Tuesday 23rd October
5.15-6.30pm, Hovenden Room, All Soul's College

Alison Marmont (University of Southampton) - '(In)Visible “Others” in the Hexagon: Defying (Mis)Representations and its Consequences for Racialised Women in Linda Lê’s Voix and Marie NDiaye’s Mon Coeur à l’étroit'

Edward Said’s Orientalism has been fundamental in shaping postcolonial attempts to tackle racial inequalities through analyses of colonial discourses in which a superior Occident is constructed through the creation of a mythical and inferior Orient. However, racialised misrepresentations are not just applied to those beyond the nation’s borders but also to those deemed as foreign on French soil, even if they are French citizens. The recurring motif of the creuset français (French melting pot) would suggest that everyone, no matter their background, can be fully assimilated into French society. Yet, Linda Lê’s novel Voix and Marie NDiaye’s Mon Cœur à l’étroit portray characters who are expected to comply with stereotypical images based on their gender and ethnic backgrounds in order to be accepted. The reward offered for this behaviour is not equality and the breaking down of the multiple internal borders they face but, rather, the ability to go unnoticed. Conversely, if the characters refuse to conform to these stereotypes, they are marked as dangerous and attempts are made to exclude them physically and socially. Tevanian’s concept of the “Corps d’exception” will be applied here as the former can be seen as an example of the “Corps Invisible” whilst the latter suggests the “Corps Furieux”. This paper will therefore examine this dynamic of invisibility/visibility to illuminate how the “othering” of racialised women is multi-tiered and intersectional.

Waqas Mirza (Lincoln) - 'The Self-Translation of Personal Pronouns in Samuel Beckett's Trilogy'

Very few critics have truly submitted the French and English versions of Molloy,Malone Dies and The Unnameable to comparative close readings. This paper compares the translation of personal pronouns in relation to the narrators in The Trilogy; it also analyses its repercussions on the representation of the mind. I argue that Beckett's choices regarding pronominal translations account for major differences in meaning between both versions of the text on the level of the narrative voice: they emphasize its fragmented self and portrayal as a figure more inclusive of the narratee. Indeed, the ‘weakening effect’ Beckett attributed to the French language in his letter to Herbert Blau could very well apply to the use of pronouns in both languages, and the way they serve to assert the self.