Transforming the Bodily Imaginary: the Feminist Aesthetics of Virginie Despentes

我的博士论文将考察维吉妮·德斯彭斯作品的变革潜力，在她对离经叛道的表现中追踪一种新的女性主义美学，重新配置女性身体和女性写作的参数。这一对狄斯脱的批判性研究将对法国研究和女权主义理论做出贡献，目前还没有关于他的专著。借助现象学和精神分析，我将思考德斯彭斯的女性如何超越传统的女性身体行为模式，以及边缘人物的主体性如何在她的作品中矛盾地集中在一起。我的建议是，虚构的身体违法性表现改变了身体的规范，逐渐改变了我所说的“身体想象”。这个身体想象的概念借鉴了希尔德(1935)和梅洛-庞蒂(1945)。他们的作品阐述了我们的身体形象是如何通过个人和社会关系形成的，在这些关系中，身体的某些部分被赋予了情感和想象的意义。Weiss(1999)，以及最近的Alcoff(2006)和Lennon(2019)，都证明了这种投资是根据性别、种族、阶级、性取向、能力等而定的。因此，身体上的想象可能是非常有害的，但它们仍然从根本上对改变持开放态度(Lennon，2015)。对加滕斯来说，虚构的身体“在社会和历史上是特定的，因为它是由一种共同的语言……和共同的制度惯例构成的。”(1996：11-12)我在这里的项目是展示德斯昆特的工作改变了这种共同的语言和它所构建的虚构。我将运用巴特勒的辞职概念来阐明越轨行为重塑规范的可能性。因此，创造性的工作可以改变女性身体被感知的方式；通过阅读德斯彭斯的小说，我在(文本外的)女性主义政治和美学之间建立了明确的联系。费尔斯基提出我们超越女性主义美学(1989)，我将论证在21世纪之交以身体越轨和极端为定义的新女性主义美学的可能性。Quandt(2004)创造了“新法兰西极限”这个词来批评当代法国电影的“震撼战术”。我主张对这一趋势进行女权主义的重新解读：德斯彭的美学是一种具体的女权主义努力，在这种努力中，女性用她们的身体来抵制规范，利用创造力。各种批评性的研究将对这一新的女性主义美学的概念有所裨益，特别是马克斯的《电影的皮肤》(2000)，法国赖伊和塔尔的《当代女性写作和电影制作中的身体聚焦》(2006)，博格奈特的《电影与感觉》(2007)，琼斯的《代表反感》(2013)和威尔逊的《卧倒的裸体》(2019)。在Ahmed(2006)和Ince(2011)之后，我主张的不是一种新的方法，而是对这些方法之间的边界进行重新谈判，这本身就揭示了对Despenes进行激进的“政治理论”解读的可能性(Ince，2011：10)。因此，这个项目旨在成为女权主义的实践，也是对法国研究的理论上的重要贡献。得益于Siobhán McIlvanney博士和Ros Murray博士的宝贵专业知识，我的论文也打算作为迈向“Despenes研究”的一步。更多的可以，也应该写的是一个作家如此激进和始终如一地突破界限，不仅是在品味和流派方面，而且是在女性的身体行为和创造力方面。

My PhD thesis will examine the transformational potential of the work of Virginie Despentes, tracing in her representations of deviancy a new feminist aesthetic that reconfigures the parameters of both women's bodies and women's writing. This critical study of Despentes, on whom no monograph has yet been written, will contribute to both French studies and feminist theory. Drawing on phenomenology and psychoanalysis, I will consider how Despentes' women transgress conventional modes of feminine bodily comportment, and how the subjectivity of marginal characters is paradoxically centred in her work. My proposal is that fictional representations of transgressive bodies resignify bodily norms, gradually transforming what I will term the 'bodily imaginary'.This notion of the bodily imaginary draws on Schilder (1935) and Merleau-Ponty (1945). Their works explicate how our body image is formed through individual and societal relationships, in which certain parts of the body are invested with affective and imaginative significance. Weiss (1999), and more recently Alcoff (2006) and Lennon (2019), have demonstrated that this investment is conditioned according to gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, and so on. Bodily imaginaries can thus be deeply harmful, but they remain radically open to change (Lennon, 2015). For Gatens, the imaginary body is 'socially and historically specific in that it is constructed by a shared language... and common institutional practices.' (1996: 11-12) My project here is to show that Despentes' work transforms this shared language and the imaginary it constructs. I will employ Butler's concept of resignification to elucidate the potential for acts of deviancy to reshape a norm. As such, creative work can alter the ways in which women's bodies are perceived; by reading Despentes' fiction with this in mind, I am drawing a clear connection between (extratextual) feminist politics and aesthetics.Whereas Felski proposed that we move beyond feminist aesthetics (1989), I will argue for the possibility of a new feminist aesthetics defined by bodily transgression and extremity from the turn of the 21st century. Quandt (2004) coined the term 'New French Extremity' to critique the 'shock tactics' of contemporary French cinema. I am advocating for a feminist rereading of this trend: Despentes' aesthetics are a specifically feminist endeavour in which women use their bodies to resist norms and harness creative power. Various critical studies will be informative for this conception of a new feminist aesthetics, notably Marks' The Skin of the Film (2000), Rye and Tarr's Focalizing the Body in Contemporary Women's Writing and Filmmaking in France (2006), Beugnet's Cinema and Sensation (2007), Jones' Representing Repulsion (2013) and Wilson's The Reclining Nude (2019).Overall, my project is informed by phenomenological, psychoanalytical, feminist and queer theory. Following Ahmed (2006) and Ince (2011), I am advocating not for a new methodology but rather for a renegotiation of the boundaries between these approaches, which itself reveals the potential for radical, 'politico-theoretical' readings of Despentes (Ince, 2011: 10). This project is thus intended as feminist praxis, as well as a theoretically important contribution to French studies. Benefitting from the invaluable expertise of Drs Siobhán McIlvanney and Ros Murray, my thesis is also intended as a step towards 'Despentes studies'. More can, and should, be written about an author who has so radically and consistently pushed boundaries, not only of taste and genre, but of women's bodily comportment and creative power.