Textual & visual selves : photography, film, and comic art in French autobiography / edited by Natalie Edwards, Amy L. Hubbell, and Ann Miller.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Edwards, Natalie.

Hubbell, Amy L.

Miller, Ann, 1949 September 1-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

French prose literature--History and criticism.

French prose literature.

Authors, French--Biography--History and criticism.

Authors, French.

Authors, French--Biography.

Art in literature.

Autobiography--Authorship.

Autobiography.

Visual perception in literature.

Literature and photography--France.

Literature and photography.

Self in literature.

France.

Physical Description:

273 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Other Title:

Textual and visual selves

Place of Publication:

Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, [2011]

Summary:

Autobiography in France has taken a decidedly visual turn in recent years: photographs, shown or withheld, become evidence of what was, might have been, or cannot be said; photographers, filmmakers, and cartoonists undertake projects that explore issues of identity. Textual and Visual Selves investigates, from a variety of theoretical perspectives, the ways in which the textual and the visual combine in certain French works to reconfigure ideas-and images-of self-representation.

Surprisingly, what these accounts reveal is that photography or film does not necessarily serve to shore up the referentiality of the autobiographical account: on the contrary, the inclusion of visual material can even increase indeterminacy and ambiguity. Far from offering documentary evidence of an extratextual self coincident with the "I" of the text, these images testify only to absence, loss, evasiveness, and the desire to avoid objectification. However, where Roland Barthes famously saw the photograph as a prefiguration of death, in this volume we see how the textual strategies deployed by these writers and artists result in work that is ultimately life-affirming. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Beyond Autobiography / Véronique Montémont Montémont, Véronique 29

2 Chronicles of Intimacy: Photography in Autobiographical Projects / Shirley Jordan Jordan, Shirley 51

3 The Absent Body: Photography and Autobiography in Hélène Cixous's Photos de racines and Annie Ernaux and Marc Marie's L'Usage de la photo / Natalie Edwards Edwards, Natalie 79

4 The Photobiographical Today: Signs of an Identity Crisis? / Floriane Place-Verghnes Place-Verghnes, Floriane 99

5 Reclaiming the Void: The Cinematographic Aesthetic of Marguerite Duras's Autobiographical Novels / Erica L. Johnson Johnson, Erica L. 115

6 Illustration Revisited: Phototextual Exchange and Resistance in Sophie Calle's Suite vénitienne / Johnnie Gratton Gratton, Johnnie 139

7 Viewing the Past through a "Nostalgeric" Lens: Pied-Noir Photodocumentaries / Amy L. Hubbell Hubbell, Amy L. 167

8 Georges Perec, Memory, and Photography / Peter Wagstaff Wagstaff, Peter 189

9 The Self-Portrait in French Cinema: Reflections on Theory and on Agnès Varda's Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse / Agnès Calatayud Calatayud, Agnès 209

10 Autobiography in Bande Dessinée / Ann Miller Miller, Ann 235.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

080323631X

9780803236318

OCLC:

712115632

Publisher Number:

99946276388