Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Foreword by Baroness Jean Coussins
- Foreword by His Excellency Bernard Emié
- Part I Contextualisations
- Part II Research and Public Engagement Strategies
- Part III The Place of Women and Gender in French Studies
- 6 Gender and the French Language: The longue durée of French Studies in the UK
- 7 Contemporary Women's Writing in French: Future Perspectives in Formal and Informal Research Networks
- 8 French Studies and Discourses of Sexuality
- Part IV The Place of Literature
- Part V The Place of Linguistics in French Studies Today
- Part VI Theatre, Cinema and Popular Culture
- Part VII Area Studies, Postcolonial Studies and War and Culture Studies
- Part VIII Adventures in Language Teaching
- Appendices. Addresses to the Future of French Studies Conference
- Index
8 - French Studies and Discourses of Sexuality
from Part III - The Place of Women and Gender in French Studies
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Foreword by Baroness Jean Coussins
- Foreword by His Excellency Bernard Emié
- Part I Contextualisations
- Part II Research and Public Engagement Strategies
- Part III The Place of Women and Gender in French Studies
- 6 Gender and the French Language: The longue durée of French Studies in the UK
- 7 Contemporary Women's Writing in French: Future Perspectives in Formal and Informal Research Networks
- 8 French Studies and Discourses of Sexuality
- Part IV The Place of Literature
- Part V The Place of Linguistics in French Studies Today
- Part VI Theatre, Cinema and Popular Culture
- Part VII Area Studies, Postcolonial Studies and War and Culture Studies
- Part VIII Adventures in Language Teaching
- Appendices. Addresses to the Future of French Studies Conference
- Index
Summary
In his scintillating volume, Freud, Proust and Lacan: Theory as Fiction, Malcolm Bowie writes of the ‘profoundly unsettling view of human sexuality enshrined’ in the later volumes of A la recherche du temps perdu. Bowie writes wonderfully about the narrator's attachment to Albertine:
The asking of questions about Albertine – has she had lesbian relationships in the past? is she having, or contriving to have, such relationships now? how can truth be distinguished from falsehood in Albertine's reports on her actions and feelings? – is presented as one of the narrator's inescapable emotional needs. His mind comes to specialise ever more devotedly in the production and transformation of anxiety, and in the telling of tactical lies designed to surprise Albertine into self-disclosure.
Bowie traces the relation between interpretation and desire in this long novel, responding to the two as interminable, and infinitely involved with one another. Looking beyond previous critical attempts to locate Albertine and define her sexuality, Bowie reminds us that ‘Albertine's sexuality remains an enigma’. He continues: ‘Albertine cannot be known, unless this interminable passage from structure to structure is itself knowledge and our other notions of what it is to know are the products of a lingering infantile wish for comfort or mastery.’
It has now long been recognised that literary and cultural studies in France have felt the impact of queer studies and of theoretical investigations of gender, pursued in the USA and UK, only latterly.
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- French Studies in and for the 21st Century , pp. 95 - 104Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2011