Roundtable entitled “Écritures engagées en contextes francophones : regards croisés”

This roundtable, bringing together artists and essayists of different backgrounds, will look at the relevance of socially-engaged writing in today’s societies, which are being pulled in different directions by the rise in polarization of all types, by persistent doubt regarding the future and, especially, by the urgency of implementing acknowledgement and reconciliation strategies in the face of historical inequalities. In uniquely Francophone and Indigenous contexts, what form would this engagement take with regards to a topic historicized in and by writing?

Panel members:

• Mawy Bouchard, associate professor, director of the Département de français, University of Ottawa,
  • Mawy Bouchard teaches Renaissance literature and chairs the Département de français at the University of Ottawa. Her research looks at poetics, conditions of emergence and the epistemology of literary texts during the Renaissance. Her current projects deal in particular with publication strategies developed by authors with regard to construction of self-image and the phenomenon of slander.
• François Paré, emeritus professor, University of Waterloo and author-in-residence at the Département de français, University of Ottawa 
  • François Paré has authored many major essays (Les littératures de l’exiguïté, Théories de la fragilité, La distance habitée, Louis Hamelin et ses doubles) that have particularly shaped the course of ideas in Ontario and in the French-speaking world as a whole. He is the 2023–2024 writer and essayist in residence at the Département de français of the University of Ottawa. He is using his retirement from the world of university teaching to develop a project titled Défense, géopolitique et illustration de l’essai francophone contemporain and is writing an essay on the fragility of first languages in Canada and in today’s world.
• Charlotte L’Orage, Franco-Ontarian slam author, poet and environmentally sensitive artist
  • Charlotte L’Orage is an artist of Franco-Ontarian origin who settled in La Petite-Nation, where she started her arts organization, Les Créations Lunaires, as well as a publishing house, Les Éditions Explosées. Her regular features can be found in the pages of the local newspaper, Les 2 vallées, and she can be seen performing during live moonlit jams she coordinates in the area. She also comes to life on local stages, notably, to spout some of her very own rhymes. She has been part of collective works published by Prise de parole and has self-published four collections, Crinoline, Topos d’une hérétique, Moelle and Cacafouillage.
• Guy Sioui-Durand, author, lecturer and art sociologist
  • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Guy Sioui Durand (PhD) is an arts-focused sociologist, independent curator, speaker and author, and a member of the Huron Wendat Nation. He has worked in the areas of Indigenous and contemporary art since 1978. He has authored several major works (L’art comme alternative. Réseaux et pratiques d’art parallèle au Québec, 1976-1996, Les très riches heures de Jean-Paul Riopelle, Jean-Paul Riopelle. L’art d’un trappeur supérieur : indianité) and has taught at many Canadian and overseas universities and institutions. He currently chairs the board of the publisher Éditions Interventions.