French and Francophone Literature Commons^™

Alterite, Performance, Hybridite: Une Esthetique De La Troisieme Vague Feministe, Michèle A. Schaal

Michèle A. Schaal

France has recently experienced a renewed interest in feminist and gender-related issues. Both in academia and society at large, a younger generation of theorists, authors and activists, influenced by American third-wave feminism and gender studies, has reasserted the necessity to fight for equal rights. My research reveals that as early as the mid-nineties, French writers Marie Darrieussecq, Virginie Despentes and Nina Bouraoui anticipated these feminist discourses in their early novels. In particular, they mirrored the concepts of alterity, gender performance, and hybridity currently at stake in this third wave of French feminism. My dissertation investigates the literary manifestations of these …