@proceedings {1120985, title = {LIBER, GASTER, CLYSTER : La litt{\'e}rature {\`a} l{\textquoteright}estomac chez Mme de S{\'e}vign{\'e} et Montesquieu}, year = {Working Paper}, abstract = {

On dit commun{\'e}ment, pour {\'e}voquer une lecture fr{\'e}n{\'e}tique et passionn{\'e}e, qu{\textquoteright}on avale ou qu{\textquoteright}on d{\'e}vore un livre. {\`A} l{\textquoteright}{\^a}ge classique, on appelle {\guillemotleft} nourriture {\guillemotright} ce que nous appelons aujourd{\textquoteright}hui {\'e}ducation : c{\textquoteright}est que les livres nourrissent autant l{\textquoteright}esprit que les aliments restaurent le corps. Certains {\'e}crivains ont pouss{\'e} l{\textquoteright}amour des livres jusqu{\textquoteright}{\`a} donner {\`a} cette image un sens litt{\'e}ral, et ont imagin{\'e} l{\textquoteright}absorption du corpus par le corps dans des sc{\`e}nes o{\`u} l{\textquoteright}on ingurgite r{\'e}ellement des livres.

Au fil d{\textquoteright}une s{\'e}rie d{\textquoteright}{\'e}loges de plus en plus enthousiastes, Mme de S{\'e}vign{\'e} somatise sa lecture des Essais de Morale de Nicole jusqu{\textquoteright}{\`a} vouloir, apr{\`e}s en avoir fait une m{\'e}decine, en {\guillemotleft} faire un bouillon et l{\textquoteright}avaler {\guillemotright}. Dans les Lettres persanes (CXLIII), Montesquieu imagine une {\guillemotleft} pharmacie {\guillemotright} comique con{\c c}ue par un m{\'e}decin de province qui se propose de soigner ses malades par l{\textquoteright}absorption et le rejet de livres dont les pages sont r{\'e}duites en tisanes, l{\'e}nitifs, vomitifs et clyst{\`e}res.

L{\textquoteright}{\'e}tude de ces sc{\`e}nes montre qu{\textquoteright}{\`a} travers ce jeu comique, se dessine non seulement l{\textquoteright}essence du rapport de Mme de S{\'e}vign{\'e} et de Montesquieu aux belles-lettres mais aussi, en l{\textquoteright}espace d{\textquoteright}un demi-si{\`e}cle (1671-1721), et dans le temps m{\^e}me de son {\'e}laboration, l{\textquoteright}{\'e}lection d{\textquoteright}une certaine litt{\'e}rature, d{\textquoteright}un corpus, qui correspond quasi exactement {\`a} ce que l{\textquoteright}histoire litt{\'e}raire {\'e}l{\`e}vera, bien plus tard, {\`a} la dignit{\'e} de {\guillemotleft} classique {\guillemotright}.

Author Bio

Agr{\'e}g{\'e} de lettres modernes, Nicolas Garrot{\'e} pr{\'e}pare une th{\`e}se de doctorat sur Mme de S{\'e}vign{\'e} et enseigne la litt{\'e}rature fran{\c c}aise {\`a} l{\textquoteright}Universit{\'e} Paul Val{\'e}ry - Montpellier.

}, url = {https://romancesphere.fas.harvard.edu/files/romance/files/ngarrote_corpus_romance_sphere.pdf}, author = {Nicolas Garrot{\'e}} } @proceedings {1120984, title = {THE FRENCH WARS OF RELIGION AND THE DISEASED, DISFIGURED, AND MONSTROUS BODY}, year = {Working Paper}, abstract = {

In this paper I analyze a corpus of works, primarily verse, published during and in the aftermath of the French Wars of Religion (1562{\textendash}1598). This {\textquotedblleft}corpus{\textquotedblright} displays a markedly corporeal, bodily aspect: its authors conceive of the violent factional conflicts of the Wars of Religion as {\textquotedblleft}intestinal,{\textquotedblright} a disease like a plague tearing apart the civic and political {\textquotedblleft}body{\textquotedblright} of France from within. The {\textquotedblleft}troubles{\textquotedblright} were often described as a poison or venom infecting the flesh and blood of France and its citizens or as a monstrous form, like wolves, attacking them. Writers from both the Catholic and Protestant factions frequently utilized this corporeal rhetoric, including Pierre de Ronsard in his Discours des mis{\`e}res de ce temps (1562), Agrippa d{\textquoteright}Aubign{\'e} in his long epic poem Les Tragiques (1616), and the authors of numerous contemporary polemical pamphlets like the anonymous Discours contre les Huguenots, auquel est contenue et d{\'e}clar{\'e} la source de leur damnable religion (1573). Unlike their predecessor Rabelais, who accorded a primary place to the body and all its functions in his grotesque satires, for these authors the body is always diseased and dying. By studying the place of the body and discourses of disease in literary texts surrounding the Wars of Religion in conjunction with early modern theories about the physical body and the body politic, this paper will analyze the images of plague and disease so prevalent during this turbulent period and what they can tell us about contemporary understandings of the Wars of Religion.

Author Bio

Charlee Redman is a PhD student at the University of Maryland-College Park interested in early modern literature and culture and the intersections between literature and science.

}, url = {https://romancesphere.fas.harvard.edu/files/romance/files/redman_corpus_romance_sphere.pdf}, author = {Charlee Redman} } @proceedings {1120635, title = {WRITING REVENANTS: Corporealizing Memory in the Francophone Theater of Wajdi Mouawad}, year = {Working Paper}, abstract = {The corporeality of language is primordial in theater: the intersection of body and text is essential to performance. In Western theater traditions, from Ancient Greek tragedy to contemporary French and Francophone political theater, the body, more specifically the dead body (by way of murder, war, or sacrifice) is also frequently the point of departure for dramatic conflict and eventual moral or political reflection. In the tetralogy Le sang des promesses, by the Canadian-Lebanese playwright Wajdi Mouawad, revenants, the corps(es) of characters, haunt the stage. Using Incendies, the second play of the series, as a case study, this paper examines the importance of the corps(e) and its connection to writing in Mouawad{\textquoteright}s work. The staging of the revenant in Incendies creates a memory space for those lost to real-life geopolitical conflicts. The re-membering of this body, through the writing of and embodiment on stage of this corpse{\textquoteright}s members, aims to purge the individual and collective pain of sociopolitical trauma. Additionally, the revenant fractures temporal space and linear narrative, creating a thickness of time, space, and r{\'e}cit by comingling present and past. The dramatic action and the textual tissue of the play are determined by the presence, physical and metaphorical, of this body. Finally, the paper asserts that, in Incendies, an equivalence is established between the practice of writing and our ability to bury our dead, to allow the corpses and our collective conscious to rest in peace through textual remembrance.

Author Bio

Rachel Morris Watson is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of French Literature, Thought, and Culture of New York University,where she studies 20th and 21st century French and Francophone theatre, text and performance. Her current interests include theories of textuality and embodiment as they relate to dramatic writing and performance.

}, url = {https://romancesphere.fas.harvard.edu/files/romance/files/writing_revenants_rmw.romance_sphere.pdf}, author = {Rachel Morris Watson} } @proceedings {1120323, title = {LA TRANSGRESSION COMME PL{\'E}NITUDE DANS LA PHILOSOPHIE DANS LE BOUDOIR DE SADE}, year = {Working Paper}, abstract = {

Publi{\'e} au lendemain de la Terreur, La Philosophie dans le boudoir prend l{\textquoteright}id{\'e}ologie r{\'e}volutionnaire et confronte ses id{\'e}es telles que la libert{\'e} ou l{\textquoteright}{\'e}galit{\'e} au r{\'e}el et au corps. Il s{\textquoteright}agira de montrer comment le corps et le langage sont pour Sade intiment li{\'e}s, et comment il cherche {\`a} transgresser leurs tabous par le sexe, la violence et le mouvement m{\^e}me de son {\'e}criture. En prenant le concept foucaldien de transgression, on verra comment ce mouvement n{\textquoteright}en est pas un de destruction, menant {\`a} une n{\'e}gativit{\'e}, mais un mouvement vers une r{\'e}alit{\'e} plus dense, vers une exp{\'e}rience de la pl{\'e}nitude, corporelle ou langagi{\`e}re.

On abordera premi{\`e}rement la red{\'e}finition du corps dans le livre : son anatomie et ses fonctions {\guillemotleft} naturelles {\guillemotright}, bafou{\'e}es afin d{\textquoteright}atteindre un id{\'e}al de plaisir ; les personnages marquent le corps, le tissent avec aiguille et fil, {\`a} l{\textquoteright}image de l{\textquoteright}auteur {\'e}crivant son texte.

On se penchera ensuite sur le rapport transgressif que Sade entretient au langage : comment, avec une pens{\'e}e apor{\'e}tique, l{\textquoteright}auteur conteste les limites de la pens{\'e}e logique et fait vivre au lecteur, dans la performativit{\'e} m{\^e}me de son {\'e}nonciation, une exp{\'e}rience irr{\'e}ductible au dire, mais qui ne peut {\^e}tre invoqu{\'e}e que par lui.\ 

Sous-jacent {\`a} cette r{\'e}flexion, se pose la question de la pertinence du projet sadien ({\guillemotleft} tout dire, {\`a} quelque point qu{\textquoteright}en fr{\'e}missent les hommes {\guillemotright}) aujourd{\textquoteright}hui : face {\`a} un discours sur la libert{\'e} ou l{\textquoteright}{\'e}galit{\'e}, quelle est la valeur des id{\'e}es une fois confront{\'e}es au r{\'e}el et au corps?

Author Bio

Marianne Godard est une {\'e}tudiante en litt{\'e}rature fran{\c c}aise {\`a} l{\textquoteright}universit{\'e} McGill. Son m{\'e}moire porte sur l{\textquoteright}{\'e}thique du corps dans la po{\'e}sie d{\textquoteright}Henri Meschonnic.

}, url = {https://romancesphere.fas.harvard.edu/files/romance/files/marianne_godard_-_sade.pdf}, author = {Marianne Godard} } @proceedings {1120318, title = {{\'E}CRITURE DU CORPS ET ETHIQUES DU CARE DANS RU DE KIM TH{\'U}Y}, year = {Working Paper}, abstract = {

D{\textquoteright}origine vietnamienne, n{\'e}e {\`a} Saigon en 1968 et arriv{\'e}e {\`a} Montr{\'e}al {\`a} l{\textquoteright}{\^a}ge de dix ans avec les boat people, Kim Th{\`u}y a conquis un large public gr{\^a}ce {\`a} son premier roman Ru (2009). La narratrice, Nguyễn An Tịnh, y {\'e}voque la fa{\c c}on dont sa famille et elle ont fui le Vietnam, voyag{\'e} en mer sur une embarcation de fortune et s{\'e}journ{\'e} dans un camp de r{\'e}fugi{\'e}s en Malaisie avant leur arriv{\'e}e au Canada.

Ce qui est int{\'e}ressant, c{\textquoteright}est que l{\textquoteright}arrachement au pays natal et les traumatismes qui s{\textquoteright}en sont suivis sont repr{\'e}sent{\'e}s essentiellement {\`a} travers la vuln{\'e}rabilit{\'e} du corps. Il suffit, pour s{\textquoteright}en convaincre, d{\textquoteright}observer le r{\^o}le d{\'e}volu {\`a} la miction et {\`a} la d{\'e}f{\'e}cation dans le texte. En ce sens, l{\textquoteright}{\'e}criture de Kim Th{\`u}y rel{\`e}ve des {\'e}thiques du care dans la mesure o{\`u} elle {\guillemotleft} appelle notre attention sur ce qui est juste sous nos yeux, mais que nous ne voyons pas, par manque d{\textquoteright}attention tout simplement, ou m{\'e}pris {\guillemotright} (Laugier 2009). De surcro{\^\i}t, en optant pour une esth{\'e}tique parcellaire, fragmentaire, l{\textquoteright}auteure inscrit la vuln{\'e}rabilit{\'e} non seulement au c{\oe}ur, mais aussi dans le corps m{\^e}me du texte.

Dans le pr{\'e}sent article, je me propose d{\textquoteright}examiner les liens que le texte tisse entre corpor{\'e}it{\'e} et postures du care. Je tenterai notamment de montrer comment l{\textquoteright}attention accrue {\`a} la singularit{\'e} des corps permet une {\guillemotleft} reconfiguration de l{\textquoteright}exp{\'e}rience commune du sensible {\guillemotright} (Ranci{\`e}re 2008).

Author Bio

Asma M{\textquoteright}Barek est doctorante {\`a} l{\textquoteright}Universit{\'e} de l{\textquoteright}Alberta (Edmonton, Canada), charg{\'e}e de cours {\`a} la facult{\'e} Saint-Jean et chercheuse associ{\'e}e au Centre de litt{\'e}rature canadienne de l{\textquoteright}Universit{\'e} de l{\textquoteright}Alberta.

}, url = {https://romancesphere.fas.harvard.edu/files/romance/files/asma-harvard-paper.pdf}, author = {Asma M{\textquoteright}Barek} } @proceedings {1120316, title = {CORPS NATURELS ET D{\'E}SIRS "CONTRE-NATURE" : Jeux narratifs dans le Roman de Silence}, year = {Working Paper}, abstract = {

Cette communication vise {\`a} interroger une {\oe}uvre en ancien fran{\c c}ais du XIIIe si{\`e}cle, le Roman de Silence, au regard des questionnements actuels sur le genre et la sexualit{\'e}. Ce roman met en sc{\`e}ne les aventures d{\textquoteright}une jeune fille noble {\'e}lev{\'e}e comme un gar{\c c}on qui devient m{\'e}nestrel puis chevalier dans une Angleterre mythique post-arthurienne ; Silence triomphe dans toutes les {\'e}preuves qui se pr{\'e}sentent {\`a} lui/elle, mais son refus de l{\textquoteright}amour de la reine, au m{\'e}pris des conventions courtoises, provoque finalement le d{\'e}voilement de sa vraie {\guillemotleft} nature {\guillemotright} (terme utilis{\'e} dans l{\textquoteright}{\oe}uvre), c{\textquoteright}est-{\`a}-dire l{\textquoteright}identit{\'e} de genre qui lui a {\'e}t{\'e} assign{\'e}e {\`a} la naissance par une Nature all{\'e}goris{\'e}e.

Je veux interroger la possibilit{\'e} d{\textquoteright}une lecture transgenre du Roman de Silence et de sa mise en sc{\`e}ne d{\textquoteright}un conflit entre la nature et l{\textquoteright}{\'e}ducation, et m{\textquoteright}int{\'e}resser particuli{\`e}rement {\`a} la signification du d{\'e}sir dans cette {\oe}uvre : corps d{\'e}sir{\'e} et corps d{\'e}sirant, impossibilit{\'e} du d{\'e}sir ou homo-{\'e}rotisme latent... Le Roman de Silence d{\'e}ploie un ensemble de jeux narratifs autour des d{\'e}sirs et des corps s{\textquoteright}appuyant sur une opposition entre le naturel et le contre-nature dans le domaine du genre et des actes sexuels, tout en d{\'e}viant ostensiblement des mod{\`e}les courtois de la litt{\'e}rature m{\'e}di{\'e}vale, ouvrant au sein du corpus des romans arthuriens tardifs des possibilit{\'e}s de r{\'e}flexion sur le genre, le corps, la nature et le d{\'e}sir, qui n{\textquoteright}ont peut-{\^e}tre pas encore {\'e}t{\'e} assez explor{\'e}es par les universitaires.

Author Bio

Graduate student (PhD) in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan, I am working on Medieval French literature with interests in gender studies, queer theory, and critical animal studies. Previously, I worked on masculinity in Arthurian chivalric romances during my studies in France (M.A., Universit{\'e} de Caen-Normandie, D{\'e}partement des Humanit{\'e}s et Sciences Sociales).

}, url = {https://romancesphere.fas.harvard.edu/files/romance/files/arevelle_-_silence_01.pdf}, author = {Anthony Revelle} } @proceedings {1120312, title = {BORDER QUEERS: WRITING THE GENDER OF BOUNDARIES - A comparative reading of Gloria Anzald{\'u}a{\textquoteright}s Borderlands/La Frontera and Ananda Devi{\textquoteright}s {\`E}ve de ses d{\'e}combres}, year = {Working Paper}, abstract = {

Borders have traditionally been seen as places where people and cultures mix and bleed into one another, even though they\ exist to prevent exactly such an exchange. How can we reconcile the ambiguous nature of the border as that which forbids entry whilst generating both a point of access and the desire for it? I will explore this paradox through a comparative study of Ananda Devi{\textquoteright}s {\`E}ve de ses d{\'e}combres, and Gloria Anzald{\'u}a{\textquoteright}s Borderlands/La Frontera.\ {\`E}ve and Gloria\ are\ two women on the edge of their communities. As bilingual, biracial and gay/bisexual women they don{\textquoteright}t fit in on\ either side of the wall; my thesis is that they become the wall itself. In Anzald{\'u}a{\textquoteright}s text, the US-Mexico border is described as an {\textquotedblleft}open wound{\textquotedblright} which {\textquotedblleft}staking fence rods in my flesh, / splits me splits me{\textquotedblright}: a body both active and passive, a phallic serpent which she erects as the symbol of her womanhood. Similarly, {\`E}ve closes in like a wall\ around all those who fall for her and prevents them from escaping Troumaron, while she is herself besieged, and her body is a wall where everyone leaves their mark. Are the ruins of the title her own, or just the rubble she leaves behind? By reading Devi and Anzald{\'u}a through classic works of postcolonial and queer theory, I want to uncover whether and to what extent borders can\ be read (and written) as hybrid bodies or whether they demand permanent crossing over.

Author Bio

Francesca Bellei is a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at Harvard University. She holds a BA in Classics from the University of Cambridge and an MLitt in Creative Writing from the University of St Andrews. Her research interests include queer, feminist and migration theory, as well as postcolonial and Mediterranean studies.

}, url = {https://romancesphere.fas.harvard.edu/files/romance/files/border_queers.pdf}, author = {Francesca Bellei} } @proceedings {1119526, title = {NATHALIE SARRAUTE{\textquoteright}S TROPISMES AND THE METAPHOR OF TISSU}, year = {Working Paper}, abstract = {

When Nathalie Sarraute depicts a knitting woman in her 1932 novel Tropismes, a figure {\textquotedblleft}silent and apart, her head bowed modestly, counting her stitches under her breath{\textquotedblright} (31), I argue that she points to such a woman as a means of thinking through ideas about the texture and materiality of a woman{\textquoteright}s interiority. Meditatively counting her stitches, the knitting woman appears to turn within, using her handicraft to gain access to her interiority while building fabric on her needles. Taking an interest in this and several other examples of women engaging with fiber arts, fabric, and textiles in Sarraute{\textquoteright}s novel, my paper examines the link between these activities and the French word tissu. In an effort to illuminate connections between Sarraute{\textquoteright}s depictions of women using fabric and Sarraute{\textquoteright}s simultaneous fascination with the female body, I contend that the dual nature of the meaning of tissu becomes crucial, first in its understanding as cloth or fabric and second in its understanding as bodily tissue. Like a spider, weaving a web from its own secretions, the knitting woman takes control of the substance akin to bodily tissu emerging from her interior. Engaging both feminist and psychoanalytic approaches, my paper foregrounds Sarraute{\textquoteright}s tissu as a way of thinking about the novel itself as a secretion of its author{\textquoteright}s interiority, an embodied web of ideas and images over which its female author has agency and power in the act of her weaving.

Author Bio

Olivia Carpenter is a second-year PhD student in the English department at Harvard. Her work primarily focuses on race and gender in the long eighteenth century in literature from Great Britain and beyond, though she maintains broader interests in feminist literary criticism and the novel.

}, url = {https://romancesphere.fas.harvard.edu/files/romance/files/tropismes_and_the_metaphor_of_tissu_romance_sphere_version.pdf}, author = {Olivia Carpenter} } @proceedings {1119473, title = {APHASIA, APHONIA, AND ALTERNATE ARTICULATIONS: Francophone Polyphonic Narratives and Assia Djebar{\textquoteright}s L{\textquoteright}amour, la fantasia}, year = {Working Paper}, abstract = {

Gayatri Spivak{\textquoteright}s seminal essay, {\textquotedblleft}Can the Subaltern Speak?,{\textquotedblright} assumes that subaltern speech can be physically produced but cannot be {\textquotedblleft}heard{\textquotedblright} or circulated without becoming complicit in the task of imperialism. How then, can we understand the inability to physically produce articulate vocal utterance within the postcolonial context? If the voice, or the ability to articulate coherently is privileged, what then, is the place of inarticulations in a landscape fixated on retrieving and rehabilitating the articulate voice? How is language implicated in silence or in inarticulate vocal expression such as the incoherent cry or wail? This paper examines the question: can the subaltern physically speak? By interrogating how the disruptive forces of aphasia, aphonia, and {\textquotedblleft}alternate articulations{\textquotedblright} work within the polyphonic narrative technique of L{\textquoteright}amour, la fantasia (1985) by Assia Djebar, this paper argues that focusing upon physical (bodily) processes of producing inarticulate utterances and silence intervenes in the task of speaking and writing in the colonizer{\textquoteright}s language.

Author Bio

Zhe Geng is a third year PhD student in the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University. She works on Transnational Anglophone, Sinophone, Japanese, and Francophone literature with a focus on Asian American literature.

}, url = {https://romancesphere.fas.harvard.edu/files/romance/files/geng_corpus_romance_sphere.pdf}, author = {Zhe Geng} } @book {1039116, title = {Telescopio di Galileo Morra Bucciantini telescopio recensione}, year = {2000}, publisher = {ELOISA MORRA Il telescopio di Galileo. Una storia europea by Massimo Bucciantini, Michele Camerota, Franco Giudice Einaudi, 306 pp., ill., {\texteuro} 25.00}, organization = {ELOISA MORRA Il telescopio di Galileo. Una storia europea by Massimo Bucciantini, Michele Camerota, Franco Giudice Einaudi, 306 pp., ill., {\texteuro} 25.00}, abstract = {

{\textquotedblleft}Spesso {\textendash} scriveva Aby Warburg {\textendash} {\textquotedblleft}il buon Dio si annida nei dettagli{\textquotedblright}. Ed {\`e} in due dettagli dei quadri sottostanti che {\`e} racchiusa la metamorfosi d{\textquoteright}uno strumento che avrebbe smosso e rovesciato il mondo come lo si era conosciuto dalle origini fino al primo decennio del Seicento: il telescopio. Sono entrambi di mano di Jan Brueghel il Vecchio, che li dipinse a distanza di un decennio.

}, author = {ELOISA MORRA} }