Shifting Borders: Theory and Identity in French Literature

This volume, containing selected papers from a conference held by the Department of French in the University of Cambridge in 1999, addresses the exciting and challenging figure of the shifting border in modern French literature and literary theory. Using a variety of critical approaches, the contributors map the fluctuating borders in specific literary texts and explore how these moving boundaries reflect on their practice of literary analysis. Inspired by the ideas of European and American thinkers, including Giorgio Agamben, Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan and Jean-Fran?ois Lyotard, they consider three major areas of current concern: the construction of identity, the conceptualisation of literary genres and the demarcation of geographical and cultural domains. Applying their insights to a wide-ranging corpus of francophone texts, this volume analyses the work both of canonical figures such as Mallarm?, Proust and Zola and of lesser-known writers such as Aim? C?saire, Assia Djebar and St. John Perse.

Author: Peter Collier

Publisher: Peter Lang Ltd, International Academic Publis

Publication Date: Jun 06, 2001

Number of Pages: 212 pages

Binding: Paperback or Softback

ISBN-10: 3906766861

ISBN-13: 9783906766867