Résultats de recherche

Revue: Romanica Silesiana

Femmes et francophones Pour un dépassement des marginalités dans les constructions genrées

Hélène Barthelmebs

Langue: FR | Date de publication: | Résumé

Women and French-speaking Writers. Move Beyond Marginalities in Gendered Constructions

Writing, for female authors, and above all for French-speaking writers, is a transgressive act. The double marginalization provided by these peripheral statuses, when compared to the emblematic figure of the “French writer”, leads to the question of the construction of “decentered” identities. By focusing exclusively on works from (the) Francophone literature (those by Assia Djebar, Anne Hébert and Alice Rivaz), this study of feminine identities and women’s literary constructions analyzes parallel themes inherent to literary female characters: they are simultaneously the reflection of social realities and an ideological deconstruction. The paper also examines linguistic and stylistic features involved in the delineation of feminine writing. French-speaking works generally propose the destruction of frozen identities, reflecting the phenomena more or less marked by transculturation, (such as the deconstruction of literary genres, and the subversion of the cultural heritage of the “dominant”). There are numerous similarities between the situation of the colonized and of women, namely, the stereotypes that transform them into a subculture in which they are seen as objects rather than subjects.

Key words: Gender Studies, francophone literatures, woman’s writing, 20th century literature, norm, transgression.



Revue: Romanica Silesiana

Hushed Bodies, Screaming Narratives: The Construction of Trans-Identity in 19th- and 20th-Century French Literature

C.J. Gomolka

Langue: EN | Date de publication: | Résumé

Michel Foucault described 19th-century France as a period of intense sexual scrutiny as well as a watershed moment that gave birth to the formal recognition, evolution, and study of “deviant” sexual identities. While this may be true, modern French studies still idle in examining the epistemological effect of this operative change in French ideology, society, and more specifically literature. If studies into 19th- and 20th-century French gay and lesbian literatures and ideologies have begun to flourish in some academic francophone circles, trans-literature has been overlooked. Moreover, this critical oversight inadvertently highlights the all too often modern omission of the “T” in the LGBT community. This article will place the works of five French authors spanning the 19th and 20th centuries in communication with contemporary queer theory in an attempt to examine the nascent evolution of what today might be considered transgender identity, as well as analyse the meaning attached to queer identities during this period in French and francophone literatures.


Key words: transgender, queer theory, 19th century, 20th century, France, narrative.



Revue: Romanica Silesiana

Stéréotypes et identité narrative des personnages dans Au commencement était la mer, de Maïssa Bey

Salah Ait Challal

Langue: FR | Date de publication: 31-03-2021 | Résumé | p. 253-261

In this contribution, we try to show how Maissa Bey tells, through stereotypical linguistic and narrative categories, the experience of emblematic characters carrying narrative identities contradictory, in an Algerian society in crisis. These identities reveal conflicts dealing with the underestimation of the female gender.

2021-03-31



Revue: Romanica Silesiana

Dinamiche identitarie nel contesto coloniale ne L’abbandono. Una storia eritrea di Erminia Dell’Oro

Wiesława Kłosek

Langue: IT | Date de publication: | Résumé

The main goal of the present analysis is to show the formation of four characters’ identity in the colonial times. The analyzed novel is set in an Italian colony called Eritrea. There are four main characters: Carlo from Italy, Sellas from Eritrea, and their children Marianna and Gianfranco. They are all interpreted with reference to the three concepts related to the notion of belonging, namely, “I,” “we,” and “others.” The changes which take place in their personal and social identities are examined, as the characters form bonds with one another and with the society. They are examined as representing the following identity models: “individual identity,” “social identity,” “balanced identity” and “lack of identity.” These forms of identity, however, are never definitive because the shaping of identity is always a dynamic process, and thus every social or cultural context may require that identities be reformulated. The novel may be interpreted not only as the memoirs of the colonial times, but also as a tribute paid to the colonists, the colonised, and specifically to the Métis people who had to take up the challenge of redefining themselves. The author also encourages the reader to reflect on today’s nomadic, multiethnic, postmodern societies.


Key words: Italian postcolonialism, identity dilemmas, Italian literature of migration, Erminia Dell’Oro.



Revue: Romanica Silesiana

Pertinences et apories d’une lecture féministe de La Princesse de Clèves au regard de la théorie queer

François-Ronan Dubois

Langue: FR | Date de publication: | Résumé

Insights and Limitations of a Feminist Reading of La Princesse de Clèves According to Queer Theory


Often interpreted from the feminist perspective, La Princesse de Clèves has come to represent a tale of feminine oppression and feminine heroism. As enlightening as such a reading may be, this paper seeks to further explore the gendered identities at stake in the novel, with the help of a Nietzschean queer theory. Underlining the role of Madame de Clèves in the economy of desire that constructs space and power in the world of the text is an important step toward a more subtle understanding of the narrative.

Key words: Clèves, Lafayette, queer, feminism, 17th century.



Revue: Romanica Silesiana

Políticas de género en El beso de mujer araña de Manuel Puig

Katarzyna Soboniak

Langue: ES | Date de publication: | Résumé

Gender politics in The Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig

The objective of the present work is to study the constructions of sexual identities that are found in The Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig. In order to clarify this concept, it is important to contextualize the book in its period, its area of political conflicts that were present in Argentina in the 70s, as well as in the significantly phallic-centered society. Subsequently, through the use of dichotomies, the text will analyze the problem of the rigidity of the binary logic and, at the same time, will present new forms of gender-sexual constructions. Finally, this article will investigate the notion of homosexuality as a transgressive practice that questions the hegemonic discourse of heterosexuality seen and understood as the only legitimate orientation.


Key words: Manuel Puig, gender, sexuality, heterosexual hegemony, politics.




Revue: Romanica Silesiana

Sexual Politics: Mapping the Body in Marguerite Duras’s L’Amant

Richard J. Gray II

Langue: EN | Date de publication: | Résumé

In L’Amant (1984), through the juxtaposition of traditional male/female sexual roles, Marguerite Duras painted a gynocentric portrait of sexual politics. By depicting a series of encounters in diverse parts of the Indochinese (Vietnam) landscape, Duras’s novel described the sexual “coming of age” story of her female protagonist’s. Each Vietnamese setting became a visual and sensory metaphor for the various developmental stages of the protagonist. In this essay, I contend that Duras’s use of contrasting settings serves to “flesh out” the sexual politics conveyed in the novel. Herein, I examine the geographic locations illustrating the sexual politics of the novel, including the Mekong River signifying the female protagonist’s rite of passage, Cholon, the city where the girl experiences sexual liberation and a struggle with the established authority, the lover’s apartment where the couple consummates their relationship, and finally, France representing the land of wealth to which the protagonist will eventually return.


Key words: autobiography, Judith Butler, Cholen (Cholon), colonisation, crossing, gender, juxtaposition, Marguerite Duras, Julia Kristeva, liberation, liminal space, mapping the body, Mekong, Kate Millett, Other, post-colonial, prostitution, sexploitation, sexuality, sexual politics.

In L’Amant (1984), through the juxtaposition of traditional male/female sexual roles, Marguerite Duras painted a gynocentric portrait of sexual politics. By depicting a series of encounters in diverse parts of the Indochinese (Vietnam) landscape, Duras’s novel described the sexual “coming of age” story of her female protagonist’s. Each Vietnamese setting became a visual and sensory metaphor for the various developmental stages of the protagonist. In this essay, I contend that Duras’s use of contrasting settings serves to “flesh out” the sexual politics conveyed in the novel. Herein, I examine the geographic locations illustrating the sexual politics of the novel, including the Mekong River signifying the female protagonist’s rite of passage, Cholon, the city where the girl experiences sexual liberation and a struggle with the established authority, the lover’s apartment where the couple consummates their relationship, and finally, France representing the land of wealth to which the protagonist will eventually return.


Key words: autobiography, Judith Butler, Cholen (Cholon), colonisation, crossing, gender, juxtaposition, Marguerite Duras, Julia Kristeva, liberation, liminal space, mapping the body, Mekong, Kate Millett, Other, post-colonial, prostitution, sexploitation, sexuality, sexual politics.

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