DeScripto: The art of linking disciplines and works of art

DeScripto has its origins in the restructuring of the Caliste laboratory, which was split into two distinct entities when UVHC became UPHF. While one half merged with a branch of the DeVisu department to form the Criss laboratory, the other - bringing together literary scholars, linguists and art researchers - gave birth to DeScripto. Despite the initial challenges, this department has established itself as a space for dialogue between often compartmentalized disciplines.

"The challenge was to give visibility to sometimes marginal fields of research, such as comparative literature or linguistics, where we are only two or three researchers per specialty", explains Thomas Barège, a teacher-researcher in the department. Initially, this apparent diversity hinges on a common object: the ob-scene, a concept playing on the words obscene (what must not be shown) and ob-scene (staging), questioning the tensions between language, representation and social norms.

Today, DeScripto is organized around a new unifying project: "Faire/œuvre", with a slash, exploring the processes of creation, recognition and patrimonialization of works, whether literary, artistic or performative.

With nearly a dozen CNU* sections represented, DeScripto is a laboratory where methods and viewpoints intersect. "Working together forces us to step outside our usual frameworks and see our research objects from a new angle," Thomas Barège points out. A literary scholar gains the perspective of a linguist, an entertainment specialist that of an art historian. This cross-fertilization is reflected in cross-disciplinary symposia, such as the one organized in late 2025 on linguistics, or the forthcoming symposium on translation and musice, co-constructed with UPHF researchers and artists.

The integration of digital tools also plays a key role, particularly for studying narratives of the hyper-human or capturing ephemeral performances. "Amos Fergombé, director of LARSH, is a pioneer in the analysis of digital uses for contemporary performance. We literary scholars also use technological tools to analyze corpora that are, moreover, increasingly intermedial. ", says Thomas Barège.

Despite its dynamism, DeScripto faces structural challenges. With 40 PhD students supervised by some 30 teacher-researchers, the laboratory devotes a quarter of its annual budget to funding theses. "We're victims of our own success: demand is high, but resources are limited, particularly for field missions or colloquia," admits Thomas Barège.

However, regional and international collaborations offer valuable leverage. DeScripto maintains partnerships with:

• La Maison Européenne des Sciences Humaines et Sociales - MESHS on the scientific front.
• Le Phénix (scène nationale) and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes for cultural projects.
• The University of Mons (Belgium), Sherbrooke (Canada) and Murcia (Spain) for thesis co-directions and Erasmus exchanges.
• Overseas networks in Germany, Lebanon, Ireland...

By 2030, DeScripto intends to pursue its exploration of the two axes "Poetry, art and performance" and "Discourse, languages, translations", while strengthening its interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary openness. The - albeit relative - blurring of disciplinary boundaries offered by transdisciplinarity often does greater justice to the complexity of works.

"DeScripto is not just a laboratory, it's a space where we learn to think together, despite - or thanks to - our differences," concludes Thomas Barège. "We hope to nurture questions of interdisciplinarity, which are at the heart of our approach."

For future researchers or PhD students, the message is clear: "Come with your singularities. Here, they will be listened to, discussed and put into dialogue."