Description du projet
Les contes de fées dans la réinterprétation de la déviance
Le genre et la sexualité sont devenus des sujets centraux dans les débats culturels et scientifiques actuels en Europe et en Amérique du Nord. Au XIXe siècle, les prémices de la psychiatrie établissaient des divisions nettes entre le comportement «normal/anormal», «moral/déviant» et la maladie mentale. Cela a influencé la littérature, qui, à son tour, a remis en question son discours patriarcal, ses normes strictes, et a réinterprété la codification de la folie en psychiatrie. De nombreux contes de fées de France, de Grande-Bretagne et des États-Unis soulignent ce processus. S’appuyant sur ces éléments, le projet MadLand, financé par l’UE, mènera des études révolutionnaires, interdisciplinaires, transnationales et translinguistiques afin d’examiner l’échange mutuel de connaissances entre la psychiatrie et la littérature dans l’interprétation et la réinterprétation de la déviance, grâce à une analyse textuelle comparative du discours sur la maladie mentale et des contes de fées.
Objectif
‘Madness in Fairy Land’ (MadLand) is an interdisciplinary exploration of fairy-tale and medical discourses on deviance and abnormality in 19th-century Britain, France, and the US. The project demonstrates the mutual knowledge-exchange between psychiatry and literature in interpreting, understanding, and (re)imagining deviance. In its comparative textual analysis of treatises on mental illness and fairy-tale narratives, MadLand provides the first transnational and translinguistic investigation: (1) of the ways in which 19th-century literary fairy tales reflected, incorporated, and questioned medical interpretations of moral and psychological deviance and of abnormal behaviour; and (2) of how the fairy-tale imagery and language of monstrosity, in turn, influenced and served as a point of reference for the codification of insanity by psychiatry in its formative period, 1820-1900.
MadLand examines portrayals of diverse characters and themes in fairy-tale narratives that challenged hegemonic views of (hetero)normativity. It investigates literature’s creative reaction to the rigid dividing lines between normality and deviance as established by early psychiatry, then incorporated into the dominant cultural discourse, and still very much debated today. Exploring the emergence of psychological deviance and its representation in 19th-century fairy tales from a comparative viewpoint, MadLand contributes to current discussions on perceived norms and deviations of sexual orientation and gender expression, shedding light on medical and literary debates around ab/normal behaviour, monstrosity, gender, and sexuality in Europe and North America.
As an expert in the relations between literature and medicine and 19th-century discourses of decadence, I am especially qualified to undertake this research, which will give me the opportunity to build on my existing knowledge in comparative literature as well as to acquire new skills and competences in fairy-tale and gender studies.
Champ scientifique
Mots‑clés
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinateur
30123 Venezia
Italie