Call for papers
52nd international and annual conference of the Nineteenth-Century French Studies Association
Voice / Silence The voice / The silence
from November 5 to 7, 2026
Roanoke, Virginia (United States)
The conference welcomes papers on the many forms of expression and repression in the 19th century. Whose voices are heard, listened to and privileged? Whose voices are censored, silenced, silenced or suppressed in literary and non-literary texts? In music? In the cinema? In the theater? In our disciplines or faculties? What creates the conditions for expression? How do voices or sounds become overrated? How are they perceived? Through what tones, what visual markers, what typographies or what technologies? What creates silences, devalues silences, or causes some voices to become less than others, being muffled, unexpressed, or unvocalized? The trauma? Slavery? Technology? How do we perceive silence? Through what senses? Through what visual, textual or musical markers? Which is more meaningful or evocative: the voice or the silence? What speaks louder – the voices or the silences? How are they evolving? Do they change? How are they felt, perceived and understood and by whom? Through the senses? The body? The mind? These questions and your paper topic options below are intended to evoke, suggest, or inspire your contributions to the 52nd NCFS International and Annual Conference 2026, hosted by Virginia Tech.
Communications can be in French or English. Use the website to send your proposal (250 words max). March 15, 2026 is the deadline, but we may consider proposals received after this date.
the poetic voice
the narrative voice
voice change
voice as sound
voice as song
the voices of the street: cries of street vendors, singing
the voice, agent of speech/language
the voice of the people
the voice of the press
lose your voice
change your voice
the celestial, human, animal voice
voice and suffrage
the reader’s voices in the press
voices on stage
the voices of slaves/the voices of freedom
express arguments/controversies/warnings
express what silences
express your emotions
the silence that speaks
silence and the senses
textual or musical silences — ellipses, breaks, pauses, sighs,
meaningful breaks
silence and taboos
silence and trauma
absence in literature/in culture
the absence in the human or social sciences
the omissions
silence in law (ellipses, who does not speak)
the law of silence
secret societies
the silence of the law, of the code.
silences on stage/pantomime/silent films
the unspoken
the whisper
the absence of noise
a dead silence
—
Keynote speaker: Philippe Oriol, Director of the Dreyfus Museum and Maison Zola
For questions regarding the colloquium: ncfs2026@vt.edu (but please use the website to submit a paper).
