Sumários
8 Fevereiro 2023, 14:00
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Chiara Nifosi
Today we discussed in detail Ernaux' novel, particularly the sections included in the readings for the week. The main points that we touched are the following:
- The incorporation of voices through a(n often inconsistent) set of strategies: quotes, discours indirect libre, italics, absence of punctuation, etc. We connected the hectic appearance of images in the first part to the attempt of reproducing the workings of personal memory.
- In the first part, we analyzed those fragments where reflections on men/women relationships and women's positionality within society are involved. We focused on the quote from Mme de Stael (Folio 17) and how it sets the boundaries of women's agency.
- We commented on the use of photographs as tools that provide order and structure to the narrative, as well as objectivity. By looking at Roland Barthes' considerations on photography, we also mentioned how pictures restore physical presence, thus "translating" the need to reinstate the body in the flux of History.
6 Fevereiro 2023, 14:00
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Chiara Nifosi
During the session, I introduced briefly some aspects of Ernaux' biography (social background, political activism), as well as the key features of her literary production, especially the autobiographical content of her works and her sociological insight. We read and commented on her acceptance letter of the Nobel prize in 2022.
We also discussed the genre of Les Années and the use of pronouns that Ernaux makes in the novel - how the use of nous/elle/on affects the reading and with what purpose. In order to understand her stylistic strategies (refer to the notion of énonciation, who speaks, for whom they speak, etc.) we looked at the text "Un je transpersonnel" (1993), where se explains the evolution of narrative voices in her novels from Les Armoires vides to La Place.
We reflected on the passage from pure autobiography to Ernaux' attempt to incorporate History in her narrative through a polyphony of voices.
1 Fevereiro 2023, 14:00
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Chiara Nifosi
During class, we completed our analysis and discussion of Simone de Beauvoir's intro to Le Deuxième sexe:
- The initial quotes from Pythagoras and Poulain de la Barre.
- The relationship between the sexes: Subject vs. Other (essential vs. inessential).
- The inferiority of women as a result of a long historical process.
- Women's body as an obstacle in the asymmetrical relationship between men and women.
The second part of the class revolved around the history of feminism in France from the aftermath of WWII to the 1970s:
- Pro-birth policies in the 40/50s
- The centrality of the body within the debates about the sexual liberation in the 60s.
- The fight for the decriminalization of the abortion, from the Code Pénal (1810) to the Loi Veil (1975): the importance of the Manifesto of the 343 and the Bobigny Trial. We read and commented on the text of the Manifesto-petition authored by Simone de Beauvoir.
30 Janeiro 2023, 14:00
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Chiara Nifosi
The first part of the class consisted in a lecture on the history of feminism in modern France, from the post-revolutionary era to World War II:
- The history of the word "féminisme" (political and medical/biological implications).
- Proto-feminism during the revolutionary era (Olympe de Gouges, Théroigne de Méricourt).
- The subordination of women in the Civil Code (1804).
- The relationship between feminism and socialism in the 19th century (Fourier, saint-simonisme, Proudhon and Jeanne Deroin's candidacy in the 1849 elections).
- Maria Deraismes and the modification of the Civil Code.
- Feminism at the Belle Epoque (féminisme bourgeois).
- The entre-deux-guerres and the universal suffrage.
The second part consisted in the discussion on the Simone de Beauvoir's introduction to Le Deuxième sexe (1949):
- The relationship between Simone de Beauvoir and feminism as articulated in the text.
25 Janeiro 2023, 14:00
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Chiara Nifosi
During this session, we focused on the following topics:
- The turning point in the history of Women's and Gender Studies in France in the 70s with the foundation of the center of "études féminines" by Hélène Cixous at Paris 8.
- The main theoretical approaches that flourished during the 70s / 80s: the contribution of Marxism, psychoanalysis, and postcolonial approaches (Wittig, Irigaray, Kristeva).
- Reasons why the institutionalization of Women's and Gender Studies in France and their establishment in academic settings have known obstacles in the last decades (see Berger's article in the Drive).
- Activity: we read and commented some excerpts drawn from Cixous' "Le rire de la méduse" (the tension between individual and collective action, appropriation of the topos of maternity as a source of a unique female voice, etc.).