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Mirroring the Queer: Rewritings of the Albertine Episode

Project description

A closer look at Proust’s queer character

The character Albertine from Marcel Proust’s novel, 'À la recherche du temps perdu', has inspired many different works over the last 20 years. The EU-funded QUART project will study this cluster of works to shed light on how the cross-textual character of Albertine appears in alternative fictional worlds. QUART proposes that the Proustian changeable and fleeting figure has been chosen by artists and writers of the Francophone and Anglophone worlds because her ungraspable plurality encapsulates the potential of a queer figure of defiance. It will study how Albertine initiates renewed and renewable understandings of queerness. The findings will shed light on Albertine as a queer figure who transforms the trauma of exclusion into a viable alternative realm.

Objective

The last twenty years have seen the emergence of many different works inspired by the character Albertine from Marcel Proust’s novel À la recherche du temps perdu. The Proustian figure evokes a surprising intertextuality across different genres, art forms and media including a poetry pamphlet and a verse novel by Anne Carson, a play by Colin Duckworth, a musical by Richard Nelson and Ricky Ian Gordon, a graphic novel by Alison Bechdel, films by Chantal Akerman and Véronique Aubouy and novels by Jacqueline Rose, Angela Carter and Hélène Cixous. This cluster of works has not been previously studied. More interestingly, it offers a case of a cross-textual character appearing in alternative fictional worlds. At the same time, it fills the gaps of the strategic Proustian underrepresentation of Albertine in two ways: it either adapts the story in different genres and media or imagines a different destiny, ontology, pre/post history of the character. Examining Albertine’s metamorphoses into other fictional characters, narratives, and sociohistorical contexts, this project aims to trace the trajectory of this exemplary character thus making an important addition to the narratological and interdisciplinary study of character. At the same time, QUART puts forward the hypothesis that the Proustian changeable and fleeting figure has been chosen by artists and writers of the Francophone and Anglophone worlds because her ungraspable plurality encapsulates the potential of a queer figure of defiance. It therefore aims at conceptualizing her as a form of resistance at the intersection of sex, gender, race and class based on the hypothesis that Albertine as a queer figure assumes the ethical act of taking the risk of one’s desire. She transforms the trauma of exclusion into a viable alternative realm, where values are distributed otherwise than according to the hegemonic order. The project therefore examines how Albertine initiates renewed and renewable understandings of queerness.

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Keywords

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Topic(s)

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MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2020

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Coordinator

UNIVERSITE BORDEAUX MONTAIGNE
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 184 707,84
Address
ESPLANADE DES ANTILLES DOMAINE UNIVERSITAIRE
33607 PESSAC CEDEX
France

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Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 184 707,84
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