Edouard Hopper, Night Office (1940)

The DIRE research unit from the University of Réunion Island is organising two new seminars since the start of the 2024-25 academic year. You will find information about each new session (summaries of presentations, speaker profiles, etc.) on this online space.

A) Seminar on Women and Gender Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences:
organised by Monica Cardenas-Moreno and Florence Pellegry

General presentation: This series of academic events addresses women and gender studies from both a theoretical and methodological perspective. On a theoretical level, each session provides an opportunity to reflect on the development of a key concept (gender, intersectionality, feminisms, motherhood, masculinities, subalternity, etc.), or on the thinking of theorists (Simone de Beauvoir, Julia Kristeva, Judith Butler, Rita Segato, etc.), or the representative trends in this field of research and study (decolonial feminism, ecofeminism, feminism and the arts, masculinity studies, etc.).

From a methodological point of view, the aim is to present case studies where theory is linked to a discipline in the arts and humanities such as history, sociology, literature or linguistics. The cross-disciplinary perspectives in this field of study from different geographical areas (studies in France and Réunion, in the English-speaking and Spanish-speaking worlds) are a major asset of this seminar.

The aim of this project is to highlight new research perspectives and provide food for thought for young researchers (at Master's and PhD level) interested in women's and gender studies.

B) DIRE methodological and theoretical seminar

organised by Françoise Sylvos

General presentation: The methodological and theoretical seminar aims to initiate collective research on theories and methods, to make adjustments and to propose dialogues between disciplines and advances, whether in terms of terminology, theory (history, concepts, hypotheses) or methods and fields of application.

Without resorting to abstraction or exaggerated purism, and without excluding cross-disciplinary or pluralistic approaches, this seminar places particular objects, themes and fields of research in the background in favour of the methods and epistemological frameworks of studies already conducted or in progress[1]. These clarifications enable participants to understand the intellectual context, issues and perspectives of an approach, encouraging them to refine its tools (reference works, grids, typologies, epistemological references) and strengthen its theoretical basis, possibly raising new questions or allowing them to compare a demonstration and results with different hypotheses (e.g. the poetics of literary genres; diachronic or synchronic approach?). Comparing different approaches helps to grasp the originality of a particular method. Methods and theories are cross-disciplinary and provide an opportunity for sharing, regardless of the content of the research, which may cause divisions.

[1] The application should not represent more than 50 per cent of the conference, with the first part reserved for a presentation on the theoretical and/or methodological framework.