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50 Years of Contemporary French Civilization

Anniversary Conference

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Overview

Since 1975, Contemporary French Civilization (CFC) has shaped interdisciplinary scholarship on French and Francophone cultural studies. As we celebrate 50 years, this conference invites scholars to reflect on the field’s evolution and future.

Held at NC State University, the event will explore key developments, emerging research, and the role of French and Francophone studies in today’s world. We welcome papers from diverse disciplines addressing contemporary issues, new methodologies, and the field’s broader impact.

Details

  • When: Sept. 26-27, 2025
  • Where: NC State University

Call for Papers

We invite conference papers in a variety of intersecting fields that examine contemporary socio-cultural topics in the French-speaking world. We encourage paper and session proposals on French-speaking topics in: anthropology and sociology, communication, cultural and literary studies, decolonial studies, food studies, history, international studies, memory studies, philosophy, psychology, postcolonial studies, religious studies, sports studies, translation studies, women, gender, and sexuality studies, and art, including music, dance, hip hop, film and media studies, and photography.

Possible Themes

Possible themes that are of particular interest could include:

  • The state of the field of contemporary French and Francophone cultural studies
  • Unexplored avenues of research in traditional literary, cinema, or cultural studies
  • New areas or avenues of research not commonly explored in Global French and Francophone Studies
  • Transdisciplinary French and Francophone Studies
  • New methodologies or transdisciplinary methodologies for the discipline or specific areas of interest (literature or visual art, linguistics, history, sociology)
  • Interdisciplinary publishing today
  • The changing landscape of academia and the place of contemporary French and Francophone cultural studies
  • French and Francophone studies and STEM
  • French and Francophone studies and the environment, business, healthcare, the climate crisis and migration, social work and social justice, public policy and practice, technology, well-being and belonging
  • The work of interdisciplinary French and Francophone cultural studies to enhance and inform the work of other disciplines, to educate administrators, and to attract students. This could include how to help them understand the relevance of our fields in helping us all tackle:
    • Real-world concerns and societal challenges of the 21st century
    • (Social) Media narratives and storytelling of the 21st century
    • (Virtual) (Hyper) realities and perspectives of the 21st century

Plenary Speakers

Mame-Fatou Niang

Carnegie Mellon University

Mame-Fatou Niang is Associate Professor of French Studies at Carnegie Mellon University and the Founder-Director of the Center for Black European Studies and the Atlantic. Niang is an artist-in-residence at Ateliers Medicis in Paris, and the international curator for the Rio de Janeiro FLUP Festival. She is the author of Identités Françaises (2019), and the co-author of Universalisme (2022). Her recent research examines Black geographies, Blackness in France and the institutionalization of Black Studies. In 2015, she co-directed Mariannes Noires, a film in which seven Afro-French women unravel what it means to be Black and French, Black in France. Niang is currently a visiting professor at Columbia University, where she is working on a manuscript tentatively titled Mosaica Nigra: Blackness in 21st-century France and a book on French filmmaker Alice Diop (Edinburgh UP).

Dr. Niang’s bio

Camille Robcis

Columbia University

Camille Robcis is Professor of French and History at Columbia University. She specializes in Modern European History with an emphasis on gender and sexuality, France, and intellectual, cultural, and legal history. She is the author of The Law of Kinship: Anthropology, Psychoanalysis, and the Family in France (Cornell, 2013) and of Disalienation: Politics, Philosophy, and Radical Psychiatry in Postwar France (Chicago, 2021). She is currently working on a project tentatively titled The War on Gender. She has received fellowships from the Penn Humanities Forum, LAPA (Princeton Law and Public Affairs), the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.

Dr. Robcis’ bio

Conference and Banquet Registration

The conference registration fee is $299 for faculty and $175 for graduate students. For those guests who would also like to join us on Saturday evening for the conference banquet, please make sure also to select the banquet option for an additional fee of $95 when registering for the conference. Please remember to register for the conference and banquet before Monday, August 25, 2025 using this link. 

Travel Information

Air Travel

The best airport to fly into is Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU). Uber and taxis are available to the conference hotel and will cost you approximately $40-50 one way.

Hotel Lodging

We have reserved a block of rooms at the conference hotel, Sheraton Raleigh Hotel, and we ask that you book your lodging there to help us meet our quota. The Sheraton Raleigh Hotel is generously offering us a conference rate of $199 + taxes per night. Rooms have either two double beds or one king bed. You can book your room at this link. Check in is at 4 p.m. and check out is 11 a.m. To ensure you are receiving the conference rate, please make sure to book your room before Monday, August 25, 2025.