French and Francophone Literature Commons^™

Queer Not: Medieval Romance's Toll On Queerness, Kyle Gaydo

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

How does a contemporary audience handle medieval queerness? What, exactly, constitutes medieval queerness, and how does the medieval literary genre of romance impact it? This thesis attempts to grapple with these questions, and many more, utilizing the 13th-century Old French romance Le Roman de Silence by Heldris de Cornuälle. Medieval romances are particularly fruitful for this analysis because, on one hand, the genre consistently re/turns to cisheteronormativity, and, on the other, because scholarship generally has not applied queer theory to the study of romance. Silence follows Silence, a young Englishwoman who is raised as a boy to protect her family’s …

« Monologue » : Une Femme Rompue Impactée Par Les Atteintes Sociétales, Sloane Larsen

World Languages Student Scholarship

“Monologue,” an essay from Simone de Beauvoir’s THE WOMAN DESTROYED, is a rambling and disjointed account of motherhood, madness, and chagrin. The short story is told by a mother named Murielle, a woman who has lost everything, including her daughter Sylvie, by suicide. Simone de Beauvoir, the author of this story, is considered the “mother” (Kruks and Coryell) of second-wave feminism and is well-known for her fight for equality between the sexes. In “Monologue,” de Beauvoir sheds light on the difficulties mothers face and proposes a reflection on life, femininity, and descent into madness. De Beauvoir incorporates her feminist theories …

Translating The Enlightenment: Women Translators In Eighteenth-Century France, Marissa Gavin

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines women translators in Enlightenment France for their strategies to achieve publication. Elite, French Enlightenment women appropriated oppressive structures and norms, redeploying them to expand their own roles. This paper examines Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni, Louise d’Epinay, and Anne LeFevre Dacier as exemplars of elite women translators who exploited gendered assumptions to gain access to print. Each of these women came from differing backgrounds, received differing levels of support from their patriarchal relations and expressed differing societal concerns through their writing. Despite such differences, Riccoboni, Dacier and d’Epinay all utilized similar strategies alongside translation to disseminate their concerns. Operating within …

Violette Leduc's Feminist Flâneries, Kaliane Ung

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Popularized by Charles Baudelaire and Walter Benjamin, the modern figure of the flâneur disrupts the pace of the city as he strolls the streets, making his way into the world through wandering and daydreaming. Assimilated to an available body to seduce, a woman walking alone does not have the same experience. However, in spite of constant interruptions in her outward and inward exploration, the flâneuse reinvents the act of walking through a form of solidarity that enables her to transcend the limits of her own body. Focusing on Violette Leduc who wrote on female sexuality in a daring way, I …

"Je Vous Donne Toute Mon Âme" : Une Traduction De L'Intimité Féminine Dans Isidora De George Sand, Shelby M. Kruger

French Honors Projects

Malgré la célébrité de l’écrivaine prolifique George Sand, plusieurs de ses œuvres restent non traduites et inaccessibles aux lecteurs anglophones aujourd’hui. Ce projet examine le livre Isidora, écrit par Sand en 1846, et fournit une traduction partielle du texte. Un essai critique accompagne cette traduction qui explore les raisons de l'obscurité de ce texte en comparaison avec d’autres œuvres de Sand, et affirme la pertinence du livre aux lecteurs anglophones du XXIe siècle. Je propose que le cœur de la pertinence et l’excellence d’Isidora réside surtout dans les relations féminines intimes que Sand a créées. La création d’une …

L’Universalité De La Voix Féminine : Interprétations Genrées De La Poésie Romantique Française Et Allemande, Mimi Mackilligan

Senior Theses and Projects

Contemporary French feminist literary critics have debated whether the category of woman is an empowering or limiting paradigm through which to analyze women writers. Hélène Cixous coined the term "feminine writing [écriture féminine]" in order to link femininity to a radical particularity, whereas Monique Wittig has asserted that this concept confines women writers to their minority identity rather than allowing them to be read universally. Such discussions serve as a useful lens through which to analyze women writers who grappled with their gendered position far before the advent of 20^th-century feminism.

Despite the abundance of woman …

Not Your Average Rose: Cultural Inversion In Pizan’S 'City Of Ladies', Alex Donley

Montview Journal of Research & Scholarship

This research addresses Le Livre de la Cité des Dames—translated into English as The Book of the City of Ladies—as an outstanding work of proto-feminist literature from 1405. It is written by a woman, in defense of women. Christine de Pizan plays the central character in her own work, in which she combats misogyny with a revised account of history. She battles prevalent ideals of courtly love and gender inequality as things that are not merely repulsive or immoral, but wholly heretical. Rather than focusing on historical accuracy, de Pizan uses the literary power of her narrative to …

Diana Holmes. Middlebrow Matters: Women’S Reading And The Literary Canon In France Since The Belle Époque. Liverpool Up, 2018., Dantzel Cenatiempo

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Diana Holmes. Middlebrow Matters: Women’s reading and the literary canon in France since the Belle Époque. Liverpool UP, 2018. 222 pp.

Queer Displacements: Minorities, Mobilities, And Mobilizations In French And Francophone Literature, Thomas Muzart

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Focusing on the work of Virginie Despentes, Jean Genet, Guy Hocquenghem, and Abdellah Taïa, this dissertation challenges the antisocial turn taken in queer theory, by means of a parallel study of the authors’ geographical and intellectual itineraries. While critics like Leo Bersani and Lee Edelman have suggested that the revolutionary potential in queer identity lies in its opposition to romanticized forms of community, I argue, along with José Esteban Muñoz, that their praising of singularity and negativity is similarly extreme. Alternatively, my study shows how the geographical displacements both experienced and imagined by my primary authors can illuminate the passage …

Honoré De Balzac’S Portrayal Of The Feminine Condition In The Wild Ass’S Skin, Père Goriot, And The Lily Of The Valley, Brooke V. Musmeci

Honors Theses

In 19th century France, women appeared to be second class citizens. They were often limited in their abilities to have independence and secure their own wealth. This perception of women perhaps justifies why, as Honoré de Balzac’s novels illustrated the realities of French society, he attempted to characterize women’s struggles to obtain control and power in their lives. In his novels The Wild Ass’s Skin (1831), The Lily of the Valley (1835), and Le Père Goriot (1835), Balzac sought to prove how women could improve their lot.

Firstly, in studying how women had been relegated to second-class citizens under their …

La Princesse Adrosis Fille De L'Empereur Hadrien: Sainte Et Martyre, Laila Fares

Showcase of Faculty Scholarly & Creative Activity

Le présent ouvrage est l’ensemble de leçons hebdomadaires que j’enseignai il y a quatorze ans. Le vif intérêt que témoignèrent mes étudiants à la princesse Adrosis m’avait encouragé à poursuivre l’histoire en prose, au-delà du petit poème que j’avais composé en 2003 au jour de sa fête célébrée au synexaire copte le 18 Hathor. Les questions de compréhension et de réflexion qui suivent chaque leçon peuvent servir dans un but didactique ou ludique. Vous pouvez en faire une activité de loisir ou d’enseignement pour l’édification et le développement spirituel de vos étudiants. L’histoire de la princesse Adrosis relève de l’histoire …

Simultaneous Intersectionality In The Comics Of Catel And Sabrina Jones: Understanding Women’S Life Stories, Jeorg Ellen Hornsby

Theses and Dissertations--Gender and Women's Studies

The project examines how the theories of simultaneity and intersectionality are useful in analyzing the lived experiences of the authors and their subjects. Specifically, this dissertation analyzes how French comic artist Catel and American comics artist Sabrina Jones use the medium of comics to recount their autobiographical stories within and alongside their biographical stories of Benoîte Groult and Margaret Sanger, respectively.

The Simultaneous Book: Women's Writing In Contemporary Art, Maryse Lariviere

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Novels written by women authors who don’t adhere to the classification “visual artist” are nonetheless gaining momentum in today's contemporary art world. Yet works by authors such as Chris Kraus or Catherine Millet are often not recognized as artist’s novels because their authors are not or/and do not consider themselves to be visual artists. I contend that we can usefully situate their work within the genre of the artist’s novel by addressing how they invent artistic postures and artistic alter-egos within the autofictional worlds of their texts. My dissertation The Simultaneous Book proposes to open up the definition of the …

"If They Don't Tell You, The Hair Will": Hair Narrative In Contemporary Women's Writing, Darina Pugacheva

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The history of colonial and racial oppression made hair stories and testimonials fundamental to understanding hair as a unifying element particular for women of African descent in the post-slavery era. Seen as such, their hair narrations provide the first-person perspective of their life experiences while at the same time inviting a critical investigation of colonial and racial oppression. Contemporary women writers develop these types of narrations into a special language of hair that helps them tell a story that is not apparent or straightforward. This literary device that uses hair to uncover deeper social and political issues is bound up …

Amazones Et Guerrieres Dans L'Reuvre Romanesque De Fatou Diome, Lydia Bauer

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

One enters Fatou Diome's creative work as in a wrestling arena. She features strong female narrators and characters. These, just like amazons, battle against the patriarchal system, unfair treatments and prejudices of all kinds, in order to regain their dignity and freedom. Their weapons are of the intellectual kind such as language and writing. In this article, we examine different kinds of battles featured in Diome's novels by focusing on both plot and narration.

If The Shoe Fits: Cinderella And Women's Voice, Farrah V. Kurronen

Honors Undergraduate Theses

One of the fundamental stories in fairy tale studies is "Cinderella": folkloric designation ATU 510A, the Persecuted Heroine. As Fairy tale and Folklore studies continue to evolve, authors beyond Basile, Perrault and Grimm are added into the Cinderella canon to lend a more nuanced approach to the study of this fairy tale. Yet "Cinderella" is still often interpreted as a tale of feminine submissiveness, in which the heroine is little more than a passive ornament or else a likeable social-climber. These interpretations stem largely from the focus of "Cinderella" stories written by men. Though studies of "Cinderella" are expanding, "Cendrillon", …

Meera Atkinson. The Poetics Of Transgenerational Trauma. Bloomsbury, 2017., Katie Lally

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Meera Atkinson. The Poetics of Transgenerational Trauma. Bloomsbury, 2017.

Michèle Anne Schaal. Une Troisième Vague Féministe Et Littéraire: Les Femmes De Lettres De La Nouvelle Génération. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2017., Anna Rocca

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Michèle Anne Schaal. Une troisième vague féministe et littéraire: les femmes de lettres de la nouvelle génération. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2017. xv + 344 pp.

Dorothy Moser Medlin Papers - Accession 1049, Dorothy Moser Medlin

Manuscript Collection

(The Dorothy Moser Medlin Papers are currently in processing.)

This collection contains most of the records of Dorothy Medlin’s work and correspondence and also includes reference materials, notes, microfilm, photographic negatives related both to her professional and personal life. Additions include a FLES Handbook, co-authored by Dorothy Medlin and a decorative mirror belonging to Dorothy Medlin.

Major series in this collection include: some original 18th century writings and ephemera and primary source material of André Morellet, extensive collection of secondary material on André Morellet's writings and translations, Winthrop related files, literary manuscripts and notes by Dorothy Medlin (1966-2011), copies …

Je Cuidoie Avoir Bien Fait: Saintré And The Rules Of The Game, Catherine Blunk

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

In Antoine de La Sale’s fifteenth-century work Jehan de Saintré, a point of rupture in the amorous relationship between Madame des Belles Cousines and Saintré is initiated when this young knight decides to organize and participate in an emprise (a late medieval tournament) without notifying her or asking for permission from the king of France. In this article I will show that that by failing to secure royal authorization before organizing an emprise, Saintré commits a more serious error than often acknowledged in the scholarship about this text. This is important, because many scholars read this scene as …

Brigitte Weltman-Aron. Algerian Imprints. Ethical Space In The Works Of Assia Djebar And Hélène Cixous. New York: Columbia Up, 2015. Xx+207 Pp., Anna Rocca

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Brigitte Weltman-Aron. Algerian Imprints. Ethical Space in the Works of Assia Djebar and Hélène Cixous. New York: Columbia UP, 2015. xx+207 pp.

Flora Tristan’S Plural Identities In "Peregrinaciones De Una Paria": Challenging And Reproducing Existing Power Structures, Nancy Tille-Victorica

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This article analyses the ways in which Franco-Peruvian author Flora Tristan crosses the border of her plural identities in her famous travel book Peregrinaciones de una paria (1837). It especially looks at how she performs as a male in certain situations and how these are generally associated with her French identity. It also considers her identification as a woman and how it is linked to her Peruvian identity. These examinations reveal how Tristan actually redefines herself as a pariah and how her definition differs from that of outcast imposed on her in France prior to her departure for Peru.

French Women In Art: Reclaiming The Body Through Creation/Les Femmes Artistes Françaises : La Réclamation Du Corps À Travers La Création, Liatris Hethcoat

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The research I have conducted for my French Major Senior Thesis is a culmination of my passion for and studies of both French language and culture and the history and practice of Visual Arts. I have examined, across the history of art, the representation of women, and concluded that until the 20^th century, these representations have been tools employed by the makers of history and those at the top of the patriarchal system, used to control women’s images and thus women themselves. I survey these representations, which are largely created by men—until the 20^th century. I discuss pre-historical …

Penelope’S Daughters, Barbara Dell`Abate-Çelebi

Zea E-Books Collection

A feminist perspective of the myth of Penelope in Annie Leclerc’s Toi, Pénélope, Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad and Silvana La Spina’s Penelope.

At the origin of Western literature stands Queen Penelope—faithfully waiting for her husband to come home: keeping house, holding on to the throne, keeping the suitors at arm’s length, preserving Odysseus’ place and memory, deserted for the pursuit of war and adventures, and bringing up a son alone, but always keeping the marriage intact. Yet recently the character of Penelope, long the archetype of abandoned, faithful, submissive, passive wife, has been reinterpreted by feminist criticism and re-envisioned by …

Gender: The Hidden God In Yasmina Reza's Le Dieu Du Carnage, Lauren Tilger

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Most critics have analyzed acclaimed playwright Yasmina Reza’s Le Dieu du Carnage (2007) as a descent into savagery. This close examination of the play points to the role of gender norms and stereotypes in causing the decline in civility. By taking part in a culture that worships gender ideals, the characters in Reza’s play police one another’s actions to ensure that everyone behaves like proper men and women. The act of attempting to successfully perform femininity or masculinity leads to the evening’s disastrous events. In contrast with readings that have erased gender from the power dynamics of the play and …

Marie Darrieussecq’S Clèves: A Wittigian Rewriting Of Adolescence, Annabel L. Kim

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Marie Darrieussecq's Clèves (2011) shocked readers with the vulgarity of its language and spurred controversy over its status as a literary text. In this article, I show how the novel's "bad" language is a foil for Darrieussecq's larger project of rewriting the adolescent female body, removing it from the sexualized and objectified optic through which it is usually viewed in order to stage it instead as a body in process, as a situation. For this body in process, gender and sexuality are not givens, but deeply unfamiliar experiences that resist the social order’s dominant framing narratives, its scripts for normal …

Gendered Virtue: A Study Of Its Meaning And Evolution In Early Modern France, Mariela Saad

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Virtue in early modern France was a broad concept considered by clergymen, philosophers, and moralists as an instrument for measuring and implementing human ethics. This unprecedented research seeks to track the development of the notion of virtue from a gendered and dichotomous notion to a unique and undivided term. The word virtue is constantly present in French texts such as manuels de conduite1 , since the medieval period. Thus, it can be regarded as one of the most significant concepts defining genders in Western civilization. However, it is difficult for modern readers to grasp the complexity of the debate unless …

L'Altérité Des Femmes Dans La Littérature Française Contemporaine, Loren Lee

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Treasure Hunt Without A Map: Archival Research At The University Of Pennsylvania, Meghan Strong

English Independent Study Projects

Under the supervision of Meredith Goldsmith in the English Department, I spent this semester developing archival research projects for lower level students in the humanities. My project corresponded with the aims of the Council for Undergraduate Research, which works to develop undergraduate research skills throughout the disciplines. The Kislak Center is a nearby resource that has the potential to provide students with opportunities to develop crucial research skills while discovering little pieces of history that are hidden away in the archives. The final exercises presented here focus on the subjects of Walt Whitman, Marian Anderson, and Michel de Montaigne.

Proto-Féminisme Dans L'Epistre Othéa De Christine De Pizan: Appropriation Et Réinterprétation De Deux Figures Mythologiques, Minerve Et Médée., Nathalie D. Lacarriere

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on Christine de Pizan’s mythological allegoric work entitled Epistre Othéa, written around 1400. True to the beliefs she portrays in many of her later seminal works, such as The Book of the City of Ladies, or The Treasure of the City of Ladies, Christine displays in this piece a strong didactic vision. The crucial pairing of text and image in the two manuscripts that I chose to focus on prove the power she exerted as a woman and as an artist but also mark her intention to strengthen her moral and political message through …