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.
Committee Chair
Seth Graebner
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Author's Department
Romance Languages and Literature: French Language and Literature
Document Type
Dissertation
Date of Award
5-6-2024
Language
English (en)
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7936/rdh9-4z58
Author's ORCID
0000-0001-6476-3443
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 Theses and Dissertations. 3042.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.7936/rdh9-4z58