This seminar explores the emergence of non-normative subjectivities since the early 20th century in literature and the arts, focusing on voices that have been silenced, marginalised or excluded – queer, depressed and other “deviant” voices.
This period marks a pivotal moment when subversive, hybrid literary genres, along with gender and queer identities, began to be articulated and made visible. The rise of feminine and queer voices in literature throughout the 20th century was influenced by the complex intersections of religious, medical, legal and political discourses that drew on discursive elements indebted to psychoanalysis, sexology, women’s suffrage, socialism, decolonisation, social purity movements, feminism(s), pathological models of “gender/sexual inversion” and “separate spheres” theories.
What exactly has come out of what is now spoken and what remains unspoken for non- normative voices? And how does this discursive invisibility/silence, which had no real existence in the history of literature, haunt fictional spaces and scholarly discourses? An
intriguing paradox emerges from this historical moment: it was precisely the naming and pathologising of non-normative subjectivities that created a space for subjects to challenge their constructed “deviance” and voice a story of their own. In doing so, these voices found new ways to break free from the constraints of this discourse, allowing marginalised communities and individuals to speak, write, and sing on their own terms.
This seminar invites speakers to reflect on the question of invisibility and the unsaid, using theories and methods from a range of disciplines, including medical humanities, queer theory, literary studies and the humanities. We also aim to deepen our understanding of the gendered dimensions of affect, emotion, power, embodied experience, and memory from a shared or questioned feminist perspective. Central to our enquiry is the tension between subjects and their desires – a concept that transcends mere sexuality, as the expression of desire in the early 20th century and up to current times produced a unique literary, poetic, and linguistic subjectivity and imprint on the body, often paradoxical in its unspoken yet undeniably vocal dimension.
This paradox of silence – the “thing” that cannot be named for marginalised subjects – is, in fact, what allows visibility and dissident voices to open up a discursive space with alternative, authentic, critical discourses on sexuality and agency. The silence is over, but how exactly did this transformation take place?
We seek to highlight the crucial role that the construction of discourses around non-normative subjectivities played, and continues to play, in the emergence of new literary forms and voices since the early 20th century. This moment of key political, social and cultural transformation confronts the issue of (in)visibility and offers an opportunity to reflect on the legacy of those who were deemed “mad” or “insane” – and who were often the very same individuals.
Julie Agu, PhD Student, “Life Writing and Lesbian Metaphors in Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-first Century Queer Canadian and American Writing” under the joint supervision of Nicolas P. Boileau (Aix-Marseille University, LERMA) and Lianne Moyes (University ofMontreal, CRILCQ).
Maria-Luna Aillaud, PhD Student, “Representing mental health at the end of the 20th century: depression in the US” under the supervision of Pr. Nicolas P. Boileau.
Tom Routledge, PhD Student, “Subverting gender and genre: British rap through the lens of female and non-binary artists on an aesthetic, performative and cultural level.”, under the
supervision of Pr. Nicolas P. Boileau.
Augustine Vivant, PhD Student, “Modernist echoes in Ian McEwan’s Fiction: love stories as the sites of gendered reconfigurations”, under the supervision of Pr. Nicolas P. Boileau.
