This two-day international conference explores how René Char’s Feuillets d’Hypnos  (Leaves of Hypnos), became  a global inter-semiotic phenomenon.  Often considered “untranslatable,” this collection of 237 short prose poems was drafted by Char while leading a division on the Maquis in WWII. In fact, its mysterious, aphoristic language soon inspired translations into more than 30 languages, as well as into the visual arts, theater, music and film. 

Offering insight into oppression, war, and suffering, along with hope and an ongoing quest for beauty, Char’s text and its various renditions produce a living, global legacy. They also prompt historical and philosophical questions: How do new understandings of Char’s text emerge through its translations? And what might these inter-lingual and inter-semiotic versions tell us about translation as well as about literary and artistic resistance?

Through a series of panels, conversations, and performances enlisting some 30 scholars and artists, as well as a number of Princeton students, we will begin to consider these issues.

Conference Schedule

May 1:  Chancellor Green Rotunda

9.00 – 10.30
The politics of languages

Xita Rubert, ‘Impersonality’
Isabelle Chen, ‘Regional Resonances’
Rachel Galvin, ‘Reading René Char in Spanish’
Fabrice Langrognet, ‘Looking at Space and Time in the Feuillets‘

11.00 – 12.30
Yesterday and today

Brooke Holmes, ‘Char’s Heraclitus’
Jesse Godine, ‘Translation and Originality’
Karen Emmerich, ‘Belated Waking’
André Benhaïm, ‘Ulysses’ Brothers:  Char, Camus, and the Odyssey’

1.30 – 3.00
Poetry as resistance

(Poetry reading by Gabriel Dufay)
Effie Rentzou ‘Translating Resistance to Poetry’
Peter Makhlouf, ‘Mouvance: a Politico-philosophical Inquiry’
Yoshimoto Motoko, ‘Les traductions japonaises: les attraits d’une l’oeuvre qui se révolte contre l’obscurité du temps et la difficulté de la traduction’

3.30 – 5.00
From the literary to the digital

Brian Kernighan, ‘ Exploratory data analysis of translations of Feuillets d’Hypnos‘
Wouter Haverals, ‘When Humans and Machines Translate Char: Computational Insights into Feuillets d’Hypnos Across Languages’
Christiane Fellbaum, Arnov Ambre, and Jalen Johnson, ‘From Lyrical to Digital and Back’ 

5:30-6:30
New Char translations by students from HUM 423

May 2: Chancellor Green Rotunda

9.00 – 10.30
Dialogues with tradition

Daniel Heller-Roazen, ‘Before the Unknown’
Haun Saussy, ‘Signals Both Discreet and Discrete’
Robyn Creswell, ‘Loyaux Adversaires’

11.00 – 12-30
Translating change

David Bellos, ‘Poetry and Translation’
Liesl Yamaguchi, ‘Moonlight’
Tamara Hundorova, ‘The Language of War’

1.30 – 3.00
Resistance and the arts 

(Poetry reading by Gabriel Dufay)
Marie-Claude Char, ‘René Char, Poet and Artist’
Gabriel Sobin, ‘Translating Poetry into Stone’
Sasha Hemon, ‘All Together: Music, Poetry and Vision’
Polina Kosmadaki, ‘Zervos, Char, and Cahiers d’Art’

3.30- 5.00
Resistance now

Annette Becker, ‘Traduire les paysages’
Emily Apter and Jacques Lezra, ‘Paleo-resistances’
Matthew Reynolds, ‘Collaborating with an LLM’
Philip Nord, ‘The Fate of Resistance Humanism’

5:30- 7:00
Reading from the Feuillets by Gabriel Dufay
Screening of Jérôme Prieur’s film, René Char, nom de guerre Alexandre