Michel Serres was a polymath and interdisciplinarian avant la lettre, a poet-philosopher and académicien. Language for him was not simply a means of communication for his ideas; they originated in it, and figures of speech were his figure of thought. Hermes, the angels and the translators that pervade his works are all messengers that build bridges not only between disciplines but also between cultural time periods. This conference brings into dialogue a variety of perspectives from French, British and international scholars who will showcase the relevance of Michel Serres’s thought across a wide range of academic disciplines. It will explore how Michel Serres’s own brand of interdisciplinarity has renewed fields of enquiry as diverse as French studies and English Literature, Philosophy and the History of Science, Geography and Ecocriticism, Translation and Migration Studies.

Conveners:
Prof. Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent (Université Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne)
Dr. Henriette Korthals Altes (MFO)
Dr. Mogens Laerke (CNRS/MFO)
Dr. Marie Thébaud-Sorger (CNRS)