{"title":"Voltaire, Derrida et les ruses de la raison","authors":"Bruno Penteado","doi":"10.3366/nfs.2023.0367","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nfs.2023.0367","url":null,"abstract":"Voltaire’s writings advance an emblematic understanding of reason in the French Enlightenment, envisaged as a divine gift that makes it possible for humans to put anything into question – except reason itself. Through a reading of various philosophical and literary texts by Voltaire, this article problematizes the sovereignty of Voltairean reason – the totalitarian reason that is at once immune to the very critique it founds and, as such, injurious towards the Other, who is seen as necessarily lacking the capacity to think. Bringing Derrida to bear on Voltaire, the article builds on the former’s view of reason as divisible and antinomic – that is, a reason constituted according to an aporia that admits both a teleological and conditional reason and a circular and unconditional one. As such, reason must then allow itself to be reasoned. The conclusion thus argues for a reconceptualization of reason that welcomes a critique of both sovereign judgement and teleological thinking. ","PeriodicalId":19182,"journal":{"name":"Nottingham French Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45310375","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘Les objets plus ou moins déformés’: Émile Zola’s Screen Theory of Representation and the Rougon-Macquart Cycle","authors":"Eddy Troy","doi":"10.3366/nfs.2023.0368","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nfs.2023.0368","url":null,"abstract":"This article argues for renewed attention to Émile Zola's notion of the ‘Écran transparent’ in light of calls to read the novelist's Rougon-Macquart cycle as proto-modernist. It claims that in his 8 August 1864 letter to Antony Valabrègue, Zola lays the theoretical foundations for a departure from verisimilitude, advancing instead a mode of perception that frequently generates deformed objects – objects engendered by a ‘surréalisme particulier’ (Gilles Deleuze). The article re-reads the ‘prospective qualities’ (Susan Harrow) of Germinal, Au Bonheur des Dames and La Curée to explicate the deformative logics of the Zola's Screen.","PeriodicalId":19182,"journal":{"name":"Nottingham French Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45962021","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Les Écrivaines qui font recettes: discours critique par le livre pratique","authors":"M. Brun","doi":"10.3366/nfs.2023.0371","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nfs.2023.0371","url":null,"abstract":"This article focuses on three recipe books inspired by women writers: Les Carnets de cuisine de George Sand: 80 recettes d'une épicurienne by Muriel Lacroix and Pascal Pringarbe , Colette gourmande by Marie-Christine and Didier Clément, and Marguerite Yourcenar portrait intime by Achmy Halley. The article opts to treat these three books as though they were works of criticism. Indeed, these three books, which are hybrids of advice books, biographies and anthologies, represent mythographies of the authors who inspired them. Thus, these far from feminist representations of women writers slaving over hot stoves are nonetheless able to offer vindications of those women's demiurgic powers. As such, these works often take on a regionalist and nostalgic tone that reduces them to the status of literary exhibits in a dusty conservatory of folkloric traditions.","PeriodicalId":19182,"journal":{"name":"Nottingham French Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43380994","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Notes on Contributors","authors":"","doi":"10.3366/nfs.2023.0372","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nfs.2023.0372","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19182,"journal":{"name":"Nottingham French Studies","volume":"99 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134950131","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Le Roman graphique face aux tragédies contemporaines: le cas de Lamia Ziadé et de Zeina Abirached","authors":"Isabelle Bernard","doi":"10.3366/nfs.2023.0366","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nfs.2023.0366","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the theme of war in the main graphic novels of Lamia Ziadé and Zeina Abirached, two Franco-Lebanese artists. Following a tripartite plan, it scrutinizes the pictorial and scriptural aesthetics of the artists in Bye Bye Babylond (2010), Ô nuit, Ô mes yeux (2015) and Ma très grande mélancolie arabe (2017) by Ziadé and in Le Jeu des hirondelles: mourir partir revenir (2007), Je souviens: Beirut (2008) and Prendre refuge (2018) by Abirached. The article examines each author’s approach to the history of the Middle East, especially that of Lebanon, as well as the impact of the so-called ‘duty of memory’ on bandes dessinés that manifest a clear autobiographical temptation.","PeriodicalId":19182,"journal":{"name":"Nottingham French Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46810178","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Réinventer le toucher dans La Démangeaison de Laurence Nobécourt","authors":"Dominique Carlini Versini","doi":"10.3366/nfs.2023.0370","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nfs.2023.0370","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the question of touch in Laurence Nobécourt's La Démengeaison. It seeks to connect Nobécourt's text to recent research on the tactile and more broadly the haptic function of literature. In this article, I will show that skin forms a border in the text, which prevents touch and contact with the world. I will discuss firstly the ways in which the surface/depth paradigm is applied to the untouchable skin of the narrator, excluding her from humanity. Thus, in the second part of my analysis, I will reflect on the ways in which the skin's touchability is reconfigured through the narrator's compulsive itching, and particularly through the exploration of the skin's erogenous dimension. Although this reconfiguration fails in the diegesis and leads only to violence, I will argue that the text succeeds in its haptic aesthetics, and its attempt to touch the reader.","PeriodicalId":19182,"journal":{"name":"Nottingham French Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48062684","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"« Exposer les tabous au grand jour » – théâtre politique (?) de Céline Delbecq","authors":"Judyta Niedokos","doi":"10.3366/nfs.2023.0365","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nfs.2023.0365","url":null,"abstract":"The objective of the article is to analyse the creative output of the Belgian author Celine Delbecq in order to resolve the issue of whether, and to what extent, her theatre can be termed a political theatre. To this end, the notion of cité, adapted to the field of theatre by Bérénice Hamidi-Kim, has been invoked. The analysis demonstrates that the theatre of the Belgian author draws on three types of cité. First, it is inspired by the political ecumenical theatre, revealing social injustices, giving rise to a democratic debate on them, as well as highlighting the socially engaged stance of the artist herself. Second, Delbecq’s plays aspire to restore the theatrical and political community. Third, it is a theatre of political struggle that is based on recording the facts, informing the audience of these, while dispensing justice, all in a form of epic theatre that employs parables.","PeriodicalId":19182,"journal":{"name":"Nottingham French Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47097786","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sex Workers, Thinkers and Activists in France Today: A ‘Real’ Feminist Vanguard","authors":"Polly Galis","doi":"10.3366/nfs.2022.0360","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nfs.2022.0360","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores three manifestoes by contemporary French sex workers, which combine personal memoir with theoretical and political writing: Libérez le féminisme by Morgane Merteuil (2012), Fières d’être putes by Maîtresse Nikita and Thierry Schaffauser (2007), and Porno manifesto by Ovidie (2002). I examine the complaints and demands they make of French feminists today, who frequently impede rather than support the aims of sex workers. I then outline these authors’ vision for a future feminism which could incorporate and learn from sex workers’ thought and activism, and which would be properly inclusive and radical. For these reasons, we will see why this envisaged feminism is deemed a ‘real’ feminism by some, to signify a surpassing or enhancement of earlier feminisms. Connections with a variety of feminisms will be considered, including postfeminism, sex positive feminism, and feminism in its second and fourth waves.","PeriodicalId":19182,"journal":{"name":"Nottingham French Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49242817","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Women’s Fiction in Postfeminist France: Léonora Miano, Camille Laurens, and Chick-Lit or Romances urbaines","authors":"D. Holmes","doi":"10.3366/nfs.2022.0361","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nfs.2022.0361","url":null,"abstract":"Women make up a significant majority of fiction readers, in France as elsewhere, and the novel has long been – and remains – a widely shared medium that both reflects and reflects on gender norms and their effects on women’s lives. My paper examines three contemporary female-authored novels covering the spectrum from ‘literary’ to popular fiction, each of which might be described as a postfeminist story for a postfeminist France. The texts are: Camille Laurens’ Celle que vous croyez (2016); Marie Vareille’s Je peux très bien me passer de toi (2015); Léonora Miano’s Blues pour Élise (2010). My analysis asks in what ways the contemporary ‘women’s novel’ reflects postfeminist culture, in its negative sense as a market-oriented co-optation of feminist aims and achievements but also in its more positive sense, as a new stage in feminist struggles. To what extent can pleasurable fictions not only acknowledge the realities of a postfeminist climate, but also question and challenge them?","PeriodicalId":19182,"journal":{"name":"Nottingham French Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41907578","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}