#160;The following themes are not exclusive. They provide some indications as to the desired overall orientation of the conference.&#160;    Violence in the Mediterranean world: wars, massacres, assassinations, persecutions, forced migrations.    Natural disasters: volcanic eruptions, earthquakes&#8230;    Diseases and epidemics: the plague, malaria&#8230;    The horrors of religion: Catholicism and superstition&#8230;    From classical grandeur to the horrors of the present: meditations on decadence    Geographies of horror: towns and villages of the South, &#8220;so much ruin and neglect&#8221; (Dickens)&#8230;    The exoticism of horror and the horror of exoticism: leprous inns, filth and bedbugs, brigands and beggars&#8230;    When horror comes from the North: adulteration and disfigurement by tourism&#8230;    When horror rises towards the North: the papist menace, migrations and mafias&#8230;    When the horrors of the South seize the imagination: Jacobean drama, the Gothic novel&#8230;.Proposals for 25-minute papers, in the form of an abstract in English or French of c.250 words with a short C.V., should be submitted by November 20th 2011. Contact Martine Monacelli at mmonacelli.faraut@aliceadsl.fr or Gilbert Bonifas at gilbert.bonifas@wanadoo.fr. There will be a registration fee of 30 euros.