The Thrill of Rail

On 14 November 2012 the Forum tried a new experiment: to look at railroad mobility and its challenges within a literary workshop, by discussing various literary works in French from the 20 ^th and 21 ^st centuries.

The aim was to encourage debate between social science academics and SNCF professionals, all of whom being involved in mobility issues. They were gathered around the Master of Ceremony for the evening, the writer and critic Jean-Pierre Martin.

Do writers feel what academics conceptualise? Do academics deconstruct what writers describe? Are academics lagging behind writers? Are writers biased? Or is it the other way round?

These were some of the questions underpinned by readings and commentaries around the selected texts, each of which, in its own way, presented “the social and emotional makeup of the train traveller”.

General introduction to the evening – Jean-Pierre Martin

Introduction to the novel and reading of an extract – Jean-Pierre Martin

“Far from a luxury train” – Jean-Pierre Martin

“How mobility changes us” – Michel Lussault

introduction to the novel and reading of an extract – Jean-Pierre Martin

“When the train makes us think of the bathroom” – Jean-Pierre Martin

“How to stay inside your bubble” – Bénédicte Tilloy

Mobility

For the Mobile Lives Forum, mobility is understood as the process of how individuals travel across distances in order to deploy through time and space the activities that make up their lifestyles. These travel practices are embedded in socio-technical systems, produced by transport and communication industries and techniques, and by normative discourses on these practices, with considerable social, environmental and spatial impacts.

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