Introductory description

In this module we explore a selection of contemporary French literary and essayistic texts which attempt to come to terms with different aspects of sex, sexuality and gender identity in the modern world. Please note that these texts contain very 'graphic' depictions variously of sex, prostitution, sexual violence and 'recreational' drug (ab)use. While the approach we take to these issues aims to be both sensitive and academically rigorous at all times, if you think you may find engaging with such material difficult then you would be best advised not to choose this optional module.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Week 1
Introduction: overview of key social, political, historical and conceptual contexts

Weeks 2-3
Mathieu Lindon, Ce qu’aimer veut dire (2011)

Weeks 4-5
Wendy Delorme, Quatrième Génération (2007)

Reading week

Week 7
Guillaume Dustan, Dans ma chambre (1996)

Weeks 8-9
Chloé Delaume, Mes bien chères sœurs (2019)

Week 10
Essay writing workshop

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Identify, analyse and discuss critically key features of contemporary French literary texts which address different aspects of sex and sexuality in the period from the mid-1990s to the present day.
• Read and analyse these texts with deep understanding by applying their knowledge of key features of the social, cultural and historical context and key concepts by feminist thinkers, cultural critics and queer theorists.
• Initiate reasoned critical reflection which engages with current scholarship at the forefront of sexuality studies about key aspects of sex and sexuality in present-day France, including: gay and lesbian identity and community, trans* identity and embodiment, queer, pornography and sexual violence.
• Demonstrate a developed capacity to analyse both the formal and thematic features of contemporary French literary texts.

Indicative reading list

Best, V. & Crowley, M., The New Pornographies: Explicit Sex in Recent French Fiction and Film (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 2007).
Butler, J., ‘Is Kinship Always Already Heterosexual?’, in Undoing Gender (London: Routledge, 2004), pp.
102-130.
Cervulle, M. and Rees-Roberts, N., Homo Exoticus: race, classe et critique queer (Paris: Armand Colin,
2010).
Davis, O., 'Guillaume Dustan's "autopornobiographie": Is there room for trash in the queer subcultural
archive?', in Alienation and Alterity: Otherness in Modern and Contemporary Francophone contexts, ed. by
Helen Vassallo & Paul Cooke (Bern: Peter Lang, 2009), pp. 59-76.
Davis, O., 'Leading by example: A queer critique of personalization and coercive community governance in
Act Up-Paris’s operation against the bareback writers', Sexualities 18 (2015): 141-157.
Davis, O., 'Foucault and the Queer Pharmatopia', in After Foucault, ed. by Lisa Downing (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 170-184.
Easton, D. and Hardy, J., The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other
Adventures (New York: Random House, 2009).
Evans, E., 'Your HIV-positive sperm, my trans-dyke uterus: Anti/futurity and the politics of bareback sex
between Guillaume Dustan and Beatriz Preciado', Sexualities 18 (2015): 127-140.
Fabre, C. & Fassin, E., Liberté, Egalité, Sexualités: Actualité politique des questions sexuelles (Paris: Belfond,
2003).
Foucault, M., Histoire de la sexualité I, La volonté de savoir (Paris: Gallimard, 1976).
Foucault, M., ‘Sex, Power and the Politics of Identity’ [a 1982 interview by Bob Gallagher and Alexander Wilson, conducted in Toronto and first published in The Advocate on 7 August 1984], reprinted in French in Foucault, Dits et écrits, vol. 4, pp.735-46; also available in the original English in Lotringer (ed.), Foucault Live: Collected Interviews, 1961-1984 (New York: Semiotext(e), 1989), pp. 382-390.
Fournier, M., '"Insurrections en territoire sexuel": Wendy Delorme's War Machines', L'Esprit créateur 53, 1 (2013): 87-100.
Gunther, S., The Elastic Closet: A History of Homosexuality in France 1942-present (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
Halperin, D., Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 130-162.
Huffer, L., Mad for Foucault: Rethinking the Foundations of Queer Theory (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009).
Huffer, L., 'After Sex', in Are The Lips a Grave? A Queer Feminist on the Ethics of Sex (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), pp. 161-76.
Jackson, J., Living in Arcadia: Homosexuality, Politics, and Morality in France from the Liberation to AIDS (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2009).
Jacinto, G., 'Autofiction littéraire, pornographie queer et culture trash: politique du corps et du sexe dans l’œuvre de Guillaume Dustan', French Cultural Studies 28, 3 (2017): 282-290.
Kollias, H., ‘Guillaume Dustan, Master of the Drive’, Journal of Romance Studies 8:2 (2008): 113-130.
Long, J., Anti-Porn: The Resurgence of Anti-Pornography Feminism (London: Zed Books, 2012).
Perreau, B., Queer Theory: The French Response (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016).
Phillips, A. & Bersani, L., Intimacies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008).
Preciado, P. B., Testo junkie: sexe, drogue et biopolitique (Paris: Grasset, 2008).
Prosser, J., Second Skins: The Body Narratives of Transsexuality (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998).
Race, K., Pleasure Consuming Medicine: The Queer Politics of Drugs (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2009).
Reeser, T. , 'TransFrance', L'Esprit créateur 53, 1 (2013): 4-14.
Rubin, G., ‘Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality’, in Carole S. Vance (ed.), Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality (London: Routledge, 1984), pp. 267-319.
Sauzon, V., 'Un transgenre grammatical ? : la tension linguistique dans Les Adolescents troglodytes d'Emmanuelle Pagano', L'Esprit créateur 53, 1 (2013), 74-86.
Segal, L., ‘Only the Literal: The Contradictions of Anti-Pornography Feminism’, Sexualities 1, 1 (1998): 43-62. Warner, Michael (ed.), Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993).

View reading list on Talis Aspire

Research element

Students will be required to devise their own title and programme of independent research for the 3000-3250ww essay.

Interdisciplinary

This is a module which draws on gender and sexuality studies (including queer theory), historical research and literary-critical approaches.

International

All modules delivered in SMLC are necessarily international. Students engage with themes and ideas from a culture other than that of the UK and employ their linguistic skills in the analysis of primary materials from a non-Anglophone context. Students will also be encouraged to draw on the experiences of visiting exchange students in the classroom and will frequently engage with theoretical and critical frameworks from across the world.

Subject specific skills

This module will develop students’ linguistic skills through engaging with primary materials in the target language. It will build students’ capacity to engage with aspects of French culture through analysis of this primary material and through seminar discussion aimed at deeper critical thinking. In particular, students’ awareness of sex and sexuality in contemporary French writing will be enhanced through lectures and seminars which engage with scholarship in the field.

Transferable skills

All SMLC culture modules demand critical and analytical engagement with artefacts from target-language cultures. In the course of independent study, class work and assessment students will develop the following skills: written and oral communication, creative and critical thinking, problem solving and analysis, time management and organisation, independent research in both English and their target language(s), intercultural understanding and the ability to mediate between languages and cultures, ICT literacy in both English and the target language(s), personal responsibility and the exercise of initiative.