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School of Modern Languages and Cultures

Emmanuelle Pagano

Core reading

Emmanuelle Pagano, Les Adolescents troglodytes (Paris: POL, 2007)

Preparation for seminar discussion

Week 9

  1. Describe and evaluate the relationship between Adèle and her brother Axel.
  2. Identify the various forms of violence and other resistance which Adèle encounters.
  3. Discuss Adèle’s relationship with Tony.
  4. Examine closely the cave episode (pp.190-208).
  5. Comment on the effect of the first-person narrative perspective.

Student presentation task: How is the natural world represented in the text? How can that representation be related to Adèle’s own story of transitioning?

Week 10

Analyse closely the language and sentence structure in the following two passages and be ready to discuss them:

  • the opening, pp.11-13
  • p.62 (‘Aujourd’hui…) => p.64 (‘…un peu moi.’)

Student presentation task: ‘Je déciderai de rester ici, parce que c’est chez moi.’ (210) Discuss Adèle’s decision to stay put; draw on relevant secondary material in your response.

Further reading

  • Espineira, Karine et al., La Transcyclopédie: tout savoir sur les transidentités (Paris: Editions Des Ailes sur un Tracteur, 2012), in particular 'A - Associations', pp. 48-72.
  • Prosser, Jay, Second Skins: The Body Narratives of Transsexuality (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), in particular ch. 2, 'A Skin of One's Own: Toward a Theory of Transsexual Embodiment', pp. 61-96. See here.
  • Reeser, Todd , 'TransFrance', L'Esprit créateur 53, 1 (2013): 4-14. Connect via the Library here.
  • Sauzon, Virginie, 'Un transgenre grammatical ? : la tension linguistique dans Les Adolescents troglodytes d'Emmanuelle Pagano', L'Esprit créateur 53, 1 (2013), 74-86. Connect via the Library here.
  • Stryker, Susan and Whittle, Stephen (eds.), The Transgender Studies Reader (London: Routledge, 2006), in particular Stryker, '(De)Subjugated Knowledges: An Introduction to Transgender Studies', pp. 1-17, available as a scanned extract here. For details of print copies of this Reader see here.

Slides

Slides will be posted here after the teaching sessions.