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Becoming Hugo
11 December 2024, 4:00 pm–6:00 pm
The Centre for French and Francophone Research is pleased to welcome Stéphanie Boulard (Georgia Tech) to give this seminar.
Event Information
Open to
- All
Organiser
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Institute of Advanced Studies
Location
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IAS ForumG17, ground floor, South WingUCL, Gower St, LondonWC1E 6BTUnited Kingdom
As Deleuze remarks about Bacon, “each painter in his own way sums up the history of painting.” Given this principle, what would be the task of a writer like Hugo? How did Hugo become Hugo? This talk will explore how Hugo became a "name in history" through the aesthetic shaping of the self. It will examine the interplay of various issues, including desire, Hugolatry and writing, politics, thought as a war machine, and becoming-revolutionary, the experience of exile and the creative process. Special attention will be given to his historic, eighteen-year exile on the islands of Jersey (1852-1855) and Guernsey (1855-1870) as a form of self-decentering when new life trajectories open up experimentation of various modes of thought. We will thus discuss how "becoming Hugo" entails inventing a new posture that reflects a distinct way of thinking.
All welcome. No registration required.
This event has been organised by the Centre for French and Francophone Research. The Centre provides a showcase for the diversity of French and Francophone studies in a global context across several disciplines at UCL, including literary studies, history, philosophy, art history, anthropology, global health, and the physical sciences. The goal is to create a space for researchers and students from across the university broadly interested in the French-speaking world to share their work and to promote interdisciplinary collaboration.
About the Speaker
Stéphanie Boulard
Director of French Program, Professor of French at School of Modern Languages at Georgia Tech
A specialist in French literature from 19th century to present, Dr. Boulard is a recognized expert in Hugolian studies. Her books include the groundbreaking monograph Rouge Hugo (Septentrion UP, 2014), the first comprehensive examination of the death penalty and the guillotine in Victor Hugo’s writings and drawings, and Ego Hugo (Revue des Science Humaines, 2011), which examines the enduring relevance of Victor Hugo and his modernity. She also studies the innovative exchange between the written and the visual in Hugo’s novels and one of her recent articles on Toilers of the Sea was published in Penser et (d)écrire l'illustration. Le rapport à l'image dans la littérature des XVIIIe et XIXe siècles (PU Blaise Pascal, 2019).
Dr. Boulard’s expertise includes Word and Image studies, feminine writing, and contemporary critical theory. She has published extensively on the works of contemporary French writers, affording new perspectives on major writers of 20th- and 21st-century French literature. Her current research interrogates contemporary writers' collaborations with artists and poets, exploring different links and perspectives between the readable and the visible and between poetry and philosophical thought, such as in her books Ententes – à partir d’Hélène Cixous (PSN UP, 2019; co-edited with Catherine Witt) and Visions/visitations/passions: en compagnie de Claude Louis-Combet (Corlevour, 2008).
More about Stéphanie Boulard