Blanc SHS 3 - Sciences humaines et sociales : Cultures, arts, civilisations

Animals and Animality in French and Francophone Literature (20th-21st Centuries) – Animots

Animots

ANIMALS AND ANIMALITY IN 20TH- AND 21ST-CENTURY FRENCH AND FRANCOPHONE LITERATURE<br /><br />Created in partnership with the CRAL (CNRS/EHESS) and Research unit “Écritures de la modernité” (U. of Paris 3/CNRS), and including eight researchers, the Animots project (2010-2014) aims at widening a still vastly unexplored field of research, in the medium or long run, on animals and animality in 20th- and 21st-century French and Francophone Literature.

NOVELTY VALUE OF THE QUESTION ON ANIMALITY: A DISCOURSE ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES

In the intellectual chorus on animality, literary discourse and representation are seldom considered by an academic criticism whose views on animality are limited to traditional approaches (allegorical analysis, regional studies, limitation to minor genres). However, since the beginning of the 20th century numerous writers have been interested in sharing contemporary social and epistemological reflections. Therefore, it is now crucial to legitimize the research on animality in literary studies and to renew scholarly research by inviting other disciplines into the field. Additionally, thanks to bilingual collaborative work, francophone and anglophone academic researchers have established a dialogue that includes the fields of Animal Studies and Eco-criticism. The collaboration is a catalyzing force for opening the dialectic and regulating the development of new fields of research in France such as zoo-poetics, eco-criticism and notably animal studies.

The animal, so “natural” at the phenomenological and existential level, is in fact a flexible and multiple topic of research, one constructed and analyzed by the researchers themselves: inspired by a neologism created by Jacques Derrida, the plural form of the project title aims at marginalizing the reductive character of the singular form, “animal”, which, as such, presupposes the conglomeration of all instances of a world which is, at all events, composed of diversified and unique yet multiple forms. Animots seeks to develop a research that will be done at a critical as well as at a creative level: we will work at precisely defining related concepts such as “beast”, “animal”, “bestiality”, “humanity,” as well as offering a reflection on the pluses and minuses of anthropomorphism. At the generic level, we bear witness to a major renewal of narrative and poetic genres traditionally linked to the animal. In the fields of narratology and stylistics, the question of anthropomorphism is reconfigured and the processes that supposedly account for modes of being commonly hard to achieve for humans (von Uexküll) are analyzed. At the cognitive level, we analyze and wonder if emotions often associated with writing, such as projection and empathy, can lead to a specific otherness and if « animal subjectivity » may be envisaged. At the social and political level, we engage in challenging ideological and social issues about the relationship between dehumanization, gendered categorization and animalization. Finally, we deal with questions on the placement of texts in their context of production (notably scientific), as well as on the reconfiguration of literary history from the problematic of animality.

As of May 2013, after over two years of work and research, serious results may be highlighted:
– Legitimating a field of study that was only just emerging.
– Creating and building up a website referring to the latest research on animals in academic and artistic fields (an average of 1000 visitors monthly).
– Developing a network comprising hundreds of international researchers, setting up of a colloquium held in the US, with over 300 participants.
– Instructing students and doctoral candidates on the relation between literature and animality.
– Publishing seven collective publications :
1. L’Animal littéraire: des animaux et des mots, Jacques Poirier dir., Presses universitaires de Dijon, 2010.
2. L’Esprit créateur, « Facing Animals/Face aux bêtes », Anne Mairesse et Anne Simon dir., vol. 51, n° 4, décembre 2011.
3. Hybrides et monstres: transgressions et promesses des cultures contemporaines, Lucile Desblache dir., Dijon, Editions universitaires de Dijon, 2012.
4. Numéro spécial de Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, “Humain-Animal 1”, 16.4, Éliane DalMolin, Anne Mairesse et Roger Célestin dir., septembre 2012.
5. Comparative Critical Studies, “Hybrids and Monsters”, Vol. 9, No. 3, Lucile Desblache dir., octobre 2012.
6. Numéro spécial de Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, “Humain-Animal”, 16.5, Anne Simon, Éliane DalMolin et Roger Célestin dir., décembre 2012.
7. Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, 17.3, Éliane DalMolin et Roger Célestin dir., printemps 2013.

The magnitude of the « Animots » program is leading us to consider ways to extend the institutional reach of the project to more international partners, as well as to further widen its epistemological questioning. Based on innovative approaches borrowed from eco-criticism and zoo-poetics, this project aims at formalizing and institutionalizing the emergent problematic of the living being in literary studies, defined by many philosophers as the core of what it means to be contemporary. The first topic focuses on philosophical debates on « the end of the human exception » (J.-M. Schaeffer) and challenges questions of anthropocentrism; whereby we analyze the figurative language which expresses the perplexity of life and the living (care, bio-power, social and/or gendered categorization, etc). The second topic prolongs the study of nature, animality, habitat and environment, in line with specific methods established by recent disciplines (animal studies and eco-criticism in England and the US ; eco-poetics, geo-poetics and zoo-poetics in France). As far as methodology is concerned, this research will be anchored on the interaction between literary studies, philosophy, ethology and the sciences, a dialogue already fomented by the ANR Animots program.

As of May 2013, the program achieved and is still pursuing the following animal-related projects:
- One international convention
- Four international colloquiums
- Five panels at major international colloquiums
-Ten publications comprising four collections, five journal special issues, and one single-authored book
- Ten book chapters
- Fifteen articles in refereed journals
- Thirty eight talks
- Six media forum
- A website gathering news, events and research (Anne Simon et Audrey Lasserre ed.) : animots.hypotheses.org
- An online extensive bibliography
- An open access archive halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/ANIMOTS/
- A content curation page : www.scoop.it/t/animots

AN INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH NETWORK
Created in partnership with the CRAL (CNRS/EHESS) and Research unit “Écritures de la modernité” (U. of Paris 3/CNRS), and including eight researchers, the Animots project (2010-2014) aims at widening a still vastly unexplored field of research, in the medium or long run, on animals and animality in 20th- and 21st-century French and Francophone Literature. Three members of the research team affiliated with American and British universities will follow theoretical developments in the English-speaking world and assess and help set up international projects in English and in French.
An interdisciplinary seminar, a doctoral research seminar, two one-day conferences, two colloquia, an international convention and ten collaborative publications will set forth the latest reflection on the topic in France, the United States and the United Kingdom.

NOVELTY VALUE OF THE QUESTION ON ANIMALITY: A DISCOURSE ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES
Historical events, in the 20th and 21st century, have given rise to an intense intellectual energy around the question of the animal: from Darwin’s and Mendel’s huge scientific discoveries to contemporary pandemics, from the mechanization of living beings (including human beings) to massive extinction of certain species or the practice of xenografting, the frontiers of anthropozoology have been either dramatically reinforced or fully challenged. From philosophy to biology, from cognitive sciences to history or political science, to name but a few, the animal has become a fundamental research subject. It has led to new and major configurations in many fields of research: the disappearance of natural history, the development of ecology, ethology and ethics…
In this intellectual chorus, literary discourse and representation are seldom considered by an academic criticism whose views on animality are limited to traditional approaches (allegorical analysis, regional studies, limitation to minor genres). However, since the beginning of the 20th century numerous writers have been interested in sharing contemporary social and epistemological reflections. Therefore, it is now crucial to legitimize the research on animality in literary studies and to renew scholarly research by inviting other disciplines into the field.

ANIMALITY, AN EMERGING TOPIC IN LITERARY STUDIES
The animal, so “natural” at the phenomenological and existential level, is in fact a flexible and multiple topic of research, one constructed and analyzed by the researchers themselves: inspired by a neologism created by Jacques Derrida, the plural form of the project title aims at marginalizing the reductive character of the singular form, “animal”, which, as such, presupposes the conglomeration of all instances of a world which is, at all events, composed of diversified and unique yet multiple forms. Animots seeks to develop a research that will be done at a critical as well as at a creative level: we will work at precisely defining related concepts such as “beast”, “animal”, “bestiality”, “humanity,” as well as offering a reflection on the pluses and minuses of anthropomorphism. We will analyze which narrative and stylistic strategies may best highlight new modalities that up to now have remained closed to the study of the “human” (von Uexküll), and, at the cognitive level, see if emotions like projection and empathy, often part of the writing process, may offer access to a specific kind of otherness. Through the problematic of animality, we will be able to inscribe texts in their scientific context while simultaneously reconfiguring literary history.
If the animal, of which Moby Dick might be the quintessential paradigm, constitutes the vanishing point of literature (J.-C. Bailly), poetry and fiction, by ways of figures and figuration, nevertheless speak of and for the animal (G. Deleuze), and thus convey a specific knowledge of the living that goes beyond the mere representation of its forms.

Project coordination

Anne SIMON (ECOLE DES HAUTES ETUDES EN SCIENCES SOCIALES) – simon.a@orange.fr

The author of this summary is the project coordinator, who is responsible for the content of this summary. The ANR declines any responsibility as for its contents.

Partner

EA 4400 UNIVERSITE DE PARIS III
CRAL ECOLE DES HAUTES ETUDES EN SCIENCES SOCIALES

Help of the ANR 190,000 euros
Beginning and duration of the scientific project: - 48 Months

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