Women in French Studies最新文献

{"title":"Notes on Contributors","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/wfs.2023.a909502","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/wfs.2023.a909502","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":391338,"journal":{"name":"Women in French Studies","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135053227","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"L'écrivaine Africaine Fatou Diome : De la prose romanesque à la prose politique","authors":"Gilbert Doho","doi":"10.1353/wfs.2023.a909480","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/wfs.2023.a909480","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: La Sénégalaise Fatou Diome est une écrivaine politique ayant une perception aiguë du problème d'identité. Autrice des romans et essais comme Le Ventre de l'Atlantique (2003), Celles qui attendent (2011) Marianne porte plainte (2017) et Marianne face aux faussaires (2021), Diome pose ses productions littéraires comme « prose politique ». Les deux grandes guerres ont transformé les sujets/indigènes de l'empire en agents, activistes combattants de la justice. Plus concrètement, l'armée républicaine fut, pendant ces heures tragiques, comme l'équipe nationale de football française de 1998 et 2018. L'armée et le foot, deux corps de métiers prisés par les jeunes, ont offert à la République les moments de liesse populaire, d'héroïques destinées, mais aussi des rêves comme on le lit dans Le Ventre de l'Atlantique . Du Ventre de l'Atlantique à Marianne face aux faussaires , Fatou Diome reste dans les commentaires et citations politiques des autres, doublés de ceux de son invention. L'intrigue romanesque ne sert qu'à amplifier les commentaires politiques. À aucun moment, l'écrivaine ne se limite à romancer, ne se contente de divertir ses lecteurs/lectrices. Dans sa mission d'éclairer, de faire dissiper autant d'ombres que possible, l'écrivaine se lance, comme Mongo Béti, dans la démystification de l'Occident en proposant de la salubrité politique.","PeriodicalId":391338,"journal":{"name":"Women in French Studies","volume":"168 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135053766","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Feminism or death: How the Women's Movement Can Save the Planet by Françoise D'Eaubonne (review)","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/wfs.2023.a909492","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/wfs.2023.a909492","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Feminism or death: How the Women's Movement Can Save the Planet by Françoise D'Eaubonne Miao Li D'Eaubonne, Françoise. Feminism or death: How the Women's Movement Can Save the Planet. Ed. and Trans. Ruth Hottell. Verso, 2022. Pp. [i]-xxxii; 310. ISBN 978-1-83976-440-0. $26.95 (paper). Published in French in 1974 and appearing for the first time in English, radical feminist Françoise d'Eaubonne's Feminism or Death contends that due to the limitation of contemporary feminism that demands \"fragments\" of world management instead of wholly establishing a new humanism, ecofeminism will be the only possible salvation from the two most serious dangers facing the world: population growth and the destruction of the environment, both with a common root in \"phallocracy\"—a society dominated by males, considered superior. D'Eaubonne surveys women's conditions worldwide in actual and fictional contexts throughout history and claims the universality of misogynist discourse. Comparing women to other disadvantaged groups like Jews, black men, and the proletariat, she supposes that \"feminitude,\" or the tragic state of being a woman suffering from social, economic, and cultural discrimination (including but not limited to various forms of prostitution and rape), is caused by institutions of male domination. Biological difference, however, should not serve as a pretext for social differentiation. She then points out that the two most immediate threats of death—overpopulation and the destruction of the environment—are both rooted in the patriarchal system (and not in capitalist or socialist society) which exploits, suppresses, and destroys women's bodies as well as the natural environment. According to D'Eaubonne, the male has seized control of the soil, its fertility, and later through industry, of women's fecundity. It was logical that the overexploitation of one and the other would result in this double and paralleled peril. D'Eaubonne sees in feminist combat an issue of life or death for humans and the planet. Moving beyond the idea of revolution to a \"mutation,\" the solution of ecofeminism defeats not just phallocratism—a mental structure and political and social factor dated historically, necessitated most probably by men's takeover of agriculture, which was up until then women's domain—, but the system of power itself. She suggests contraception and abortion as a response to overpopulation and finds that the male mentality toward \"productivity\" and \"consumption\" has caused environmental destruction. The only mutation that can save the world, therefore, is the \"great upheaval\" of male power that brought about agricultural overexploitation and industrial expansion. She does not suggest a matriarchy, but rather the destruction of power by women, and finally, an egalitarian administration of a world reborn. Translated by French feminist scholar Ruth Hottell, this edition includes a foreword by Carolyn Merchant, contextualizing the work within feminist ","PeriodicalId":391338,"journal":{"name":"Women in French Studies","volume":"64 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135052667","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Childhood, Redemption, and l'écriture de soi : Colette's La chambre éclairée and La maison de Claudine","authors":"Laurel Cummins","doi":"10.1353/wfs.2023.a909476","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/wfs.2023.a909476","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: This article examines the child figure in Colette's work, analyzed as a means to a literary redemption after Colette's initiation into literature through another work depicting a child, Claudine à l'école . The reintegration of the child figure is presaged by the appearance in early works, especially La vagabonde , of images of the archetypal \"divine\" child. The child figure is then integrated into stories, first featuring Colette's daughter Bel-Gazou, then the child Colette herself. The theme of play, traced in vignettes from La chambre éclairée and La maison de Claudine , reveals a process by which Colette reintegrates the child figure into her textual self. This then participates in giving voice to Colette's écriture de soi .","PeriodicalId":391338,"journal":{"name":"Women in French Studies","volume":"64 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135053444","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Perspective féminine sur la dictature dans Femmes au temps des carnassiers de Marie-Célie Agnant","authors":"Florence Ramond Jurney","doi":"10.1353/wfs.2023.a909481","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/wfs.2023.a909481","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Perspective féminine sur la dictature de Duvalier, le dernier roman de Marie-Célie Agnant met en scène la dictature et comment le traumatisme qui y est lié s'insère dans le présent des générations suivantes et le hante. C'est sous le signe de l'échange et des conversations partagées qu'a lieu cette négociation de souvenirs. Plusieurs types d'échanges prennent place dans ce roman de Marie-Célie Agnant et ce sont ces moments qui guideront cet article. Tout d'abord, la mise en parallèle des voix de deux femmes d'une même généalogie mais de différentes générations : si l'une se bat pour continuer à faire entendre sa voix dès les débuts de la dictature, l'autre s'acharne à exposer le traumatisme utilisé pour renforcer une mise au silence automatique. Ensuite, les échanges entre diverses femmes visant à soutenir les deux protagonistes : visites de courtoisie, \"othermothering,\" amitiés entre femmes, toutes mettent en exergue ce qui rapproche ces femmes. Enfin, ce sont les différentes incursions du traumatisme dans le présent et ses représentations qui sont au centre de cette dernière partie : l'art (écriture de Junon, peinture de Soledad) a-t-il une place dans la reconstruction du moi après les débordements de la dictature ? La vengeance a-t-elle une place dans cette conversation, et si oui, laquelle et à quelles fins ?","PeriodicalId":391338,"journal":{"name":"Women in French Studies","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135052907","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"La tour ou un chien à Chinatown by Doan Bui (review)","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/wfs.2023.a909499","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/wfs.2023.a909499","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: La tour ou un chien à Chinatown by Doan Bui Gloria Kwok Bui, Doan. La tour ou un chien à Chinatown. Grasset, 2022. Pp. 348. ISBN 978-2-246-82499-2. 20,90€ (papier). Journaliste et auteure (elle est également auteure du récit autobiographique Le silence de mon père, paru chez l'Iconoclaste en 2016), Doan Bui nous livre dans son premier roman, La tour ou un chien à Chinatown, les destins des locataires de la tour Melbourne, une tour de « 296 cases » et « 37 étages » (11). À la manière de Georges Perec de La vie mode d'emploi paru en 1978 dont une citation a été mise en exergue du livre (Perec, lui, suit la vie des habitants d'un bâtiment haussmannien), l'auteure précise que c'est une tour fictive du vrai quartier des Olympiades au cœur de Chinatown dans le 13ème arrondissement de Paris. Les Olympiades, cet ensemble de grandes tours essentiellement résidentielles, ont vu le jour dans les années 1970. Ces tours devaient loger des familles de cadres supérieurs ; au début des années 1980, elles ont accueilli « tous les réfugiés fuyant le régime communiste vietnamien ou le Cambodge de Pol Pot » (21). Le roman se lit comme un puzzle où les lecteurs doivent assembler les pièces. Parmi ses personnages hauts en couleurs, on croise la famille Truong, une famille des boat people qui ont fui le Vietnam après la chute de Saigon en 1979. Il y a Victor, le mari qui doit son prénom à Victor Hugo, et déclame toujours du Victor Hugo dans son accent vietnamien ; sa femme Alice qui adore le vietnamien, et confond le mot « beurette » avec les « petits beurres » de la marque Lu que mange sa fille ; et leur fille Anne-Maï Truong, née en France, qui rêve d'être une blonde. Ils sont parrainés par Philippe et Armelle Trudaine qui habitent dans le 16ème arrondissement, l'occasion pour Doan Bui de dépeindre avec sarcasme le monde des familles bourgeoises qui parrainaient volontiers des réfugiés. Un autre voisin des époux Truong est Clément Pasquier, un bâtard d'une longue lignée noble des Pasquier du Mans monté à Paris, qui se prend pour la réincarnation de Clément, le chien mort de Michel Houellebecq, son idole. On trouve aussi Ileana Antonescu, la pianiste roumaine désormais devenue nounou d'Adèle, la fille des Trudiane ; Virgile, un sans-papier sénégalais passionné de Proust qui squatte le sous-sol ; et Bich et Liêm, les enfants de Lam, un vieil ami de Victor Truong. Bref, les personnages dont la vie est marquée par l'immigration et l'exil. L'histoire touche à son paroxysme dans le dernier chapitre. En 2045, les anciens habitants de la tour Melbourne y compris les Truong ont dû quitter le quartier à cause des prix exorbitants, et ils ne reconnaissent plus les nouvelles Olympiades, surélevées et dotées des piscines, plantes et fleurs, et boîtes de nuit. L'artisan de ces « Olympiades du futur » (314) est un milliardaire chinois. Pour repeupler la ville avec des oiseaux, il embauche Adèle Trudaine, diplômée en ornithologie, comme chef du projet. Anne-Maï est lice","PeriodicalId":391338,"journal":{"name":"Women in French Studies","volume":"65 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135052912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mother's Milk and Male Fantasy in Nineteenth-Century French Narrative by Lisa Algazi Marcus (review)","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/wfs.2023.a909490","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/wfs.2023.a909490","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Mother's Milk and Male Fantasy in Nineteenth-Century French Narrative by Lisa Algazi Marcus Ryan J. Pilcher Marcus, Lisa Algazi. Mother's Milk and Male Fantasy in Nineteenth-Century French Narrative. Liverpool UP, 2022. Pp. vii-viii; 161. ISBN 978-18027-008-8. 79,20£ (hardcover). 978-18027-064-4. (eBook). Lisa Algazi Marcus's book is well-researched and well-written, offering a sociohistorical analysis of an overlooked phenomenon in nineteenth-century literature: breastfeeding. In clear and concise prose, Marcus answers the question of whether or not literary portrayals of breastfeeding reflected reality, identifying a tension between projected fantasies by male authors and the lives of nursing women. Marcus's first chapter provides the eighteenth-century background that will influence trends analyzed in later chapters on the nineteenth century. She takes Jean-Jacques Rousseau as her starting point because his insistence on \"the sentimental benefits [of breastfeeding] to the mother and the family unit\" (6) was more convincing to women of the time than his predecessors. At the same time, Marcus argues that the idealization of breastfeeding in literature, visual art, and laws of the Revolutionary period does not reflect reality, as mothers of all socioeconomic statuses continued to avoid breastfeeding for a variety of material, political, and sociocultural reasons. Building on the argument that the melancholy of Romantic heroes is born of their authors being sent away to wet nurses, Marcus's second chapter provides evidence of both confirmations and exceptions to the rule in literature and paintings. Chateaubriand is the exemplar of a Romantic author/hero with maternal separation anxiety, while Hugo and Lamartine, both nursed by their mothers, conflate nursing with risks of physical or mental illness (Hugo), or treat it as fuel for future melancholy necessary to the Romantic hero (Lamartine). Marcus closes with George Sand as the exception of note, for her portrayals of breastfeeding are [End Page 158] \"less metaphorical and dramatic and more matter-of-fact than those in the works of other authors\" (49). Further exploration in this section might include the eponymous Indiana from Sand's first solo novel (1832) who was nursed by an enslaved African woman on present day Réunion. This avenue might bolster arguments concerning race present in the section on Chateaubriand or provide more evidence of Sand's exceptionality. Chapter Three begins with \"mastomania,\" or sexual pleasure derived from breastfeeding, and traces its usage in realist and naturalist texts from the middle to the end of the nineteenth century. Marcus shows that the Enlightenment period separated motherhood from sexuality, setting the stage for writers like Honoré de Balzac, Émile Zola, and Alexandre Hepp to play with the boundaries of acceptability. She argues that \"the erotic dimension of the breastfeeding mother was tolerated, and even celebrated, in nineteenth-century ","PeriodicalId":391338,"journal":{"name":"Women in French Studies","volume":"2013 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135052896","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Vous, les ancêtres by Sandrine Bessora (review)","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/wfs.2023.a909498","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/wfs.2023.a909498","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Vous, les ancêtres by Sandrine Bessora A. Stevellia Moussavou Nyama Bessora, Sandrine. Vous, les ancêtres. JCLattès, 2023. Pp. 336. ISBN 978-2-7096-7069-2. 20,50€ (papier). 14,99€ (eBook). L'écrivaine suisso-gabonaise, Sandrine Bessora, nous a gratifiés d'un nouveau roman au début de l'année 2023. Composé de cinq chapitres, Vous les ancêtres est le troisième volet d'une tétralogie commencée avec Zoonomia (tome V) et Citizen Narcisse (tome III). S'il fait suite à ces deux tomes publiés en 2018, il est néanmoins chronologiquement antérieur dans le cycle, puisque la narratrice Jane est à l'origine de la « dynastie des boiteux ». L'histoire commence à la fin du 17ème siècle en Cornouailles, dans une Europe en guerre. L'incipit donne d'emblée à ce roman les allures d'un conte fantastique. D'ailleurs, le titre du premier chapitre « accouche-moi » fait penser à Kirikou et la sorcière (1998) de Michel Ocelot. La narration à la première personne du singulier est prise en charge par Jane, narratrice autodiégétique, qui nous raconte les autres personnages (une quinzaine environ). Elle se charge aussi du récit des événements précédant sa naissance alors que sa mère, à peine adolescente, meurt après lui avoir donné la vie au bord d'un ruisseau. Comme Moise, Jane est placée dans un berceau végétal qui longe le fleuve. Elle a seulement six jours quand elle est trouvée, par Abigaïl, son adoptante, dérivant dans son couffin d'où émane une odeur « de sang, de sueur, et de liquide amniotique » (21). Le seul acte d'amour de la génitrice, [End Page 170] devenue mère, malgré elle, a consisté à se réincarner dans la fleur de Narcisse qui « luit » chaque fois que Jane traverse des épreuves. Bessora ne laisse rien au hasard ; ses descriptions sont si détaillées qu'elles en deviennent hyperboliques. L'accouchement est glauque − on a l'impression de sentir la puanteur « du lait caillé » et de partager la douleur de l'adolescente accouchant seule alors que son corps n'a pas encore fini de se développer. Jane est une anti-héroïne avec un profil assez intrigant. Boiteuse et analphabète, manquant d'être condamnée à mort par un tribunal, elle est, selon ses mots, « sauvée par un hasard manigancé » (294) et envoyée en esclavage aux États-Unis. Après sept années, elle rachète sa liberté et devient à son tour esclavagiste. Convaincue d'être promise à une descendance puissante par le livre de « Michée » dans la Bible, elle épouse, de force, son esclave et lui fait quatre filles. L'autrice propose une peinture particulièrement effrayante de la maternité. Un accent est mis sur l'aventure périlleuse de la maternité et les douleurs de l'enfantement qui s'apparente à « une torture ». Les bébés sont des êtres maléfiques dont la naissance annonce la mort de la mère, car en sortant le bébé « broie les os » (11), « écrabouille les boyaux » (320), et « broie les reins » de la future maman (309). De cette écriture de la maternité, se dévoile une espèce de puissance du féminin, et","PeriodicalId":391338,"journal":{"name":"Women in French Studies","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135052917","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Woman with the Wolf by Renée Vivien (review)","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/wfs.2023.a909496","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/wfs.2023.a909496","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: The Woman with the Wolf by Renée Vivien Laura Dennis Vivien, Renée. The Woman with the Wolf. Trans. Karla Jay and Yvonne M. Klein. Ed. and Trans. Melanie Hawthorn. The Modern Language Association of America, 2021. Pp. [v]-xxvi; 136. ISBN 978-1-60329-527-7. $23.00 (paper). We've all met those men, the ones who believe that \"no\" means \"yes,\" and that they can do whatever they want. The power of such men in the United States has recently led to limitations on women's rights, with LGBTQ+ rights not far behind. When the readers of 2023 meet the narrator of The Woman with the Wolf, which opens Renée Vivien's collection and provides its title, we already know him all too well. He will not, however, have his way, nor will many of the other men in these stories. Prince Charming turns out to be a princess; the procuress is a virgin who cannot be seduced; Andromeda would rather be killed by the sea monster. These are just a few of the twists offered by Vivien, née Pauline Mary Tarn, an Anglo-American writer who made her home in Paris and wrote in French in the early 20th century. This is not to say that women always prevail. In many cases, these often exoticized, violent stories have tragic, even gruesome ends. Yet the heroines rarely fear death, for life in the company of these men presents a far worse alternative. Throughout these tales, which are set everywhere from South Asian jungles to American prairies, from Scandinavia to the biblical world, gender norms are not merely inverted. They are rather sidestepped—the male protagonists would likely say \"perverted\"—with relationships between women taking center stage. It is no accident that one character chooses to drown in the [End Page 167] embrace of a she-wolf, another to be mauled by a female tiger. Scripture, myths, and fairy tales are all rewritten in ways that bypass the patriarchy. Gender not only drives these seventeen stories, it also affects their translation. The present edition forms part of the MLA Texts & Translations series, which according to the MLA website, \"provides students and teachers with high-quality translations of plays, short novels, collections of stories or poems, and, less commonly, nonfiction works.\" The texts, intended for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students as well as general readers, are typically released in two volumes, the original language and the translation, with the latter containing a translator's note. The present review pertains primarily to the English translation, although this reviewer read a different edition in the original French in order to compose a full and fair review. The translator's note provided by the editor, Melanie Hawthorne, explains the particular issues raised by grammatical versus biological gender when translating from French to English, especially in a work where gender is germane to both characterization and plot. Her translation, which is by and large clear and accurate, follows the 1983 translation by Karla Jay ","PeriodicalId":391338,"journal":{"name":"Women in French Studies","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135053479","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Simone de Beauvoir's Struggle against Separation: Radical Challenges to Heterosexual Norms in Les inséparables and \"La lesbienne\"","authors":"Sophia Millman","doi":"10.1353/wfs.2023.a909477","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/wfs.2023.a909477","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Today, we face an epidemic of loneliness and Simone de Beauvoir's writings about separation—and about struggling to find new means of connecting—have never been more relevant. Throughout her fiction and philosophy, Beauvoir repeatedly wrote about women's desires to \"shatter\" what separated them. The theme of overcoming separation appears in \"La lesbienne,\" a controversial chapter of Le deuxième sexe , and reappears in her novella Les inséparables , drafted in 1954 but only published in 2020. This article—the first study of the theme of separation in several of Beauvoir's works—situates these two texts within a twenty-year period. From 1944, when Beauvoir published Pyrrhus et Cinéas , to 1964, when she gave her lecture \"Que peut la littérature ?,\" her thinking about separation and connection transformed radically. The author became increasingly committed to exposing and fighting against the heterosexual norms that separate women. Ultimately, Les inséparables , read in conjunction with \"La lesbienne,\" illuminates Beauvoir's various writings about separation; the novella reveals that her revolutionary commitment to breaking taboos and connecting with readers grew out of the shame and frustration she experienced as she tried to communicate her love to another woman.","PeriodicalId":391338,"journal":{"name":"Women in French Studies","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135052638","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}