French and Italian Annual Symposium
(FRITAS)
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Welcome!
Welcome!
Welcome to FRITAS 2025, organized by the University of Texas at Austin, in Austin, TX, US! join us for this historic event, as it will be the first graduate student conference of the French Department of UT Austin!
On this website, you will find important information regarding conference theme, the keynote speaker, the call for papers, and information about accommodations.
vist this site regularly for updates. For direct questions, please contact the organizers through utfritas@gmail.com
Conference theme: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Power
This symposium explores power as a dynamic force that shapes both domination and resistance, drawing on the perspectives of Hall, Gramsci, Foucault, and Said. Power is understood not only as coercive or oppressive but also as productive, generating new discourses and forms of resistance. We invite contributions from across disciplines and time periods that engage with this theme, with particular interest in transdisciplinary approaches and connections to French and Italian traditions. Submissions may include traditional papers, as well as creative and performance-based interventions. We welcome proposals from a wide range of disciplines, including literary studies, cultural studies, history, philosophy, political science, sociology, anthropology, and performance studies, with particular interest in work that bridges these fields.
Keynote Speaker
Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature
Northwestern University
Dr. Ricciardi’s keynote, Beyond Happiness: Psychoanalysis’s New Ethics, examines how psychoanalytic thought, from Freud to Winnicott, offers alternatives to the optimistic rhetoric of happiness studies. She will discuss how values such as aliveness, spontaneity, and reparation can ground an ethics of care in response to today’s cultural challenges, from climate change to digital media addiction.
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