French and Francophone Literature Commons^™

Écrire Pour Résister : La Littérature Francophone En Algérie Face Aux Enjeux Politiques Contemporains, Chiraz Amani

Department of French Studies Graduate Student Association Conference

Cette communication propose d’interroger le rôle de la littérature francophone en Algérie dans le contexte politique, social et mémoriel du XXIᵉ siècle, à travers l’analyse d’œuvres contemporaines de Hind Soyer, Kamel Daoud, Kaouther Adimi et Samir Toumi. À rebours des discours annonçant l’obsolescence des études littéraires, ces textes montrent que la littérature demeure un espace privilégié de réflexion critique, de résistance symbolique et de mise en récit des tensions qui traversent la société algérienne contemporaine.

Dans des genres variés — autofiction, roman historique, fiction politique ou récit mémoriel — ces auteurs interrogent les héritages de la colonisation, les impensés de …

Transcending Postcolonial Boundaries In Tierno Monénembo’S Saharienne Indigo, Aviana R. San Souci

Department of French Studies Graduate Student Association Conference

Tierno Monénembo’s Saharienne Indigo tells the life story of Véronique, a woman from Guinea with a past of violence and loss, told through her interactions with the annoying and persistent Frenchwoman madame Corre. Despite these two women’s opposing affiliations with a colonized country and the one that colonized them, the two develop a close friendship throughout the book. Theirs is a relationship that defies the claims laid out in Aimé Césaire's Discours sur le colonialisme that between the colonizer and the colonized, there is only space for negative sentiments and violent actions- never sympathy. The bond between Véronique and madame …

The Narrative Voice And The Fragmented Self In Black Skin White Masks, Emmanuella Abaidoo Kwarteng

Department of French Studies Graduate Student Association Conference

No abstract provided.

Libération Educative À Travers La Poésie Africaine Francophone: Les Contributions Pédagogiques De David Diop Et De Léopold Sédar Senghor, Stanley Ugochukwu Dibiah

Department of French Studies Graduate Student Association Conference

Cet article met en avant l'impact transformateur de la poésie africaine francophone dans la reconstruction de l'éducation postcoloniale et l'encouragement d'un changement sociétal durable. Suite à la période coloniale, la poésie en Afrique francophone est apparue non seulement comme une expression artistique, mais aussi comme un outil puissant pour redécouvrir l'identité, la langue et l'histoire. Bien que les aspects culturels et politiques de la littérature postcoloniale aient attiré une attention académique significative, son utilisation dans l'éducation reste encore insuffisamment exploitée. Cette recherche examine comment les œuvres poétiques de David Diop et de Léopold Sédar Senghor peuvent être employées comme des …

La Satire, Un Outil Pour La Conscience Sociale : Le Rôle Public De La Littérature Aujourd'hui, Arshdeep Kaur

Department of French Studies Graduate Student Association Conference

No abstract provided.

Survive Or Perish: Violence As A Survival Strategy For Abandoned Youth In Mayotte In Natacha Appanah’S Tropique De La Violence., Lydia Gyamfi

Department of French Studies Graduate Student Association Conference

No abstract provided.

1990s Alt Music Slang And Socioeconomic Precarity In Despentes’ "Vernon Subutex" Series, Daniel J. Lightfoot

Department of French Studies Graduate Student Association Conference

In a time of widespread cynicism and disillusionment with the political and economic status quo in France, how can literature give a voice to those discontents while inspiring hope? My contribution will explore Virginie Despentes’ use of slang from 1990s French alternative music subcultures in her narrative depictions of contemporary economic precarity and social alienation in the Vernon Subutex series (2015-17). I will discuss how Despentes uses French slang to establish a distance between economically marginalized characters and more affluent Parisians, highlighting how the former draw on vocabulary from Anglophone indie rock and hip-hop subcultures as an expression of a …

On Literature And Inclination, Maria Laura Cucciniello

Department of French Studies Graduate Student Association Conference

I would like to discuss how literature can serve as an antidote to self-isolation and how it functions as a means to create relationships between humans, thereby providing meaning for life itself. To address this topic, one could recall Judith Butler’s reinterpretation of Adriana Cavarero’s theory of inclination (2021: 46-62). In the philosophical field of ontology, inclination works as an illustration of two different ways of existing: inclined and vertical. Both positionalities correspond to two different ontologies, namely one of caring and one of self-sufficiency. As interesting as the philosophical instances brought by Cavarero and Butler are per se …

De La Saleté A La Poésie : Portrait De La France Périphérique Dans L’Été Des Charognes De Simon Johannin, Julie Catel

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

Simon Johannin's debut novel, "L'Été des charognes," published in 2017, offers a vivid portrayal of life in La Fourrière, an isolated village located in the Vosges. This area falls within what the French sociologist Christophe Guilluy terms 'France périphérique,' which refers to rural regions plagued by poverty and a sense of neglect. Through the perspective of an adolescent narrator, Johannin depicts the village's harsh daily reality, emphasizing its pervasive violence and the filth that characterizes its landscape. The narrative is saturated with descriptions of unpleasant odors, particularly from the decomposing carcasses of farm animals awaiting disposal, which permeate the village …

Death, Dreaming, And Diaspora: Achieving Orientation Through Afro-Spirituality, Liz Johnston, Jaime Elizabeth Johnston

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Enslavement, colonization, and the systems that uphold racial injustice were and still are a series of new, unfathomable, and challenging experiences that prompt individuals within the diaspora to seek orientation. How does a human cope with centuries of attempts at the systematic destruction of their humanity, culture, and identity? How can they reclaim that identity, especially when so much of it seems lost? I address these questions by utilizing texts from the expansive body of work regarding ethnographic-historical-religious studies on Afro-spiritual practices to better analyze instances in literature in the ongoing practice of diasporic orientation. In this project, I argue …

Gendered Violence And The Family: An Analysis Of The 14th-Century Epic "Lion De Bourges", Ashley Paige Holt

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is the first to focus on gender roles within the fourteenth-century French epic Lion de Bourges and the first work to feature extensive translations into English of this medieval text. Using the cyclical dismemberment and reunification of the Bourges family as a lens, it brings into focus the various members of the family, their relationships, and the larger thematic questions about family and society put forward by the poet. Chapter one interrogates the notion of the king as a national father figure as well as the spread of injury and violence from the father/king to the members of …

Writing Exclusionary Spaces: Myths, Tropes, And Stereotypes Surrounding The Roma In 19th- And 20th-Century French Literature, Jade Scottie Basford

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The “gypsy” figure has been popular in popular culture for hundreds of years – certainly since the 1600s. The figure can embody wanderlust, difference, bold sexuality, freedom, danger, and criminality. In 19th-century France, the figure’s trendiness was apparent in literature. Writers such as Victor Hugo, George Sand, Charles Nodier, and Prosper Mérimée profited from using these figures in writing. Most criticism of these works focuses on the origins of the tales or critical analyses of the narratives themselves. This research expands upon the extant scholarship to develop an overview of the usage of this figure as it moved throughout the …

The Stylistic Development Of Jean Despujols (1886-1965), Kelly M. Ward

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis is the first comprehensive scholarly analysis of the life and most extant works by Jean Despujols. The French and later naturalized American painter, writer, poet, philosopher, deep-thinker, and mystic was best known for his Neoclassical and academic style. This thesis briefly discusses the artist’s beginnings as a young painter at the School of Fine Arts in Bordeaux and in Paris, his sketches in the trenches of the First World War, his time at the Villa Medicis after winning the distinguished Rome Prize, and his paintings and thoughts as a philosopher and political writer throughout his life. An outstanding …

Bernard Palissy: Early Career - Securing Patronage And Mimicking Nature In A Moment Of Crisis, Karissa Bailey

LSU Master's Theses

Early in 1562, France was experiencing a state of high religious tension between Protestants and Catholics that would precipitate the outbreak of the Religious Wars on March 1. A week before, Bernard Palissy, a Huguenot potter, wrote a letter to his Catholic patron from prison inBordeaux where he was being held on charges associated with an iconoclastic incident in his home city of Saintes. This letter would later be published as a dedication letter for the pamphlet Architecture et Ordonnance, which featured the description of a grotto commissioned by Anne de Montmorency, Palissy’s patron, seven years earlier. This thesis analyzes …

L'Apport Des Écrivains Catholiques Du Début Du Xxe Siècle Au Roman D'Analyse À Travers Leur Étude Du Mariage, Edouard D'Espalungue D'Arros

LSU Master's Theses

The psychological novel (roman d’analyse) as a genre starts in France with Mme de Lafayette (1634-1693) in the seventeenth century with the publication of La Princesse de Clèves (1678). However, the use of a psychological perspective is less known among early twentiethth century catholic authors. At the beginning of the century, several authors have used this genre extensively to convey their moral message: Paul Bourget (1852-1935); Henry Bordeaux (1870-1963); and Émile Baumann (1868-1941). The works of these writers have not been the object of research when it comes to analyzing their views and their accounts of their epoch. …

"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 …

The Child Ethnographer In The Field: Examples From English, Spanish, And French Caribbean Literature, Emily Ann O'Dell

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation I consider the child to be an ethnographer in works of fiction and autofiction from the Caribbean islands. Through their liminality as culturally and developmentally betwixt or between, their cultural malleability, their linguistic fluidity, and their curiosity, the child becomes a "native" ethnographer who is capable of translating the culture (both linguistically and culturally) for the reader in order to establish understandings of Caribbean cultures. This is accomplished through the creation of hybridized or creolized texts that have many of the same characteristics as postmodern ethnographies.

In the English Caribbean Xuela provides an ethnographic perspective of Dominican …

In Between Realms: The Search For Feminine Selfhood In The Essais Of Montaigne, Anna Suarez

Comparative Woman

My purpose is to explore factors of the Renaissance that determined women’s selfhood in Montaigne’s Essais. I argue that the shift into modernity is responsible for the loss of women’s autonomy as well as the anxiety experienced by men regarding their power as well as their potential. Montaigne and Renaissance discourse defines women only by their bodies (sexual organs) and I explore the elements that established biological essentialism. This paper exemplifies comparative literature in the sense that it combines literature, theory, and art for the purpose of creating a well-researched examination of the root causes for why women were …

Le Roman Policier Francophone : Entre Esthétique Et Politiques Du Genre En Afrique Et En Haïti, Lise Madeleine Mba Ekani

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

My dissertation, “Recasting Crime Fiction: The Francophone African and Haitian Crime Novel between Aesthetics and Politics”, investigates the social and literary meanings of the concept of politics as represented in African and Haitian crime novels. In this work, selected novels were examined considering their cultural, regional and linguistic particularities, as well as their perspectives on social criticism and politics. Drawing from fields such as sociocritical theory, philosophy, and history, this work allows for a more complex exploration of popular cultural productions while calling into question the literary genres. Consequently, it provides the opportunity to question cultural productions as an ideological …

Bending Gender In French Literature, Jacey Flatte

LSU Master's Theses

This paper looks at French literature that defies binary and heteronormative gender roles and identities. The literature spans from the seventeenth- to the nineteenth-century. My goal is not only to bring these pieces of literature to light, proving that non-binary genders have existed long before the recent liberal LGBTQIA+ movement, but also to help modernize these identities from the past. In doing this, I aim to explain that contemporary gender identities are not new, but timeless. The experiences seen in this literature are strikingly similar to how people experience gender today. As a result, I hope that readers will be …

In The Blood: Repressing Reproduction In The French Convent From Sanguinity To Sexuality, John Stanley Patin

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This project examines the French convent as a convergent point of evolving blood myths in the eighteenth century. According to Michel Foucault, as a society transitions from sovereign power to more liberal forms of government, the target of how power is enforced shifts as well: from the punishment of individuals who pose a threat to the crown to the regulation of perceived “deviants” who threaten the health and stability of the nation’s population. As the eighteenth century was a time of radical social change, the era encapsulates a prime moment for the study of continuities and discontinuities of these various …

Chambres Noires, Champ De Bataille : Analyse Des Rapports Interraciaux Dans La Chambre À Coucher Dans Les Romans Comment Faire L’Amour Avec Un Nègre Sans Se Fatiguer De Dany Laferrière, La Fin D’Un Primitif De Chester Himes, African Gigolo De Simon Njami, L’Impasse De Daniel Biyaoula Et Le Film Les Princes Noirs De Saint-Germain-Des-Près De Ben Diogaye Beye, Fabienne Marie-Dominique Kanor

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The slave ship’s hold is the only place Black people put in chains can appropriate. There is no other place they can claim as their own since they know nothing of the New World to which they are being deported by force. A space where the memory of the native land quickly deteriorates, the hold becomes the main “home” with which the uprooted captives can identify. Therefore, it becomes a “lieu de mémoire”, a place that keeps traumatizing the descendants of people enslaved, to the point that it poisons the most intimate space of all: the bedroom. This dissertation is …

She Must Be Crazy: Alternative Realities In Contemporary Francophone Literature, Emily Barclay Spriggs, Emily Barclay Spriggs

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Globally and historically, madness appears as a prominent socio-medical concern that also occupies a significant space in literary tradition. There has been an increase in the number of scholars who study madness and literature in postcolonial works. However, the predominant view and treatment of madness – both socially and medically – adheres to the European, white male construct that has informed a more or less universal regard of those who suffer from mental woes: they are deranged, sick, ill. This poses a problem for postcolonial works when we consider the sexist and racist implications in psychology that were enhanced through …

Introduction To A Poetics Of Diversity: English Translation Of Édouard Glissant’S Introduction À Une Poétique Du Divers, Julee Rebecca Laporte

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Sainte-Beuve French Literary Critic 1804-1869, Sylvia Colon

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.