Seminar

The Wavering Self

Personal Essays and Autotheory (2000–2026)

17.04.2026

Researchers
Jean Christophe Cavallin
Michela Davo
Pauline Escande-Gauquié
Alexandre Gefen
Daniele Giglioli
Matilde Manara
Beatrice Seligardi
Dominique Viart
Walter Siti

As part of a day dedicated to writing organised at Villa Medici, the Department of Foreign Literature at Roma Tre University is inviting researchers and emeritus professors from French and Italian universities to explore new forms of self-writing. These new forms of self-writing blend autobiography and theoretical reflection to produce knowledge rooted in the ‘I’.

The symposium will be followed by a literary evening organized by the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici, with a reading by guest artist Caroline Guiela Nguyen and a presentation of the work of the fellow Elitza Gueorguieva.

The symposium The Wavering Self: Personal Essays and Autotheory (2000–2026) explores contemporary forms of writing about the self, where autobiography intertwines with theoretical and scientific knowledge, essayism and critical reflection. At the heart of this reflection is the way in which these new writings of the self claim the ambition to produce knowledge, founded paradoxically on instability: a fragmented, fragile and protean instance of the “I”. Particular attention is paid toautotheory – a critical category that attempts to account for texts that fuse personal experience and theoretical analysis – and its role in redefining the boundaries between subjectivity and science. The aim is to reflect on how the subject, today, is becoming the foundation of a new relationship to knowledge, in texts where theoretical questioning is central: the inner world and personal experience become the material and instrument for investigating concepts with social, political and scientific stakes.

This one-day event follows a first afternoon seminar held at Università Roma Tre on Thursday April 16. This conference is organised by Marine Aubry Morici (Roma Tre University), Alison James (University of Chicago IIRP) and Alexandre Gefen (CNRS/Sorbonne Nouvelle).

Program

9:30 am - 11 am Panel 3: Literary epistemologies (FR)
Dominique Viart (Paris Nanterre) “Anthropologies sociales de soi”

Pauline Escande-Gauquié (Sorbonne Université) « Pérégrinations autobiographiques de chercheurs sur les réseaux sociaux »
11:30 am - 12:45 pm Debate
Walter Siti e Alexandre Gefen, Daniele Giglioli
2:30 pm - 4 pm The essayistic voice of eco-poetics/L'io saggistico dell'ecopoetica (IT)
Michela Davo (Università di Siena) « Raccontare la fine del mondo. Pecoraro tra esperienza individuale e autobiografia collettiva »
Jean Christophe Cavallin (Aix-Marseille Université) « Le sentiment égocéanique. Expérience de soi et écologie »
4.30 pm – 6.00 pm Gender in Transition/Generi in transito (IT)
Beatrice Seligardi (Università di Bologna) « Resistere alla immediacy: forme di mediazione dell’io e soggettività femminile nella contemporaneità »
Matilde Manara (Università di Catania) « Primi materiali per un'(auto)teoria della jeune fille. Evoluzioni poetiche e politiche di un genere saggistico »

Practical information

Friday, April 17, 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Michel Piccoli cinema room at Villa Medici
Presentations in French or Italian, with simultaneous translation during debates

Free on inscription