We are pleased to share details of the upcoming online launch of Queer(y)ing Bodily Norms in Francophone Culture, edited by Dr Polly Galis, Dr Maria Tomlinson, and Dr Antonia Wimbush, on Thursday 10th June from 5 – 7PM (UK time). Please see below for further details, including how to register.
If you’re an SFPS member and have a recent publication or upcoming event that you’d like us to promote, please get in touch with our publicity officers, Fraser McQueen (f.j.mcqueen1@stir.ac.uk) and Orane Onyekpe-Touzet (orane.touzet@warwick.ac.uk).
About the book:
Queer(y)ing Bodily Norms in Francophone Culture is an edited volume that questions how a wide selection of restrictive norms come to bear on the body, through a close analysis of a range of texts, media and genres originating from across the francophone world and spanning the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Each essay troubles hegemonic, monolithic perceptions and portrayals of racial, class, gendered, sexual and/or national identity, rethinking bodily norms as portrayed in literature, film, theatre and digital media specifically from a queer and querying perspective. The volume thus takes «queer(y)ing» as its guiding methodology, an approach to culture and society which examines, questions and challenges normativity in all of its guises. The term «queer(y)ing» retains the celebratory tone of the term «queer» but avoids appropriating the identity of the LGBTQ+ community, a group which remains marginalized to this day. The publication reveals that evaluating the bodily norms depicted in francophone culture through a queer and querying lens allows us to fragment often oppressive and restrictive norms, and ultimately transform them.
The launch will feature talks by the book’s editors, invited speakers Prof. Lisa Downing and Dr Elliot Evans (who provided the endorsements for the book), and a selection of our contributors:
· Seth Compaoré: “Male Bodily Poetics in André Téchiné Quand on a 17 ans (2016): Physical Violence and Teenage Passion”
· Adina Stroia: “Lesbian Selves: The Figure of the (Body) Double in Marie Nimier’s Works”
· Kathleen Rizy:“Motherhood Reconceived: The Posthuman Future is Female in ‘Mon mari le clone’ by Marie Darrieussecq”
· Vanessa Lee: “The Female Body in the Plays of French Caribbean Women Writers”
· Brian Troth: “Hookups: Social Networking and Digital Bodies in Twenty-First-Century France”
· Jennifer Boum Make: “Exploring Encounters in Passages by Emile Ollivier: The Role of Testimonial Responsibility to Othered Bodies”
· Kate Foster: “The Cyborg’s Undecidable Body: A Game of ‘Who am I?’ in Gaston Leroux’s La Poupée sanglante”
· Kathryn Chaffee: “Dance as Encounter in the films of Claire Denis”
· Cristina Onesta: “Dysfunctional Bodies, Dysfunctional Gazes: Artistic Creation and Death in Manger l’autre by Ananda Devi and Le Génie d’Abou by Isabelle Boni-Claverie”
· Sara Bédard-Goulet, “14 or the Missing Arm: Ontological Instability of the French Contemporary Novel in Jean Echenoz’s Work”
If you would like to attend, please register via our Eventbrite link to receive the Zoom link nearer the time of the event.
The book will be published very soon, so do keep a look out on Peter Lang’s website.
Attendees are eligible for a 30% discount when purchasing the book.
Best wishes
Dr Polly Galis, Dr Maria Tomlinson and Dr Antonia Wimbush (editors)
