{"title":"Literary voyeurism between legitimacy and illegitimacy: The case of Lol V. Stein","authors":"Murielle El Hajj","doi":"10.1177/09571558251347038","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09571558251347038","url":null,"abstract":"This study explores the concept of literary voyeurism as a complex phenomenon, involving the dynamics of observation, power, and ethical responsibility within literary narratives. Drawing on psychoanalytic frameworks from Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, and Jean Bellemin-Noël, this study examines voyeurism not only as an act of observing but as a legitimate and illegitimate mechanism. This article distinguishes the ethical boundaries between the voyeurism of characters—marked by transgression and power imbalance—and that of the reader, positioned as legitimate observer who actively engages in the cocreation of the text. To illustrate these complexities, the study analyzes Marguerite Duras's <jats:italic>The Ravishing of Lol V. Stein</jats:italic> , a novel where voyeurism functions as both a narrative and thematic centerpiece. Through Lol's compulsive gaze at others and Jack Hold's controlling, voyeuristic narration, the text reveals layered interactions of observation, desire, and identity. Lol's voyeurism, driven by trauma, is contrasted with Jack Hold's manipulative gaze, which objectifies and redefines her within his narrative. Simultaneously, the reader is implicated in a layered voyeuristic act, observing not only the characters but also their acts of voyeurism. The discussion highlights the dual role of voyeurism in literature: as a means of exploring human desire and as a narrative tool that challenges the reader to reflect on his/her ethical engagement with fictional texts. By addressing these dynamics, the article provides insights into the broader implications of voyeurism in literature and its resonance with psychoanalytic and ethical discourse.","PeriodicalId":12398,"journal":{"name":"French Cultural Studies","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2025-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144236915","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"La fin du livre et la « préface incessante » de Derrida","authors":"Minho Kim","doi":"10.1177/09571558251339443","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09571558251339443","url":null,"abstract":"From the 1980s onwards, Derrida began writing numerous experimental and playful texts, particularly in the form of prefaces. This article first explores why Derrida uses the preface as a textual laboratory, then shows that, after ‘the end of the book’, the preface is both an impossible mode of writing and the only permitted mode of writing. Derrida takes Hegel as both a precursor and an adversary: Hegel sought to sublate the preface for different reasons than Derrida but had to write even more prefaces to do so. By analyzing Derrida's reading of this performative contradiction in Hegel, the article clarifies why Derrida is obsessed with the desire to incessantly preface. Finally, the article situates Derrida's ‘incessant preface’ within the broader context of the development of deconstruction, often referred to as a ‘turn’.","PeriodicalId":12398,"journal":{"name":"French Cultural Studies","volume":"158 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144145562","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery: Nantes’ journey to reckoning with their colonial past","authors":"Taryn Marcelino","doi":"10.1177/09571558241305526","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09571558241305526","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I build off the critical work that has engaged with the history of Nantes and the larger question of memorialization in Europe. I analyze the Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery, celebrated as Nantes’ recognition of their colonial past and France's journey to abolition. In my analysis of the Memorial, I consider what is being communicated through the memorial, and the stakes it holds for municipal and local actors in the memory scene. Utilizing a textual and visual analysis of the memorial, I analyze the choices made for the memorial, who is interpellated within its narratives, and how ultimately, the monument is a tool of disavowal for the city of Nantes even as they take steps to reckon with the role in the transatlantic slave trade. I argue that Nantes, through the Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery, utilizes a humanitarian narrative to avoid guilt for its pivotal role in the slave trade and to link itself to larger Europe as a cosmopolitan, artistic city that has cleansed itself from its sins.","PeriodicalId":12398,"journal":{"name":"French Cultural Studies","volume":"92 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2025-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143627385","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"« Certains de nos désirs ont construit cette ville » : Google Earth et glocalisation dans GeoGuessr, Darrieussecq et Houellebecq","authors":"Gustaf Marcus","doi":"10.1177/09571558241270430","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09571558241270430","url":null,"abstract":"This article discusses literary texts and other cultural practices that resemble, refer to, or make use of material from Google Earth. The aim is to elucidate experiences of glocalization (globalization and localization), an emerging form of spatiality that is related to the interactive ‘Web 2.0.’ The initial analysis of the browser game GeoGuessr and the interactive music video ‘The Wilderness Downtown’ explores this spatiality from two opposing starting points: while the game fosters a sense of place within locales that are essentially unknown to the player, the music video integrates images from places that are related to the viewer's personal memories into an otherwise impersonal work of art. This glocalized experience of place, which is both eroded by global systems of communication and recreated within these systems, is then traced in Marie Darrieussecq's novel La mer à l’envers and in several works, including novels, poems, and photographs, by Michel Houellebecq.","PeriodicalId":12398,"journal":{"name":"French Cultural Studies","volume":"39 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2025-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143528343","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Regards sur l'Inéluctable : la mort dans les romans de Mahi Binebine","authors":"Hicham Belhaj","doi":"10.1177/09571558241264983","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09571558241264983","url":null,"abstract":"Cet article examine la représentation de la mort dans sept romans de Mahi Binebine, Le sommeil de l’esclave (1992), Les funérailles du lait (1994), L’ombre du poète (1997), Cannibales, (1999), Pollens (1999), Terre d’ombre brûlée (2004), et Les étoiles de Sidi Moumen (2010). En s’appuyant sur une approche phénoménologique, l'étude se concentre sur les perceptions et les réactions des personnages face à la mort, explorant ainsi les implications philosophiques et existentielles. Le cheminement méthodologique en six étapes guide l'analyse, mettant en lumière la complexité du thème de la mort et sa relation avec la réalité contemporaine du Maroc. L'auteur émerge comme un visionnaire, capturant les nuances de la condition humaine à travers une écriture qui transcende la simple narration, offrant une réflexion profonde sur la vie, la mort et la société marocaine.","PeriodicalId":12398,"journal":{"name":"French Cultural Studies","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2025-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143452377","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Discours hybride dans le contexte colonial au Vietnam. Étude du Bulletin de la SEM","authors":"Thi Anh Ngoc VO","doi":"10.1177/09571558241302293","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09571558241302293","url":null,"abstract":"French colonization in Vietnam is a totalizing phenomenon, which affected all life, both collective and individual. Many studies are devoted to the memories of this past era with its social contexts and its existential conditions. One of the most visible realities that this phenomenon reveals is that it has destroyed and deconstructed the old frameworks of the culture of colonized people and brought them into uncertain and ambiguous areas of identity. How do these colonized subjects express themselves in such socio-existential contexts? Is seeking to show oneself in the language of others an escape route to remove oneself from the embarrassment of this situation, by reconstructing a new topos of expression rich in exchanges and discursive interactions? This article aims to answer these fundamental questions by adopting a discourse and identity approach. We choose as a field of observation the Bulletin de la Société d’Enseignement mutuel du Tonkin ( Bulletin de la SEM).","PeriodicalId":12398,"journal":{"name":"French Cultural Studies","volume":"79 6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2025-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143417205","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"La fragilité du pouvoir : la série télévisée Versailles dans le contexte du terrorisme international","authors":"Lisa Zeller","doi":"10.1177/09571558241313181","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09571558241313181","url":null,"abstract":"L’article analyse la représentation de la construction d’un lieu central du pouvoir dans la série télévisée Versailles dans le contexte de la crise de déterritorialisation suite au terrorisme international. Une comparaison de la représentation de la lutte de l’État contre ses adversaires intérieurs et extérieurs à des fictions historiques de la cour du XVII<jats:sup>e</jats:sup> et du XVIII<jats:sup>e</jats:sup> siècle révèle que les motifs centraux de la série peuvent être reliés à ces fictions, tandis que les différences par rapport à celles-ci sont expliquées par la confrontation de la série avec son propre lieu historique : l’ambivalence par rapport à l’aspect stratégique de la construction du pouvoir central à partir d’une position de fragilité intense ainsi que l’analogie implicite entre les protestants révoltants contre ce pouvoir et le terrorisme islamiste. Dans le contexte des attentats de Paris en 2015, la divergence entre une représentation antipathique des protestants comme traîtres et agents d’une infiltration étrangère dans la première saison de la série (2015) et la représentation sympathique dans la troisième (2018), qui en fait des victimes d’un pouvoir de contrôle excessif et d’une exclusion intolérante, est attribuée à l’évolution des affects contemporains allant d’une condamnation des attaques terroristes à la critique de la réaction politique à ceux-ci et aux reproches d’islamophobie et d’intolérance.","PeriodicalId":12398,"journal":{"name":"French Cultural Studies","volume":"37 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2025-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142991139","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘Demandez à une personne de confiance, comme votre mère’: Representations of mothers and daughters in Mademoiselle Âge Tendre, 1968–1971","authors":"Ryan Evelyn","doi":"10.1177/09571558241301318","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09571558241301318","url":null,"abstract":"This article considers visual and narrative representations of mothers and daughters in the understudied publication Mademoiselle Âge Tendre. Issues spanning the years 1968 to 1971 suggest a marked interest – in some cases, a reliance – on the mother figure who, from an adolescent's point of view in the late 1960s, would most likely have been considered conservative, traditional and belonging to the older generation of women. A closer look at advertisements for menstrual products, advice columns, health and wellness write ups and celebrity exposés reveal diverse representations of the mother–daughter link ( le lien mère-fille) that oscillates between reliance and independence, thus bringing into focus the larger question of intergenerationality, la jeunesse and the socio-cultural implications of May 1968.","PeriodicalId":12398,"journal":{"name":"French Cultural Studies","volume":"85 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142831914","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Through the glass, darkly: Femininity and the mirror in nineteenth-century France","authors":"Madison Mainwaring","doi":"10.1177/09571558241296024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09571558241296024","url":null,"abstract":"This article proposes an interrogation of the tropes of female narcissism with a material history of the mirror and women's accounts of looking at themselves in nineteenth-century France. Drawing from a range of sources in order to trace the introduction of the vanity into domestic spaces, I argue that the newfound availability of the looking glass, while encouraging a self-objectification in the eyes of the others, likewise allowed female subjects the fashioning of a critical eye, the ability to construct and play with femininity and imagine alternative ways of being. By historicizing the act of looking at one's reflection, I aim to turn the female gaze back on itself, providing a contextualization of women's self-understanding and perception dependent on material and embodied practices.","PeriodicalId":12398,"journal":{"name":"French Cultural Studies","volume":"82 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142789918","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The birth of fashion as complex phenomenon: Eesthetic rereading of Frederick Charles Worth's practice","authors":"Linda Muchová","doi":"10.1177/09571558241301320","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09571558241301320","url":null,"abstract":"Frederick Charles Worth (1825–1895) is consensually regarded as a founder of haute couture. His business was accompanied by unprecedented marketing strategies. These strategies included also the person of dressmaker in order to change his social status. In accordance with this, dressmaking is no longer just a craft; it has begun to aspire to the position of art. This article wants to show that the process of establishing “the field of haute couture” (Bourdieu) cannot be described only in sociological terms but contains a substantial esthetic dimension. Our analysis of Worth's social practices reveals a series of dialectical relations that constitute objects of fashion as such. The new institutional framework of haute couture inevitably accelerates changes in the material design of garments, which at the same time supports their moral obsolescence. In the second step, we discuss Charles Baudelaire's attempt to characterize the nature of specifically modern art. Baudelaire's formulations emphasize a very similar dialectical structure of modern beauty, which is constituted by its inclination to transience and decay. In this sense, Worth's innovative practice itself produces the esthetic quality of a single apparel. So, we can read Worth's haute couture as an instance of Baudelairian modern art.","PeriodicalId":12398,"journal":{"name":"French Cultural Studies","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142776572","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}