Literary History and Alterity

Workshop - 10:00 AM
Contact Cosana Eram for RSVP and pre-circulated paper: cosana@stanford.edu

Lecture - 4:00 PM
No RSVP required

Professor Lionnet discusses the various issues surrounding French literary identity. She examines the increasing award-winning French literature coming from writers outside of France and current issues of the term 'Francophone.' Moreover, Prof. Lionnet analyzes that attempts to create the notion of a world literature in French.

Synopsis

Prof. Lionnet begins by revealing that French literature is no longer conventionally French. Prof. Lionnet explains that there are many ‘canonical figures’ who are Francophone but do not have lineage in France. She cites the key poetic movements of the 18th century that opened the way for romanticism and poeticism in prose of three Creole poets notably including the poet Parny. In France, he was seen as Creole. In Russia, where he spent some time during his travels, Parny was seen as French. Prof. Lionnet moves on to discuss the role of Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) which seeks to promote the French language and oppose the universality of English. Prof. Lionnet also focuses on the tension between the writers’ identity being defined by the language they write in or by their political, social, and ethnic situation. This debate extends into the wider problem of the hierarchy caused by the Francophone system because it arguably impedes French-speaking writers’ access to the same literary glory as native French writers, not in line with the ideals of the French republic. Prof. Lionnet then begs the question of how are we to name this new global literature and how are to deal with this universalism. Prof. Lionnet concludes the first part of her talk by proposing that universalism is the core of the issue. The question lies in how far we are ready to accept differences in the approach to French literature.

Prof. Lionnet begins the second part of her talk by explaining that questions of belonging are still crucial in contemporary debates of identity, especially in literature. Therefore, to Prof. Lionnet, geographically neutral methods of literary criticism fall short. Prof. Lionnet also discusses the 2007 manifesto, published in the newspaper Le Monde, for a world literature in French which crystallizes the cultural, ideological, and political issues relating to identity and language and tries to end the notion of Francophone as unemployable in French literary culture. Prof. Lionnet criticizes the manifesto in a variety of ways. First, she explains that the manifesto naively tries to decouple language and power. She also questions the ability of the French language to work as a world language in all walks of life and highlights the importance of French as a language that adapts and is influenced to wherever region it is used. In arguing against the manifesto, Prof. Lionnet finishes by saying that what is missing from the concept of a world literature in French is respect for the multiplicity of all the languages of the world.

Prof. Lionnet also kindly takes the time to answer many questions in the audience touching on multiple issues. She debates the suitability of the suffix ‘-phone’ in Francophone and analyzes tentative parallels between the situation of today and the 19th century use of ‘lower class’ language in the literature by writers such as Victor Hugo. Prof. Lionnet touches on the role of the Academie Francaise and the long time universality of France which is currently coming into question as the population itself has to deal with identity issues as its ethnic makeup continually evolves. 

About the Speaker

Françoise Lionnet is Professor of French and Francophone Studies at UCLA. Author of Autobiographical Voices: Race, Gender, Self-Portraiture (Cornell, 1989), and Postcolonial Representations: Women, Literature, Identity (Cornell, 1995);co-editor of a special double issue of Yale French Studies entitled "Post/Colonial Conditions: Exiles, Migrations, Nomadisms", and a special issue of Signs on "Postcolonial, Indigenous, and Emergent Feminisms."

Currently she is working on a book entitled Dissonant Echoes: Seduction and Disavowal in Postcolonial Novels, which is a study of Francophone Caribbean and Indian Ocean writers' re-appropriation of 19th- and 20th-century British and American classics.