Flight, Escape, Fleeing, Escapism, Freedom…

The theme of this 40th colloquium is the art of getting away, an exploration of exotic escapes that were evoked, depicted, or acted out in culture, arts and literature of nineteenth-century France. What methods, projects, theories, expressions, or modes of thought encouraged escapism and flight to new philosophies, to dreams of a new life, or to new social imaginaries? And what were authors and artists, politicians and philosophers fleeing? Political regimes? Constraining literary conventions? An oppressive bourgeois culture? Participants are invited to explore these questions and to escape to the exotic setting where the colloquium will take place.