Unity through diversity and transformation in A la Recherche: A Study of Proust through the lens of Catherine Malabou

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My research project makes use of the writings of Catherine Malabou as a means for re-engaging with Proust's work. It is primarily an intervention within the context of Proustian studies. Recent critics such as Bower (2000) and Prendergast (2013) have argued that we can no longer read Proust's novel as attempting to advance a unified philosophical position. Meanwhile, Derridean-inspired critics, such as Rushworth (2016) or Elsner (2017) have shown in what ways Proust's work can speak to a diversity of other texts and persons. Although this celebration of Proust's diversity has indeed been warranted, recent critical endeavours now confront us with a pressing question: in what ways, after we have understood Proust's novel in its radical multiplicity, can we account for the unity that one still feels present in the Recherche? Malabou has, in her words, attempted to lay the theoretical groundwork for a 'metamorphosis of reconstructive reading[s]' (2010). She has employed her key concept of 'plasticity' in order to explain the 'originate unity' (2011, p. 175) of a work through the very diversity that deconstruction has uncovered. My application of her thought to Proust could answer the question outlined above, but it could also have wide ramifications for how critics think of the relation between 'unity' and 'diversity' in literary works in general. It would also engage with 'genetic' criticism and translation studies. In the research, I would intend to focus on Proust's early works, particularly Jean Santeuil (1896-1900) in order to understand the genesis of the form of the Recherche. I will also engage closely with Malabou and contemporary French philosophy to create or discover new, post-Derridean concepts of 'unity,' 'diversity', and 'form'.