Transforming the Bodily Imaginary: the Feminist Aesthetics of Virginie Despentes

我的博士论文将研究维吉妮·德彭特斯作品的变革潜力，在她对越界的表现中追踪一种新的女权主义美学，这种美学重新配置了女性身体和女性写作的参数。这种对德彭泰斯的批判性研究，对她的专著还没有写，将有助于法国研究和女权主义理论。利用现象学和精神分析学，我将考虑Despentes笔下的女性如何超越女性身体行为的传统模式，以及边缘人物的主体性如何矛盾地集中在她的作品中。我的建议是，对越界身体的虚构表现放弃了身体规范，逐渐改变我称之为“身体想象”的东西。这种身体想象的概念借鉴了席尔德（1935）和梅洛-庞蒂（1945）的观点。他们的作品解释了我们的身体形象是如何通过个人和社会关系形成的，在这种关系中，身体的某些部位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、能力等因素而定的。因此，身体的想象可能是非常有害的，但它们仍然完全可以改变（Lennon, 2015）。对于Gatens来说，想象的身体是“社会和历史特定的，因为它是由共同的语言构建的……以及常见的制度实践。（1996: 11-12）我在这里的项目是要展示，德彭泰斯的作品改变了这种共同的语言和它所构建的想象。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人们对女性身体的看法；带着这样的想法阅读Despentes的小说，我在（文本外的）女权主义政治和美学之间画出了清晰的联系。费尔斯基建议我们超越女权主义美学（1989），而我将论证一种新的女权主义美学的可能性，这种美学是由21世纪初的身体越界和极端定义的。Quandt（2004）创造了“新法国极端”一词来批判当代法国电影的“冲击策略”。我提倡女权主义对这一趋势的重新解读：Despentes的美学是一种特殊的女权主义努力，在这种努力中，女性用自己的身体来抵制规范，并利用创造力。各种批判性研究将为这一新的女权主义美学概念提供信息，特别是马克斯的《电影的皮肤》（2000）、莱和塔尔的《在法国当代女性写作和电影制作中的身体聚焦》（2006）、贝格内的《电影与感觉》（2007）、琼斯的《代表排斥》（2013）和威尔逊的《斜倚的裸体》（2019）。总的来说，我的项目是由现象学，精神分析学，女权主义和酷儿理论。继Ahmed（2006）和Ince（2011）之后，我主张的不是一种新的方法论，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Despentes （Ince, 2011: 10）进行激进的“政治理论”解读的潜力。因此，该项目旨在作为女权主义实践，以及理论上对法国研究的重要贡献。受益于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“绝望研究”的一步。我们可以，也应该写更多关于这位作家的作品，她不仅在品味和体裁上，而且在女性的身体举止和创造力上，都如此激进地、不断地突破界限。

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.