ORCID
0000-0001-6476-3443
Date of Award
5-6-2024
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Type
Dissertation
Abstract
This dissertation argues that a selected group of French narratives published between 2010 and 2022 by emerging authors Édouard Louis, Nicolas Mathieu, David Lopez, Marin Fouqué, Simon Johannin, Thomas Louis, Joffrine Donnadieu, Salomé Kiner, and Théo Veillon engage in a dialogue with the discourse of the periphery described primarily by the polemicist Christophe Guilluy as the homogenous communities where the ordinary white ethnic French people live, the foil to the bustling urban centers across France and the racialized banlieues surrounding them. Per this discourse, the ignored periphery deserves to be the face of contemporary French marginality. By claiming association with this discourse to different extents, these narratives may initially appear to validate it. A closer look, however, reveals that instead they challenge this discourse in two notable ways. First, they show that the periphery is best described in terms of common but not identical affective attachments of boredom, anguish, shame, and anger in relation to place rather than by a kind of territorial essentialism that attributes specific qualities to urban, periurban, and rural regions and their residents. Second, by pointing out how these affective relations are intertwined with the perspectives of minorities (of class, gender, ethnicity, disability, and sexuality) they aim to provide a more complex vision of the periphery that is not based on the exclusion of some non-normative subjects and the privileging of others. Ultimately, I argue for an intersectional feminist reading of these narratives that distances them from reactionary, nativist political tendencies in contemporary France.
Language
English (en)
Chair and Committee
Seth Graebner
Recommended Citation
Lopez Rivera, Salvador, "The France No One Cares About: Affect and Marginality in Narratives of la France Périphérique, 2010-2022" (2024). Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 3042.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/art_sci_etds/3042