This innovative session will present new work by younger scholars on a timely and less discussed topic in the context of the French-speaking world. While migration has been the focus of research (Jean Beaman, Citizen Outsider: Children of North African Immigrants in France, 2017), and whereas the topic of kinship has been discussed in individual contexts (Allison Connolly, Spaces of Creation: Transculturality and Feminine Expression in Francophone Literature, 2016), the combination of migration and familial arrangement has received comparatively little attention and could be linked to the introduction of feminist, queer, and diaspora questions into the field of French Studies (Jarrod Hayes, Denis Provencher, Margaret Higgonet, William Spurlin). However, writers of French expression have for a long time engaged with kinship patterns in migrant contexts: Thérèse Kuoh-Moukoury’s novel Rencontres essentielles(1969), Assia Djebar’s Vaste est la prison (1995), Leïla Sebbar’s Je ne parle pas la langue de mon père (2003), Abdellah Taïa’s Celui qui est digne d’être aimé (2017) are just a few examples. A recent scholarly work on the topic is Jocelyn Frelier’s Transforming Family: Queer Kinship and Migration in Contemporary Francophone Literature (2022). This panel proposes to enlarge the space and time covered in Frelier’s study by looking at a range of cultural productions from film to literature, spanning spaces from Belgium and the US, Canada, and the Caribbean to French Polynesia and Algeria.

The session will start with Cécile Ruel’s account of Chantal Akerman’s News from home (1976), an audiovisual diary, in which the director’s mother’s words are embedded and serve as a counterpoint to the images, creating a subtle yet powerful reflection on unfamiliar territories and the fragility of family ties and kinship. This will be followed by Irina Randriamiadana’s discussion of headgear associated with colonial times, that is, the veil and the pith helmet, with a focus on the exchanges both items have generated in French society. Randriamiadana will demonstrate how the reappropriation of these symbols of domination is part of a perspective of transculturation while contributing to the formation of a kindred community of resistance, particularly within the framework of Zouk. Julia Frengs will then examine kinship and migration in Ari’irau’s Je reviendrai à Tahiti (2005) through the themes of belonging and displacement, island space and city space, nature and technology. Following this, Yan Zhao will offer her take on Chinese-Candian writer Ying Chen’s novel Le Mangeur (2006) as an allegorical reading of the scene of filial cannibalism, exploring the intersections between father and fatherland, filiation and affiliation. Alexandra Goldych will examine Nina Bouraoui’s autofictional works that tell the story of moving from Algeria to France during her youth – Garçon manqué (2000), Mes mauvaises pensées (2005), Grand seigneur (2024) – to consider how the continuous (re)telling of stories and (re)imagination of characters in Bouraoui’s work (re)creates her social networks from a distinct perspective and forges a particular identity.

In the fall, the session organizer will send to all participants the leading questions from the program description: What alternative models to normative, nuclear, individuality-based models of family can we imagine? How is migration changing the notion of kinship across national borders, cultures, and diasporas? How can decolonial, queer, and other approaches contribute to alternate sets of definitions constituting relatedness? In December, the participants will share their five-minute papers (i.e. case studies) on MLA Commons. Each presenter will also be asked to provide one slide with image.s (no text) that best represent.s their topic. At the MLA Conference, the panel will unfold in five presentations at five minutes each with each presenter displaying their chosen image on screen (25 min.). Each paper will be introduced by the facilitator.s through a one-minute version of the presenter’s bio (5 min.). After this formal part of the session, the panelists will be asked to engage with each other’s topics and with the leading questions (20 min.). Then the floor will be opened to audience participation (20 min.). The facilitator.s will provide closing remarks (5 min.).

The intended audience for this innovative session includes graduate students working on a range of productions from French-speaking contexts and early career scholars interested in broadening their research and teaching repertoire. Mid-to-late career scholars will be equally welcome to participate and to benefit from the range of written and visual objects that the session participants are making available not only for discussion but also for teaching purposes.