L’annulation du visage: une «morale substitutive»?

Cancelled face, a «moral substitute»? The pandemic affecting our world in 2020 leads us to question a centuries-old socio-cultural practice, namely the wearing of masks, and to rethink their use in light of the current context. Depending on the civilizations and eras, masks have had various functions: religious, social and artistic. None of these functions corresponds, however, to the recent use of masks. Henri Michaux, Jean Starobinski, Michel Butor and Yves Bonnefoy will help us to answer these questions: How the wearing of masks does change our relation to identity? our relationship with others? Does not seeing the whole face make it possible to see others better?

Conclusion

The Conclusion summarizes this book’s thesis, arguing that the complexity of a postmodernism conceived in spherical terms involves principled resistance to flat models of any kind. It suggests that postmodernism is not inherently defined by any specific political or religious position, and that the geography of the Oceania and the Pacific, too often regarded as illegible within postmodern designs, offers a more rounded perspective on this field, one that opens it out to global and environmental issues. With reference to the fiction of Kim Stanley Robinson, Michel Butor, and David Mitchell, this Conclusion indicates that conditions of distance, transition, and reciprocity across different vectors of the world system should contribute to the reformulation of postmodernism according to a more planetary perspective.

« Salir pour nettoyer » : autour de la notion de pureté dans la pensée de G. Bachelard et dans la prose (néo) romanesque de M. Butor

Le Nouveau romancier Michel Butor bouleverse la vision optimiste des quatre éléments de la nature élaborée, entre 1938 et 1961, par son ancien professeur de philosophie à la Sorbonne, Gaston Bachelard. Celui-ci considère l’air, l’eau, le feu et la terre comme détenteurs de qualités et de valeurs morales, à l’instar de la pureté, qui leur permet de contribuer à la transformation, tant matérielle que spirituelle, d’un monde impur en un univers immaculé. Cinq ans avant la parution du sixième et dernier essai théorique de Bachelard, Butor publie son Emploi du temps (1956), roman qui fait vaciller les principes de la vision idéalisée des éléments. Ayant reçu une formation philosophique, le romancier entreprend une polémique littéraire avec le concept de la pureté des éléments, si cher à Bachelard, et fonde l’univers romanesque de son ouvrage sur une antivaleur, l’impureté, jusqu’à ce que la saleté omniprésente devienne le cinquième élément, la quintessentia symbolique du monde.

Michel Butor, voz(es)

O escritor francês Michel Butor (1926-2016) refletiu sobre a voz e os efeitos da vocalidade e da oralidade na tradução, enquanto criação literária, e na leitura enquanto performance. Para este presente ensaio, proponho um percurso de análise que se inicia com o livro sonoro Pensées à voix haute (BUTOR, 2017) e de sua relação com as teorias sobre a voz (Zumthor, 2018; Dolar, 2014; Cesarino, 2014; Cavarero, 2011; Meschonnic, 2006), passando pela técnica de registro sonoro e de tradução do escritor para a elaboração do poema “Manhattan invention” (BUTOR, 2008 [1962]; 2004), culminando na análise de seu livro para crianças Zoo (BUTOR, 2001) do ponto de vista da formação do leitor na infância e da performance da leitura em voz alta. Butor, analisado segundo os teóricos da voz, imprime na tradução e na leitura o que há de mais contemporâneo dentro dos estudos discursivos: a abertura às múltiplas vozes a partir da unicidade vocálica.

Introduction

The Introduction begins by detailing the emergence of the nouveau roman in its own place and time, looking at the political and cultural history of postwar France. The publisher Les Éditions de Minuit—the main sponsor of the nouveau roman—is introduced, and the earliest articulations of the nouveau roman are presented. Then, the works and signature styles of six writers are briefly surveyed, namely Michel Butor, Marguerite Duras, Robert Pinget, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Nathalie Sarraute, and Claude Simon. The ends of the nouveau roman and the rise of Tel Quel are considered. Then the particular force of the nouveau roman in the British literary field is introduced, with modernism and the end of empire as key determinants. Finally, each of the book’s chapters is summarized.