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GDRI Literature and democracy (XIXth- XXIst centuries) : theoretical, historical and comparative approaches&#160;LITERATURE, DEMOCRACY AND TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE18, 19, &#38; 20 MARCH 2018ST JOHN’S COLLEGE and MAISON FRANÇAISE D’OXFORDOXFORD&#160;An international colloquiumThis CALL FOR PAPERS is restricted to the members of the GDRI&#160;Transitional Justice is a relatively new phenomenon, which may have seemed to emergesuddenly at the end of the 1980s, at the end of the Cold War. The massive emergence oftransitional justice at the international level has, for this reason, been described in termsof “justice cascade” of both cultural and political nature (K. Sikkink, 2011). While itsjuridical origins, according to scholars, are to be found in the post war Nuremberg(imprescriptibility of crimes) and its historical origins in Argentina (1983) (withprecedents in Greece and Portugal), it has been applied more to former colonies andemerging democracies, in Eastern Europe, South Africa and parts of Africa and theMiddle East. It was first implemented after the fall of the military dictatorships inArgentina, then in Chile, in the context of what has been called “the third wave ofdemocratization” and as part of the reflections aimed at organizing the transition fromdictatorial regimes to democratic regimes.The relationship between democracy and Transitional Justice is better understood bydecoupling the two. Indeed, there is a wide range of cases where the two do notnecessarily meet. We have democratisation without transitional justice (Spain, parts ofEastern Europe, for example); transitional justice without democratisation (attempts inAlgeria and Morocco, whereby aspects of transitional justice such as amnesty andreconciliation have been implemented but democratisation has not accompanied them;or in the case of Taiwan, a desire to do justice that comes to light long after thetransition to democracy). In addition, there is the danger of overgeneralisation by whichsuccessful cases (parts of Latin America) are taken as models for the idea of transitionaljustice as a whole regardless of the specific nature of each national situation (S. Vieille,2012; K. Andrieu, 2012; S. Buckley-Zistel, 2014).Transitional justice has been conceived as a tool for societies to achieve sustainable andjust peace and democracy. It is first and foremost a response to the systematic andmassive violation of human rights. More than punishment, it aims at nationalreconciliation, a term that is also part of the new vocabulary of transition (K. Andrieu,2012) and has as horizon the reconstruction of a political society after the violence. It isbased on the right to justice and the right to the truth. It is a confrontation with pastcrimes, looking back at the past and shaping the memory of that past, a central element of a successful political transformation. The effective practice of transitional justice has nonetheless provoked strong criticism at the local level, when setting up processes. The CONADEP for example, has been criticized (particularly from the literary field) as an abusive political normalization of victims (teoría de los dos demonios) (J. Commaille, 2007).The relationship between justice and literature - this “staging of the humaninterlocution”, where men accuse, plead, testify and judge - is old. Considerable thoughthas been put into understanding the linkages between writing and authoritarianismbased on research on specific case studies in Europe, Latin America and South Africa,in particular. In situations when a society emerges from authoritarian rule and monopolyon truth claims, everyone feels entitled to their own truth. M. Pensky argues thatliterature/writing becomes an avenue to pursue truth and justice. Writing and the desirefor writing become essential – as forms of representation of rights, of making the casefor justice, staking truth claims, or arguing counter-claims. Writing is seen as acontribution to the effort to prevent a return to dictatorship. It also testifies to abuses.Writers seek justice in the sense of directing collective remembering, contributing to theconstruction of a new collective memory and resisting against amnesia.The testimony and the narrative have been at the heart of the various truth andreconciliation commissions that have existed (inquiries into the past, revelations offacts, openings of the archives, identification of the disappeared, narratives of livedexperiences). Narratives and narrative reconstruction of the crimes were meant toestablish the facts, to contribute to the establishment of the truth as well as to do justiceto the sufferings of the victims. They also aimed to put people in agreement on anarrative of the past, to articulate new representations of past violence in the publicspace, at the same time as they asked the question of rewriting an official andmanipulated history. Finally, a literature is born, which deals with these questionsaccording to a temporality which belongs to it, and of the stakes which are its own,outside the walls of the transitional justice strict sense. It should also be rememberedthat the first truth and reconciliation CONADEP was chaired in Argentina by a writer,Ernesto Sabato.In addition to the much-studied therapeutic function, or writing as a form of coping,research on this kind of literature points to other salient roles. Writing can be viewed asa way of fixing and condensing memory into a concrete representation, that is, as a formof temple (in museum terms) (Rosanne Kennedy, 2014). Literature can be a remnant(like what is called “memory objects”, objects on which memory is inscribed: a musicalinstrument (a personal diary, family photographs, etc.) (Magdalena Zolkos, 2014). Itcan also be “a portable monument” and works with, and often is, “ruins” (Kennedy onSierra Leone). Scripts etched on a prison cell tell stories; scribblings on cigarette paper,on napkins, in margins of textbooks and school notebooks, are perhaps closer to ruinswhich testify to attempts to mount resistance against forgetting. In addition, writingserves as a forum, a place where ideas and memories are exchanged, debated andinterpreted, but not necessarily fixed. In this case, it would be closer to history wherethe interest is in avoiding what is called a “committed perspective” (J. W. Wertsch,2002). But literature can also be an optic into forms of violence and reflection onconcepts of forgiveness and justice.This colloquium will be focused on the comparative study of literatures written in thewake of violence and on their role in the aftermath of conflicts. It will address the wayliterary texts inform broader discourses around transitional justice, historical reckoningand political and social reconciliation as well as the way in which literature has alsocriticized the normativity of the “humanitarian narratives” produced in the context oftransitional justice and even the ideology of reconciliation, or sought to restore, inliterary discourse, the ineffable dimension of extreme violence or torture. The colloqiumwill explore these roles from the perspective of related disciplines and in specificsituations. It aims to achieve a multi-disciplinary perspective by putting in dialoguescholars from the fields of literary studies, history, politics, law and philosophy as wellas writers and other cultural practitioners. In addition, we plan to focus on case studies,including Spain, Argentina, Tunisia, South Africa, Cambodia, Algeria and Columbia.The significance of this project lies not only in its comparative dimension but also inengagement with the extra-literary contexts (rhetoric, law, sociology, politics, andhistory). It assumes an interdisciplinary vocation. The colloquium is part of the secondphase (2017-2020) in the activities of the international research network, “Literature andDemocracy (XIXth-XXst centuries): Theoretical, Historical and ComparativeApproaches” (“GDRI Literature &#38; democracy”) funded by the Centre National pour la Recherche scientifique in France. Partners in Oxford include St John’s College, Oxford,Maison Française d’Oxford and Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation network (OCCT).Presentations may be delivered in French, in English or in Spanish.&#160;Scientific Committee :Agnès Delage (Aix Marseille Université), Mohamed-Salah Omri (St John’s College,Oxford) and Philippe Roussin (CRAL, CNRS-EHESS)Since this is a colloquium, we plan to give each participant the appropriate time forpresentation (30 minutes) to be followed by debate and discussion. Papers will bepublished as one collection of essays.&#160;Please send a title and a 300 word-abstract of your paper to:Mohamed-Salah Omri (Oxford): mohamed-salah.omri@orinst.ox.ac.ukor Philippe Roussin (Paris) : roussin@ehess.fror Agnès Delage : agnes.delage@gmail.comDeadline for abstracts: 07 January 2018 (sunday)PDF of the call of papers (french &#38; english version) : Appel à communication Colloque Oxford 18-20 mars 2018