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Department of Comparative Literature and English

Documentary Poetry, Popular Protest and Activism - An International Poetry and Poetics Seminar

6, rue du Colonel Combes, 75007 Paris (Combes Student Life Center)
Thursday, June 15, 2023 - 17:00 to Saturday, June 17, 2023 - 20:00

Credit: Anarchistes, 1936, courtesy of the BNF

Co-Directors Geoff Gilbert and William Dow

The American University of Paris hosts a documentary poetry conference from 15-17 June 2023 on its campus in Paris, France. This conference is supported by the Center for Writers and Translators and the Center for Critical Democracy Studies.

Here are some questions the conference hopes to address. How do contemporary poets in the US and France position themselves in relation to popular political protest and activism? What use are they making of experimental documentary traditions (whose practices can be placed along a continuum from 鈥渟ubjective鈥� auto-ethnographies to 鈥渙bjective鈥� documentary tendencies)? How does writing outside France and the US relate to these two centers for poetry and poetics? What challenges does this offer to conceptions of the relation between poetry as an art form and other social and political utterances and actions? The conference will also look at the history of documentary poetry traditions in France and the United States, locating this history in an international, transnational, and pluri-disciplinary context.

Program

All events will take place on 吃瓜tv's campus in the Combes Student Life Center and the Quai d'Orsay Learning Commons. Entrance to both venues is听via听6, rue du Colonel Combes, 75007 Paris.

All panels will take place in C-103 and C-104 (Combes first floor) and all plenary talks will take place in Q-801听(Quai eighth floor).

Thursday, June 15
Registration: 14:00鈥�16:00

Lobby of the Combes听Student Life Center (6, rue du Colonel Combes, 75007 Paris).

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Opening Remarks: 17:30鈥�18:00 (Q-801)

Official 吃瓜tv Welcome by Provost William Fisher and professors Geoff Gilbert and William Dow

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Plenary 1, 18:00-19:00 (Q-801)

Mark Nowak, 鈥淪lo-mo Doc-Po: Writing the Insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.鈥�

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Reception: 19:00鈥�20:00 (Q-801)

Provisional list of poets:

  • Lauren Russell
  • Carlos Sotos Roman
  • Biswamit Dwibedy
  • Mark Nowak听

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Friday, June 16
Panel 1: 9:30-11:00 (C-103 and C-104)

Diverse Beginnings: Documentary Forms and Poetics

Chair: Mark Nowak

  • Amir Hussain. 鈥淧oetic Pasts in Muriel Rukeyser鈥檚 The Book of the Dead.鈥�
  • Jo A. Giardini. 鈥淪urveillance Autobiography and Dissident Reading.鈥�
  • Whitney Devos. 鈥淒ocumentary Poetry: An Inter-American Genre.鈥�

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Plenary 2: 11:00-12:00 (Q-801)

Abigail Lang, 芦听notre tradition 鈥渙bjectiviste鈥澨�, or How the Document Can Extend Poetry. (Gleize, Quintane, Leibovici).

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Lunch: 12:00鈥�13:15

At area cafes and restaurants.

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Panel 2: 13:15-15:00 (C-103 and C-104)

Radical Politics, the News from Documentary Poetry, Poetics of Resistance

Chair: 听Aur茅lien Bellucci

  • Alvaro Seica. 鈥淰eiling and Unveiling: Poems that Protest by Erasing Documents.鈥�
  • Aur茅lien Bellucci, 鈥淎 Poetry of the Audience: Street Performance with the Janya Netya Manch.鈥�
  • Carlos Soto Roman. "Cacer铆a de Mujeres" (Women听Hunt) by Carlos Droguett: a missing manuscript on violence against women during the Chilean dictatorship.

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Coffee break: 15:00-15:30

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Panel 3: 15:30-17:30 (C-103 and C-104)

Documentary Ethics and Appropriations

Chair: Ryan Clark

  • Jessica L. Wilkinson. 鈥淒ealing with Difficulty.鈥�
  • Shiv Kotecha. 鈥淒ocumentary Fakery.鈥�
  • Ryan Clark. 鈥淎ppositional Writing,鈥� Ethics of Appropriation in Documentary Poetry.鈥�

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20:00 Dinner at Mac茅o Restaurant D锚pots de Vins听(separate ticket needed)
Saturday, June 17
Panel 4: 9:00-10:45 (C-103 and听C-104)

Contemporary Forms of Documentary Poetry: Race, Polyvocality, and Documentary Mediation

Chair: Marie Lienard-Yeterian

  • Marie Lienard-Yeterian. 鈥淩eginald Dwayne Betts鈥檚 Felon: the Shadid (Witness) Speaks of Rivers Beyond.鈥�
  • Naomi Toth. 鈥淩eginald Dwayne Betts: writing, redacting and fighting mass incarceration in the United States.鈥�
  • Lauren Russell. 鈥淔irst Person Second?: A Writerly Reckoning with Uneasy Implications for the Author in Documentary and Investigative Poetics Projects.鈥�

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Plenary 5: 11:00-12:00 (Q-801)

Franck Leibovici, "des 艙uvres-outils."

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Lunch: 12:00-13:15

At area caf茅s and听restaurants.

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Panel 5: 13:15-15:15 (C-103 & C-104)

Documentary Poetry: Public Spaces, Activism, and Intersectional Identities

Chair: Geoff Gilbert

  • K. Bellamy Mitchell. 鈥淯nsettling Racialized Regimes of Documentation in Divya Victor鈥檚 Curb.鈥�
  • Sophie Rashmuhl. 鈥淎my Uyematsu: 鈥楢 Yellow Power Advocate Turned Poet鈥� 鈥榙etermin[ed] to create beauty/in defiance of barbed wire jails鈥�.鈥�
  • Andr茅s Guillo. 鈥淎n Approach to Rap as Documentary Poetry.鈥�
  • Lisa Waller and Jessica L. Wilkinson. 鈥淎 poetic approach to understanding journalists鈥� experiences of covering institutional child sexual abuse.鈥�

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Panel 6: 15: 30-16:30 (C-103 and听C-104)

Framing, Performance, and Documentary Referencing

Chair: Abigail Lang

  • C茅lia Galey. 鈥淛ackson MacLow鈥檚 Performance Poetry: A Living Archive.鈥�
  • Josh Corson. 鈥淎gainst Erasure: Examining Persona, Race and Subjectivity in DocuPoetry.鈥�
  • David Reckford. 鈥淎 Documentary Turn in Poems Referencing Geography: from Langston Hughes鈥檚 鈥楾he Negro Speaks of Rivers鈥� to John Ashbery鈥檚 鈥業nto the Dark Charged Air鈥�.鈥�

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Closing Remarks

Hotels

H么tel Malar

Address:听29 Rue Malar, 75007 Paris

Phone:听01 45 51 38 46

Site:听

H么tel de la Tulipe

Address:听33 Rue Malar, Paris, France

Site:听

H么tel Eiffel Turenne

Address:听20 Av. de Tourville, 75007 Paris

Phone:听01 47 05 99 92

Site:听

H么tel Am茅lie

Address:听5 Rue Am茅lie, 75007 Paris

Phone:听01 45 51 74 75

Site:听

Campus Map

Plenary speakers: Abigail Lang, Franck Leibovici, and Mark Nowak

Conference Fee: (includes coffee breaks and opening and closing receptions): 40 euros.

Dinner Fee: 60 euros.