The Flâneur Abroad International Conference, July 2012

I presented a paper at The Flâneur Abroad conference which took place on 6 & 7 July 2012, in The University of Nottingham, England. Speakers came from many European countries including the UK, Spain, Belgium, France, Germany, as well as the USA and Canada. The flâneur is often associated with the French poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire and the German writer Walter Benjamin. They are also associated with, almost exclusively with large, modern, cosmopolitan cities such as Paris or London.

My paper was based on Henri Béraud's visit to Ireland in 1920. Henri Béraud (1885-1958) was a French journalist who coined the term flâneur salarié, or paid flâneur, to describe his job of being paid to wander the streets in search of a news story. Béraud is an interesting character, who was very well known and well thought of in France, during the 1920s and 1930s for his lively reportage from around the world, but fell out of favour when he was writing anti British articles during the Second World War. He was sentenced to death (for the crime of intelligence avec l'ennemi / contact with the enemy) when France was liberated, but this sentence was subsequently commuted to life in prison by General de Gaulle.

Here is a report on the conference: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/art-history/documents/ucn-flaneur-report.pdf

I would like to thank the conference organiser, Prof Richard Wrigley, for providing assistance with my travel and accommodation costs for this conference.