French and Francophone Literature Commons^™

Aquatic Interrelations In Malika Mokeddem’S Novel N’Zid (2001), Laura C. Klein

Green Humanities: A Journal of Ecological Thought in Literature, Philosophy & the Arts

This article offers an ecological analysis of Malika Mokeddem's novel N'Zid (2001), moving beyond postcolonial and anthropocentric interpretations. It centers on the protagonist Nora's individuation, arguing this process is intrinsically linked to her evolving relationship with the aquatic environment from which she emerges. The article aims to situate N'Zid within an ecological perspective, particularly relevant in the Anthropocene, an era compelling a reassessment of humanity's place. Echoing Bruno Latour, addressing inter-relationality is essential as the stable physical framework of the Moderns becomes unstable. This view necessitates rethinking environmental issues and encourages a scientific interpretation of the novel, drawing on neurosciences, …

Pages De Voyage, Voyages De Pages: A La Recherche Du Sacré Dans La Poésie De Silvia Baron Supervielle, Peter Schulman

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications

La poesie de Silvia Baron Supervielle decrit souvent des voyages (Pages de voyage; Lectures du vent, Sur le fleuve), des voyages elementaires de feu, d'eau et d'air, ainsi que des voyages abstraits de mots et d'absence de mots, d'abimes et de transports, avec des questions sans reponse comme a la fin de Lectures du vent: « ou all er pour/ que le mot occupe/ le silence1. » Certes les themes du voyage et l'idee d'etre entre deux pays, par exemple, ponctuent la prose de Baron Supervielle, mais ses livres de poesie mettent en avant surtout des voyages metaphysiques de l'exterieur …

Rues Étrangères (À Nous-Mêmes): 'Les Enchantements Ordinaires' De Sarah Marylou Brideau, Peter Schulman, Benoit Doyon-Gosselin (Ed.), Julien Desrochers (Ed.), Nicolas Nicaise (Ed.)

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications

[Premier paragraphe] Comme les titres de ses trois recueils de poésie l’annoncent (Romanichelle, Rues étrangères et Coeurs nomades1), les poèmes de Sarah Marylou Brideau ont tous comme moteur un esprit bohémien qui la pousse à rechercher de nouveaux mondes hors de son domicile et à se demander : « Ça sert à quoi d’avoir une maison / sans avoir de chez soi ? » (RE, 55). Or, les espaces qu’elle creuse ne sont ni lointains ni exotiques, mais plutôt tout simplement quotidiens. En effet, par le biais des cafés, des clubs de jazz, des rues qu’elle fréquente, elle découvre un …

Le Déchirement Du « Wa » Japonais : Histoire(S) D’Aki Shimazaki, Peter Schulman

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Introduction, Peter Schulman

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications

[First paragraph] An Excusion at Sea, The Thousand and Second Night, La Guimard ... For over a hundred and fifty years, these plays languished in Jules Verne's desk and then on the dusty shelves of the Nantes Municipal Library before Christian Robin was able to publish them in 2005, in honor of the centenary of Verne's death. That anniversary triggered a plethora of commemorations, new editions of Verne's works, events, and conferences, among many different activities and endeavors. Robin's remarkable collection included all of Verne's previously unpublished plays in a volume titled Theâtre inédit, issued by the …

Ghosts In The Machine: Narratives Of Disappearance In French Fiction From The 1990'S, Peter Schulman

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications

This article examines narratives of disappearance in two French novels from the late 1990's, J.B. Pontalis's Un homme disparait and Marie Darrieussecq's Naissance des fantomes, which are reflective of a general trend towards ghostliness in French fiction towards the end of the twentieth century. The article argues that these novels are emblematic of a fin de siecle malaise that Marc Auge termed surmodernite and that Paul Virilio has identified in terms of an era characterized by so much speed (as a result of an overabundance of technological innovations in communication such as email and faxes) that individuals have become less …

Melancholic Mirages: Jules Verne's Vision Of A Saharan Sea, Peter Schulman

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications

L’invasion de la mer (The Invasion of the Sea), Verne’s last novel to be published during his lifetime, would appear to be a paradoxical vision of French colonial involvement as it chronicles the attempts of the French army occupying Tunisia and Algeria to capture Tuareg leaders bent on pushing the French out of the Maghreb on the one hand, and thwarting an environmentally disastrous French project on the other. L’Invasion de la mer (The Invasion of the Sea) is a complex, if not melancholic vision of the limits of French expansionism, however. The real-life French army geographer François-Elie Roudaire and …

Le Jeune Dreams Of Moose: Altered States Among The Montagnais In The Jesuit Relations Of 1634, Drew Lopenzina

English Faculty Publications

This article explores ruptures of colonial representation in the 1634 contribution of Paul Le Jeune to the Jesuit Relations, particularly in regard to Le Jeune’s intense antipathy to the faith Native Americans placed in dreams and dream interpretation. Native peoples had highly ritualized frameworks for interpreting dreams that stood in stark opposition to the expressed evangelical agendas of the Jesuits. The Montagnais, with whom Le Jeune wintered in 1633–34, used dreams to speak to manitous, who would assist them in finding game and other endeavors. Dreaming itself, with its claims to prophetic vision, was a phenomenon that threatened to override …

Précisions Sur Les Vagues/On Waves, Marie Darrieussecq (Author), Peter Schulman (Translator)

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Books

Powerful and poetic prose meditation on oceanic energy by French author, Marie Darrieussecq. Translated from the French by Peter Schulman, ODU Professor of French and International Studies.

The Weight Of Secrets: Hidden Mirrors Of Identity In Aki Shimazaki's Pentalogy, Peter Schulman

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications

In Tsubaki, the first of Aki Shirnazaki's series of five novels, a Rashomon 1-like pentalogy in which the same characters try to unravel the persona} traumas oftheir lives right before the atom bornb hits Nagasaki, the city that they have just moved to, one of the main characters, Yukio, cries out: "Ce n'est pas le temps de chercher la vérité, c'est l'unité qui compte" (Tsubaki 53). ln that instance, he was defending a young Korean unjustly accused of theft. Cou Id the same be said for the rest of Shimazaki's novels? Indeed, in Tsubame, for example, the narrator, a Korean …

Représentations De La Mort Dans La Chine De Claudel Et De Verne, Peter Schulman

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Jazz Critic As Flâneur, Peter Schulman

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications

“I love to watch you play,” a reporter once said to Duke Ellington during a television interview. As Ellington gracefully moved up and down the keyboard, he replied, grinning wistfully, “Playing? I’m not playing . . . I’m dreaming!”1 For the poet Jacques Réda, whose most famous works such as Les ruines de Paris (1977) and Amen (1988) chronicle his experiences as a modern flâneur in a Paris which is sometimes overtaken by what Marc Augé has labeled surmodernité,2 or an anaesthetizing over-abundance of technology and empty modern spaces, Réda has also led another life as a jazz critic, …

Jules Verne's Very Far West: America As Testing Ground In Les 500 Millions De La Bégum, Peter Schulman

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications

[First Paragraph] In his famous interview with the American journalist Robert H. Sherard in 1894, Jules Verne, nearing the end of his life, regretted not being able to see America one last time. "I should have liked to have gone to Chicago this year," he lamented, "but in the state of my health [...] it was quite impossible. I do so love America and the American," he continued, "As you are writing for America, be sure to tell them that if they love me- as I know they do, for I receive thousands of letters every year from the States- …

Lost In Translation: Decoding Rabelais, E. Ashley Hall

Institute for the Humanities Theses

The purpose of this research project is to demonstrate that the traditional analysis of Rabelais's Pantagruel has been superficial and has failed to answer or resolve the controversy over the real message of the text. Many critics have speculated that the text is anti-Christian but have failed to conclusively prove this claim. As a result, there is an opposing group of critics who have countered this position ultimately challenging that it can not be proven that the text is really anti-Christian. Using the rhetorical mnemonic approach developed by Daniel Martin, I am able to show that the text is based …

Le Célibataire Invisible: Solitude Et Fantastique Dans Le Secret De Wilhelm Storitz, Peter Schulman

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications

[First paragraph]

Anne Macvicar Grant, poétesse écossaise vivant à New York à la fin du dix-huitième siècle, concevait les célibataires en termes d’êtres « qui passaient à travers la société comme des fantômes silencieux, et qui, de toute évidence, se considéraient assez supérieurs aux autres » (“passing in and out [of society] like silent ghosts and seeming to feel themselves superior to the world.”¹ De même, Jean Borie identifie le célibataire par rapport à son invisibilité aux yeux d’un monde qui ne cesse de le rejeter : « Le célibataire, » conclut Borie, «quoique gris muraille et presque invisible …

L'Espace Du Célibataire Fantastique: Le Secret De Wilhelm Storitz, Peter Schulman

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Burn The Panopticon: Irigaray's Ethics, Difference, Poetics, Simone Roberts

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph of Prologue]

The following essay has a purpose more than a thesis. This essay explains the central tenets of Irigaray's ethics of sexual difference through an understanding her work as that of a symbolist philosopher. Symbolist poetry and French Feminist philosophy like Irigaray's have several qualities in common. One is that the literal level of language is not where the action is. A reader must think associatively on many levels at once in order to gather and interpret the several indirect messages sent by a particular image or metaphor. Another is an acquired comfort with paradox. Paradoxes lie …

Spivak After Marx After Derrida, Philip Leonard

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Spivak is often viewed as an unequivocally deconstructive theorist, and she frequently reinforces this impression by proclaiming her allegiance to Derrida's ideas. Recent comments by her suggest, however, that there are limits to her deconstructive convictions. This essay considers some of Spivak's debts to Derrida's work, though it is primarily concerned with those occasions when she states her misgivings about his ability to understand postcoloniality, global power, and resistance movements. Reading Marx more accurately would, she insists, have allowed Derrida both to grasp capitalism's complex logic and to consider the effects of subaltern interventions upon capitalism's global authority. Such an …

Autor De L'Excentricité De Phileas Fogg Et Du Captaine Nemo, Peter Schulman

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications

[Premier paragraphe] Pour l'excentrique "décadent" du XIX siècle, le mariage de la modernité avec la technique aboutissait à une crise de névrose et de caprice emblématique de la retraite (Des Esseintes à Fontenay-les-Roses dans Á rebours de Huysmans) ou, comme c'était le cas d'Anatole Baju, le fondateur de la revue Le Décadent, à l'avant-garde de son temps, Phileas Fogg et le capitaine Nemo sont plutôt représantatifs d'une synergie des notions d'innocence et de fantaisie de l'excentricité anglaise avec les inventions et les appropriations de territoire de la France au XIXe siècle.

Freud's Jewish Science And Lacan's Sinthome, David Metzger

English Faculty Publications

In chapter nine of Seminar XVII, Lacan writes that the position of the analyst cannot be separated from Jewish history (158). More particularly, the invention of analytic discourse is part and parcel of a Hebraic tradition--represented by the Book of Hosea--in which one's god underscores the fact that even if everyone is speaking (let's say about sexual knowledge) this does not mean everyone is saying something. One of the defining moves of a Jewish Science, in this specific frame of reference, would be to situate the knowledge, "There is no Other," precisely where other intellectual and religious traditions establish their …