French and Francophone Literature Commons^™

Desire As A Framework For Adaptation: Examining Aku No Hana As An Unconventional Adaptation Of Les Fleurs Du Mal, Zoe Dalley

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

In this project, I began by arguing that the 2009 to 2014 manga series Aku No Hana by author and artist Shūzō Oshimi should be considered an unconventional adaptation of the 19th century collection of poems Les Fleurs Du Mal by French poet Charles Baudelaire. I then turned my analysis to the practice of adaptation more broadly, using desire, a central theme to both of my chosen primary texts, as my lens through which I examined some of the central complexities and paradoxes inherent to adaptation, such as the simultaneous expectation of textual faith and a new authorial vision. I …

Sans Hommes, On N’Est Pas Rien”: Defying Patriarchy And Reclaiming Voices In Les Rivières, Warisara E. Sawin

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

This article explores Jennifer Solheim’s conceptualization of “the call to listen” in postcolonial Francophone cultural production, as she argues for the importance of engaging with and responding to immigrant and minority narratives within this cultural milieu. This article further explores the dynamic relationship between media consumption and artistic creation, specifically the innovative realms of “accented” and “intercultural” cinema that have emerged from the conditions of globalization and migration. The unique cinematic languages of these forms convey the intricate experiences of those living in exile or as part of post-migratory populations.

An in-depth analysis is presented on Mai Hua’s documentary Les …

When Critics Are Artists: Ekphrasis In Erotic Art Criticism, Joanna A. Ligon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In “Against Interpretation,” Susan Sontag argues for an erotics of art in art criticism in place of hermeneutics. In this thesis, I examine erotics of art, a focus on form and experiencing art instead of exclusively on content, in practice. Drawing on other essays by Sontag, specifically the essay “Godard” in comparison with the filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard’s own filmic criticism in Breathless, criticism according to an erotics of art becomes a new artwork itself. Subsequently, I present a definition of erotic through Anne Carson and Roland Barthes and juxtapose the term with Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics. The comparison ultimately undoes …

Unnatural Issue: Gendered Adaptations Of “Peau D’Âne” In Contemporary French And English Texts, Amy M. Martin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Unnatural Issue: Gendered Adaptations of “Peau d’Âne” in Contemporary French and English Texts explores trans-genre and transmedia adaptations of Charles Perrault’s seventeenth-century fairy tale using feminist and narratological theories to examine gendered aspects of storytelling and the treatment of father-daughter incest and blame in the work of selected French, British, and American creators. Texts are read comparatively, with analyses of the adaptations’ plots, motifs, characterizations, and modifications, both in relation to Perrault and to the other adaptations. This dissertation features prose and poetry texts by female authors—including Christine Angot, Catherine Cusset, and Emma Donoghue—in the first two chapters. Reading these …

Autoportrait D’Un Auteur En Exil : Une Magie Ordinaire De Kossi Efoui, Morgan Faulkner

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Kossi Efoui’s sixth novel, Une magie ordinaire, constitutes his intellectual autobiography in that it follows the reconstruction of an “intellectual development” (Paul Ricoeur, 1995) by retracing his own trajectory as a writer in exile, born and raised in a dictatorship, forced to live the last days of his mother’s life away from her. This study explores the role played by private life, history, and literature in the reconstruction of the writer’s trajectory that unfolds in this novel. How do these three themes, and the discourses that accompany them, interact with each other to build the self portrait of an …

Présence Francophone, Numéro 101

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

No abstract provided.

Le Goût Du Transfert. Dany Laferrière Depuis Sa Vieille Ford Des Années 80, Bernadette Desorbay

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Dany Laferrière’s chronicles which make up Les années 80 dans ma vieille Ford (2005), are presented in the form of snapshots around situations and personalities that marked him in Haiti, and in North America where he took refuge in June 1976 (Montreal followed by stays in New York and Miami). He talks about colleagues from Le Petit Samedi Soir or intellectuals he portrayed in New York for Haïti-Observateur, with whom he crossed swords on more than one occasion. Throughout his work and up to the Petit traité du racisme en Amérique (2023), he participates in the genre of intellectual autobiography …

Parties Annexes (N° 101)

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

No abstract provided.

Front Matter And Table Of Contents (N° 101)

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

No abstract provided.

L’Autobiographie Intellectuelle De V. Y. Mudimbe Et Les Enjeux De La Différence, Justin Bisanswa

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Based on Les corps glorieux des mots et des êtres. Esquisse d’un jardin africain à la bénédictine, this text would like to analyze, at the confluence of sociology and rhetoric, the modalities (with their variations and their extensions) by which V. Y. Mudimbe broadens intellectual autobiography to other modes of writing and functions as a dialogic space between poetry and prose, experience and fantasy, reality and imagination. Retracing his pathway, Mudimbe makes his text a journey within oneself, a quest for the “absolute elsewhere” or a quest for the total Self. A feeling of lack emerges which explains this …

Une Autobiographie Intellectuelle De Maryse Condé : Vivre Et Écrire, Josias Semujanga

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

In this study of autobiography by French-speaking writers, we propose to construct a syntax for the genre, after recalling the great difficulty of tackling such a vast subject for so long. From then on, any study of autobiography implies confronting it with other related forms, such as essays, memoirs, autofiction, testimonies or diaries, all characterised by the assumed subjectivity of the “I” narrator, who recounts a life journey as well as a personal reflection on world events. The general idea defended here is that the grammar of intellectual autobiography presents itself as a narrative posture that needs to be thought …

V.Y. Mudimbe Et La Recherche D’Une Parole Pour-Soi : L’Essai Philosophique Aux Prises Avec L’Autobiographie : Vivre Et Écrire, Kasereka Kavwahirehi

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This article aims at two closely linked objectives : on the one hand, to show how the philosophical essays of V. Y. Mudimbe carry autobiographical sequences which complete or explain certain passages of his intellectual autobiography (The glorious bodies of words and beings) and, on the other hand, to question the stakes of such a rather singular practice in African philosophy. The basic hypothesis is that this practice is to be understood from an important moment in his intellectual development, namely May 68 and what has been called “La pensée 68” within which two antagonistic tendencies oppose each …

Présentation, Olga Hel-Bongo

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

No abstract provided.

Discours Des Autres Et Récit De Soi : L’Autofiction Intellectuelle Chez Ananda Devi, Nina Bouraoui Et Shumona Sinha, Florian Alix

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Some autofictional texts tend to refer to a socio-historical context through the exploration of a specific subjectivity. On the first hand, telling the self enables to show a singularity which puts in perspective a collective situation by revealing its intersectional complexity. On the other hand, appears the burden of collective normative discourses, which literary writing try to interrogate and distance through valorization of body and affects.

Gisèle Pineau, Pour Une Auto-Gyno-Biographie Littéraire Et Intellectuelle Guadeloupéenne, Françoise Simasotchi-Bronès

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Unlike other authors in her literary field (P. Chamoiseau, R. Confiant, M. Condé, D. Maximin, etc.), Gisèle Pineau did not write an “intellectual or literary” autobiography strictly speaking ; we can nevertheless reconstruct it from the various interviews she has given or other writings in which she reflects on creative practice. The author draws her scriptural inspiration from empirical models, listening to the life stories (often involving violence) that West Indian women whisper to each other in the privacy of the kitchen. Discreetly disqualifying the scholarly literate library, it favors the female oral library, an illiterate memorial motherhood heritage which …

Les Écritures De Soi Entre Identité Éclatée Et Identité Réconciliée. Une Herméneutique De La Pratique Autobiographique Intellectuelle Chez Maryse Condé Et Henri Lopes, Gervais Désiré Yamb

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This article aims at analyzing the heuristic status of self-writing through the articulation of shattered and reconciled identity in La vie sans fards (2012) of Maryse Condé and Ma grand-mère bantoue et mes ancêtres les Gaulois (2003) by Henri Lopes. In fact, we argue that the articulation in question, here, appears as writing for oneself and for others, which is based on a hermeneutical perspective of the self and the sociality of texts proposed by Paul Ricoeur and Claude Duchet. The main objective of this investigation is to understand, in Condé and Lopes writings, the practice of intellectual autobiography as …

Index (N° 101)

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

No abstract provided.

Abstracts (N° 101)

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

No abstract provided.

Figures Of Radical Absence: Blanks And Voids In Theory, Literature, And The Arts, Alexandra Irimia

Languages and Cultures Publications

Although post-structuralism highlighted the importance of what is offstage, lost, forgotten, hidden or discarded, silent or silenced, the poetics and politics of absence (much like its ethics and aesthetics) have rarely been discussed across media and disciplines. This book proposes the concept of ‘radical absence’ to describe a certain tradition of resistance to ontology, predication, and representation, contesting their reliance on a metaphysics of presence. Apophatic speech, empty signifiers, and figural voids are some of the figures through which radical absence becomes apparent with unprecedented intensity in twentieth-century theory, literature, film, and the arts. Phantasmatic and outrageous, such figures play …

Présence Francophone, Numéro 100

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

No abstract provided.

Sembène Ousmane, Un Cinéaste En Guerre, Léthicia Obono Ngou-Milama

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

If he is mobilized, enlisted in the corps of “Senegalese Riflemen” of the French army during the Second World War, the war inflicts a deep wound to Sembène Ousmane. This shocking and traumatic experience will tirelessly inspire his literary and cinematographic work. With his camera and his acerbic gaze, the Senegalese filmmaker will address the tragic fate of African soldiers and will restore the indelible imprint of war and colonialism on Africa in his films Niaye (1964), Emitaï (1971) and Camp de Thiaroye (1988).

Hybridité Et Ironie Dans Le Mandat D’Ousmane Sembène, Florence Leca Mercier

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Hybridity is the discursive pattern which best expresses the postcolonial experience. Given the interweaving of the aesthetic and the political projects in Sembène’s work, we would like to show that stylistic hybridity in the short story Le mandat emerges in three fields, lexical, enunciative and intertextual, and generates irony, thus connecting aesthetics and politics. In terms of lexicon, hybridity means a combination of idioms or registers; as far as enunciation is concerned, hybridity meets the “discours mixtes” as defined by Laurence Rosier; finally, we can see an intertextual hybridity: Le mandat is built on an underlying folktale structure which relevance …

Éditorial, Jean Ouedraogo

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

No abstract provided.

Les Actes Révolutionnaires De La Gent Féminine Dans Les Bouts De Bois De Dieu D’Ousmane Sembène, Assane Ndiaye

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

As a committed writer, Ousmane Sembène reminds the critical struggles led by women during the railway workers’ strike with the intention of taking part in the establishment of more fair world. The social commitment of the man originated from Ziguinchor is supported by various feminine figures embodying the ideology of the Senegalese novelist about freedom of speech. In order to show that Sembène is a revolutionary, we focused on ten militants in Les bouts de bois de Dieu. Through a sociocritical approach, this article has tried to reveal women’s activism.

Index (N° 100)

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

No abstract provided.

Front Matter And Table Of Contents (N° 100)

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

No abstract provided.

De Marseille À Moscou : Retour Sur Le Contexte Politique Des Années De Formation D’Ousmane Sembène (1946-1962), Gabrielle Chomentowsky

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This article seeks to reconsider through some archival documents and testimonies the first years of political and artistic formation of the writer-filmmaker Ousmane Sembène, from his years in Marseille to his first trips to the Soviet Union in 1958 and 1962.

Écritures Dans Les Films D’Ousmane Sembène : Enjeux Linguistiques Et Réception Cinématographique, Louis Ndong

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The article deals with the written elements in Ousmane Sembène’s films. I point out all aspects relating to the written canal in Sembène’s cinematographic productions (opening and end titles, signs, mentions on cars, etc.). The interest of the study lies in the functions assigned to the written canal in interplay with the dialogues and sounds, but also in the use of languages in writings and the challenges that are linked to it. Through the analysis, we can observe written elements in Wolof as well as in French, two languages which play an important role in Sembène’s cinematographic aesthetics.

La Diffusion En France Des Longs Métrages D’Ousmane Sembène, Claude Forest

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Ousmane Sembène is one of the French-speaking South Saharan African directors who has been the most prolific, but also, with Idrissa Ouédraogo, the one who has been the most broadcast in French cinemas during his lifetime. Although many of his films were favorably received by critics, they met with very little enthusiasm among French viewers, its recognition by certain cinematic circles and its aesthetic aura being thus incomparable with its commercial success. The analysis points to Ousmane Sembène’s real strategy, which adopted a strategy of international recognition by festivals, not by foreign audiences.

Logique Mathématique Dans Le Docker Noir D’Ousmane Sembène, Pierre Ndemby Mamfoumby

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The present article examines Le docker noir taking into account the narrative trajectory of Diaw Falla as well as the triangular relationship between Diaw-Catherine-Ginette which inscribes the novel in what we call a "double negative narrative". The narrative, through intertextual contamination with the story of Sirius, the slave trader, not only translates the separation/loss of Senegalese symbols and identity on the other side of the Atlantic, but also allows us to look at the novel as an indication of inequality, a place of sometimes impossible transmission and reconciliation with African historical memory through slavery. Studying the narrative from a mathematical …