She came to see me during my university office hours. Newly appointed at the University of Ostrava, deeply passionate about Alfred Jarry, she wanted to quickly organize an international colloquium on the subject. Mariana Kunešová lacked neither talent nor energy. She located her city for me in the Czech Republic and, as President of the Société des Amis d'Alfred Jarry, gave me every reason to launch the call for papers below. As early as October 2007, many of us took the train from Prague station to join the debates. I had the pleasure of traveling with Petr Kral, a Czech surrealist I had known in Paris when we were working on the Dictionnaire général du surréalisme (P.U.F.). For nearly 300 km, he told me about all his friends, who had stayed in France or returned home after the fall of the regime imposed by the USSR. In the following days, Père Ubu spread across Moravia.

Call for Papers:

University of Ostrava, Czech Republic
Société des amis d'Alfred Jarry, France
in cooperation with the French Embassy in the Czech Republic:
The French Institute in Prague, the Alliance Française of Ostrava
Gallica, association of university teachers of French in the Czech Republic
organize in Ostrava
from Thursday 18 to Sunday 21 October
the international colloquium ALFRED JARRY and Czech Culture

"...had noted a small part of the Beauty he knew, and a small part of the Truth he knew, during the syzygy of words; and from this small facet one could have reconstructed all art and all science, that is to say Everything; but does one know if Everything is a regular crystal, or more likely a monster (Faustroll defined the universe as that which is the exception to itself)?" Faustroll, "De la ligne"

The colloquium aims to question "all art and all science" dear to Jarry, and the inspiration this figure represents for Czech culture. The main disciplines: theater, literature, philosophy, translation theory.
Working languages: FRENCH, CZECH
Interpretation will be provided for all presentations.
Deadline for registration: April 15, 2007
The Supermale of modern theater and literature disappeared on November 1, 1907.

On the occasion of the centenary of his death, the colloquium aims to focus on a subject hitherto unexplored: the inspiration this figure represents for Czech culture. Prague, one of the most innovative centers of theatrical experimentation in the 1920s and 1930s, staged this author among the first on the continent. Jarry's legacy has accompanied Czech culture throughout the 20th century and is still very much alive today: one example is Faustroll (a show conceived by Števo Capko), created at the "Alfred ve dvoře" theater in 2005. The aim of the colloquium will be to reflect, first, on Jarry's role as an internationally resonant author, and on new approaches to his work. The essential part will be devoted to Jarry's presence in Czech culture according to these main axes—theater, literature, philosophy, translation theory. Some challenges: avant-gardes; "new theater"; samizdat; last quarter of the 20th century and contemporary creation; characters of Ubu, Faustroll, Supermale and their Czech variants; Czech extensions of 'pataphysics; the comic of the absurd; Jarry and Czech culture: heritage? coincidence?; is translation possible? The colloquium will host approximately 25 researchers, one third for the first part (Jarry as such) and two thirds for the second (Jarry in Czech culture). Length of presentations: 20 minutes
Coordinator: Mariana Kunešová, Department of Romance Studies, University of Ostrava, Czech Republic
Address: Čs. legií 9, 701 03 Ostrava, tel.: (+420) 597 460 499, 597 460 471
Scientific Committee:
Henri Béhar (Université Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle)
David Drozd (JAMU, Brno)
Petr Christov (Charles University, Prague)
Daniela Jobertová (DAMU, Prague)
Mariana Kunešová (University of Ostrava)
Proposals for papers (a 20-line summary) must be sent before April 15, 2007 to Mariana Kunešová: mariana.kunesova@osu.cz
Summaries will be published in the colloquium program.
Contributions will appear in the Proceedings of the colloquium, spring 2008.

Ostrava-Prague Colloquium: Initial Program: 19.10. morning Jarry and the Absolute

1. BEHAR, Henri, Université Paris III-Sorbonne: Alfred Jarry, demystified myth
2. POLLIN, Karl, University of Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S.A.: Alfred Jarry, cymbalist poet
3. SCHUH, Julien, Université Paris IV: Jarry's mysticism or the unconscious as the Machine to Debrain
4. TREMBLAY, Thierry, University of Liberec, Czech Republic: Alfred Jarry theologian afternoon Jarry and literature
5. GODA, Yosouké, University of Maine: How does one write a masterpiece? Rewriting game in Alfred Jarry
6. GOSZTOLA, Matthieu, University of Maine: Jarry and Apollinaire (subject to be specified)
7. POHORSKÝ, Aleš, Charles University, Prague: Jarry and Apollinaire (subject to be specified) 'Pataphysics and Czech culture
8. JDEY, Adnen, University of Tunis: Epi meta ta physika. 'Pataphysics as the aesthetic overcoming of metaphysics.
9. BORECKÝ, Vladimír, Charles University, Prague: Absurdní komika patafyziky a její české paralely (The 'Pataphysics, its absurd comic and its Czech parallels)
10. FULKA, Josef, Charles University, Prague: Patafyzika Alfreda Jarryho a Ladislava Klímy (The 'Pataphysics of Alfred Jarry and Ladislav Klima)
11. VACEK, Eduard, Teplice (founder of Patafyzické collegium Teplice): České patafyzické časopisy (Pataphysical journals in the Czech Republic)

20.10. morning Inspiration from the "Slavic world." Translation and reception of Jarry in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

1. EDWARDS, Paul, Université Paris VII: Les Minutes de sable mémorial and the rhythm of Slavic and Germanic languages: tradition and experimentation in the wake of Louis Dumur and the polemic of tonic accent.
2. MARENČIN, Albert, Bratislava, Slovakia (Slovak surrealist and pataphysical poet): Česká a slovenská recepce Alfreda Jarryho (Czech and Slovak reception of Alfred Jarry)
3. ŠOTOLOVÁ, Jovanka, Charles University, Prague: Enigmas, mysteries... and games of Alfred Jarry. Temptations to desert translation (on the translation of the novel Alfred Jarry: Days and Nights, novel of a deserter)
4. BELISOVÁ, Šárka, Charles University, Prague: The Czech translation of Ubu Roi afternoon Jarry's theater and Czech culture
5. BESNIER, Patrick, University of Maine: Jarry and the theater of monsters (Prefiguration of futurist theater by Jarry)
6. ALEXANDRESCU, Ioana, University of Oradea, Romania: Portrait of Ubu: animals, plants and objects.
7. JOCHMANOVÁ, Andrea, Masaryk University, Brno: Humor Krále Ubu v prostředí tzv. české divadelní avantgardy (The Humor of Ubu roi in the climate of Czech theatrical avant-garde) Jarry's theater in Czech culture
8. MIHOLOVÁ, Kateřina, Academy of Performing Arts, Prague: Grossmanova inscenace Krále Ubu v divadle Na zábradlí (The staging of Ubu roi at the Na zabradli theater by Jiri Grossman)
9. KRÁL, Petr, Prague: Král Ubu v Praze 19.12.1960 (Ubu roi in Prague on December 19, 1960)
10. SVĚTLÍKOVÁ, Alena, Masaryk University, Brno: The living principles of Alfred Jarry's theater in modern Czech theater

Publication:

Publisher's presentation:

Alfred Jarry disappeared on November 1, 1907. Pataphysician, Père Ubu, "Supermale" of modern theater, but no less a writer, this author maintains exemplary relations with Czech culture: his work was welcomed and extended by the Czechs with great enthusiasm from the first decades of the last century. The passion for Jarry's theater that characterized the Czech avant-gardes was doubled a few decades later, during the years of communist totalitarianism, by a passion for pataphysics (for what could indeed be superimposed more justly on a mediocrity without solution than the science of imaginary solutions?). Finally, Jarry has experienced equally intense reception in the last twenty years, whether it be the greedy re-edition and new translations of his main works, stagings, cinema or the discovery of a Jarry long unpublished in Czech, such as Days and Nights. The monograph Alfred Jarry and Czech Culture brings together twenty studies, extensions of the reflections presented at the international colloquium held at the University of Ostrava in the fall of 2007. The publication focuses on Jarry's links with Czech culture, but also, in the first part, on two more general subjects: Jarry and "the Absolute"; Jarry, literature and literary criticism. The publication direction indeed considers that one of the most captivating aspects of Jarry's work is precisely his challenge to question "all art and all science". Thus, the work, devoted to "theater questions", but also to problems of poetics, literary criticism, translation, philosophy, addresses readers beyond a country or a single field of research.

Extract from the book report, by Didier Plassard: "A reference work"; "a rich and important sum that, while building on an excellent knowledge of the many works already published, allows us to deepen and renew the view usually taken of Jarry's theatrical, but also poetic, novelistic and critical writing."

Contents: I. Jarry and the Absolute Henri Béhar: Anecdotal Jarry, or the demystified myth Karl Pollin: Alfred Jarry, cymbalist poet Julien Schuh: Jarry's relative mysticism Thierry Tremblay: Des hyperstases: Jarry unbeliever, extreme-anointed and heterodox theologian II. Jarry and literature Yosuké Goda: How does one write a masterpiece? Rewriting game in Alfred Jarry. Matthieu Gosztola: Jarry literary critic at La Revue blanche: On a diverted use of quotation Aleš Pohorský: Jarry and Apollinaire III. 'Pataphysics and Czech culture Josef Fulka: Jarry and Klíma: two paths beyond metaphysics Vladimír Borecký: Pataphysics, its absurd comic and its Czech parallels Eduard Vacek: History of the Pataphysical College of Teplice IV. Jarry and the "Slavic world" Paul Edwards: Les Minutes de sable mémorial and the rhythm of Slavic and Germanic languages: tradition and experimentation in the wake of Louis Dumur and the polemic of tonic accent Šárka Belisová: The Czech translation of Ubu roi Jovanka Šotolová: Enigmas, mysteries... and games of Alfred Jarry. Attempts to desert translation. Aleksander Abłamowicz: Alfred Jarry and Polish modernism V. From Jarry's theater to Czech culture Ioana Alexandrescu: Binomials, Ubu and pataphysics Patrick Besnier: "Six little baroque volumes" Andrea Jochmanová: The humor of Ubu roi in the context of Czech theatrical avant-garde VI. Jarry's theater in Czech culture Petr Král: Ubu roi, December 19, 1960 (excerpts) Kateřina Miholová: Ubu as appellative theater of the absurd Alena Světlíková: The living principles of Jarry's theater on a contemporary Czech stage.

Download my presentation: (Jarry anecdote.pdf) Complement: Alfred Jarry en verve, presented by Henri Béhar, Paris, éd. Pierre Horay, 2003, 120 p.

What is "verve"? To define it, dictionaries, like the Grand Littré and the Petit Larousse, resort to a metaphor: "heat of imagination," they say... Happiness of expression that surprises the reader, suddenly stopped by a "word," a reflection, a retort, whose accuracy and unexpected drollery leave him delighted before the open page. Since language has existed, verve has belonged only to those who are seized by the rage of words and the verb. In short, all the great creators and virtuosos of language. But it does not appear only in printed works; some entrust it to their diary, or sow it in happy formulas in conversation. The most brilliant (which are not always the best known) are gathered in this collection. HB