Francosphères: Going Around in Creative Circles

What is it about?

Going around in circles, moving between spheres, the plurifocal vantage point of a multilingual migrant. Mots migratoires, not contaminating but enriching language through accents, dialects, and heteroglossia. Le voyage des mots. Calling out the limits of linguistic hegemony, the monotony of monolingualism. Scratching the surface of silence to reveal words of wisdom. Listening lips, moving memories, travelling tongues. Going places. Dancing. Je suis ravie to take on the role of associate editor of Francosphères (big shoes to fill, following in the footsteps of Catherine Gilbert). The emphasis on francosphères moves beyond la francophonie, with its colonial underpinnings, revealing intercultural encounters across borders, not only in world literature but also in political or social science and performance culture through music, poetry, theatre, film, and art. Beyond francophone postcolonial studies, then, to creative engagement with transcultural spheres, through the prism of the French language, dé-idéologisée, in all its diversity, a kaleidoscope of ‘vernacular Frenches’. The focus on spheres decentres and transnationalizes French studies, or rather reveals its transnational nature, while remaining wary of the marginalizing undertone of the term ‘francophone’.

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