Synopses & Reviews
Following a long tradition of objectification, 20th-century French feminism often sought to liberate the female body from the confines of patriarchal logos and to inscribe its rhythms in writing.
But how has the promotion of 'women's writing' in such thought and literature evolved in the years preceding and following the turn of the millennium?
What sorts of bodily questions and problems do contemporary female writers evoke?
How are traditional conceptions of the boundaries of the female body contested, exceeded or transformed?
And how do contemporary philosophical discourses correspond to the ways that literary authors conceptualise, and write, the female body?
Synopsis
Amaleena Daml (c) addresses questions of bodies, boundaries and philosophical discourses in 20th-century French literature by exploring the intersections between a range of contemporary philosophers and authors on the subject of contemporary female corporeality and transformation.
Synopsis
A critical investigation of contemporary statements of the female body in French literature and philosophy
Following a long tradition of objectification, 20th-century French feminism often sought to liberate the female body from the confines of patriarchal logos and to inscribe its rhythms in writing. Amaleena Daml addresses questions of bodies, boundaries and philosophical discourses by exploring the intersections between a range of contemporary philosophers and authors on the subject of contemporary female corporeality and transformation.
Key Features
- Analyses a range of texts by Am lie Nothomb, Ananda Devi, Marie Darrieussecq and Nina Bouraoui
- Investigates key concepts in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and F lix Guattari, contemporary feminism, postfeminism, queer theory and postcolonial studies
- Offers a new, rhizomatic approach to the analysis of the female body and transformation in contemporary women's writing in French
Find Out More
- Read an interview between Crosscurrents series editor Chris Watkin and Amaleena Daml about The Becoming of the Body
Synopsis
Following a long tradition of objectification, 20th-century French feminism often sought to liberate the female body from the confines of patriarchal logos and to inscribe its rhythms in writing. Amaleena Daml addresses questions of bodies, boundaries and philosophical discourses by exploring the intersections between a range of contemporary philosophers and authors on the subject of contemporary female corporeality and transformation.
About the Author
Amaleena Damlé is Research Fellow in French at Girton College, University of Cambridge. She is a specialist in 20th and 21st century French philosophy and literature, with a particular interest in identity, the body, gender and sexuality. She is the author of several articles on contemporary women's writing in French, and the co-editor, with Gill Rye, of
Women's Writing in Twenty-First-Century France (2013),
Experiment and Experience (2013),
Aventures et expériences littéraires (2013, forthcoming) and, with Aurélie L'Hostis,
The Beautiful and the Monstrous (2010).
Table of Contents
AcknowledgementsSeries Editor's Preface
Introduction
Contemporary Women's Writing in French
1. The Orchid, the Wasp and the Text
Encountering Bodily Becoming through Deleuze and Feminism
2. Making a Body without Organs
Amélie Nothomb's An-Organic Flux of Immanence
3. Becoming Otherwise
The Transformative Encounter in Ananda Devi's Writing
4. The Flux and Folds of Consciousness
Marie Darrieussecq's Literature of Simulation and Dispersal
5. Nomadic Vitalities
Becoming Beyond Boundaries in Nina Bouraoui's Writing
Conclusion
Works Cited
Index