Virginie Despentes
Core reading
Virginie Despentes, Baise-moi (1994) [Please buy the 1999 J'ai lu edition]
Preparation for seminar discussion
- Analyse the relationship between Nadine and Manu.
- What can be gleaned from the text about the narrator’s world-view and opinions?
- Select and analyse 3 sentences which you think display significant, typical, stylistic features of this writing.
- Discuss the representation of the female body in this novel.
- Research the controversy surrounding the film version (released in 2000).
- Examine critically the novel’s representation of rape and its aftereffects.
- In what sense(s) could this be described as a feminist novel?
Student presentation task: To what extent is this a pornographic text and to what extent is it a critique of pornography? (Please ensure you make reference to relevant secondary reading, in particular Long and Bourcier.)
Further reading
- Best, Victoria & Crowley, Martin, The New Pornographies: Explicit Sex in Recent French Fiction and Film (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), in particular pp. 163-79. See here
- Bourcier, Marie-Hélène, 'Baise-moi, encore', Queer Zones: Politiques des identités sexuelles et des savoirs (Paris: Amsterdam, 3rd ed. 2011), pp. 13-32.
- Dean, Tim, Ruszczycky, Steven and Squires, David (eds.), Porn Archives (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014). See here for details of print copies. Available via the Library as an e-book here.
- Fayard, Nicole, ‘The Rebellious Body as Parody: Baise-moi by Virginie Despentes’, French Studies LX:1 (Jan 2006): 63-77. Connect via the Library here.
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Huffer, Lynne, '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. Available via the Library as an e-book here.
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Jordan, Shirley, ‘“Dans le mauvais goût pour le mauvais goût”? Pornographie, violence et sexualité féminine dans la fiction de Virginie Despentes’, in Nathalie Morello & Catherine Rodgers (eds.), Nouvelles écrivaines: Nouvelles voix? (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2002), 121-39. See here.
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Long, Julia, Anti-Porn: The Resurgence of Anti-Pornography Feminism (London: Zed Books, 2012), in particular ch. 3, 'Pornification and Its Discontents', pp. 111-146. See here.
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O'Toole, Laurence, Pornocopia: Porn, Sex, Technology and Desire (London: Serpent's Tale, 1998), in particular ch. 1, 'Definitions', pp. 1-25. See here.
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Sauzon, Virginie, 'Virginie Despentes et les récits de la violence sexuelle : une déconstruction littéraire et féministe des rhétoriques de la racialisation', Genre Sexualité et Société 7 (2012). Available here.
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Segal, Lynne, ‘Only the Literal: The Contradictions of Anti-Pornography Feminism’, Sexualities 1, 1 (1998): 43-62. See here.
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Williams, Linda (ed.), Porn Studies (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004). See here.
Slides
Slides will be posted here after the teaching session.