"Toutes ces eaux!": Ecology and Empire in Patrick Chamoiseau's Biblique des derniers gestes
Patrick Chamoiseau's latest novel, Biblique des derniers gestes (2002), is a staging of the tension between the defense of local particularity and immersion in what Hardt and Negri call Empire. This tension is explored most visibly through Chamoiseau's literal and figurative uses of water. The protagonist's relation to water constructs Martinican particularity, but it also catapults him into Empire, the network of interests that govern contemporary global relations. Water and other liquid forms also function as figurative models of political action and cultural identity that productively resolve some of the contradictions at the heart of contemporary postcolonial literature.
A Frolic of His Own
Told largely in dialogue, this novel is a modern American nightmare, the painfully comic story of two lawsuits that get very badly out of hand. In the first suit Oscar, a college history teacher, has managed to run himself over while attempting to start his car.
Infiltrating Culture: Power and Identity in Contemporary Women's Writing
Claire Bretecher's "Les Frustres": why do little boys play with washing machines and why do little girls lie about it? how does one inherit feminist knowledge? departening a role? playing and representation feminism and opposition? performance? a minority role le monde est vieux. Francoise Ega's "Lettres a une noire": the cleaning lady as ethnographer - working, giving and writing the housecleaner as ethnographer - the limits of labour as observation the oppositional resources of Mamegas role - writing as labour, labour as gift the 'diversion' of the letter - illegitimate reading and the book as 'perruque'. Michele Maillet's "L'Etoile noire": infiltrating concentration camp logic the ambivalence of 'counter-history' Sidonie, the dead author of counter-history Suzanne, interpretation and silence. Colette's "Prisons et Paradis" and Sand's recipes: reading a recipe book in bed or the de-appropriation of feminine work 'consultable' vs 'readable' texts infiltrational practices - reading in bed and collecting recipes writing recipes in bed. Renee Vivien's "La dame a la louve" and "Une femme m'apparut": why should I swallow a toad? - self-defeating gender reversals infiltration and canonicity the male and female 'principles' "The Woman of the Wolf" - the infiltration of silence portrait of the critic as male reader 'negative' ironies the desinfiltrated toad. Conclusion: James Bond as civil servant - the limits of infiltration.