Michel Houellebecq is a French author whose profile in the English speaking world is unusually high. He is an author who has put the humour back into the Absurd, without losing any of the awareness of the bleakness of the human condition. Undoubtedly one of the most trenchant satirists of our time, he deflates the projected utopias that we imagine to protect us from the ills that beset us. He faces the reader with the incipit totalitarianism that lies in our secular and religious faiths when they promise to secure the future in this world or the next – while at the same time showing the limits of our attempts to forge an all-encompassing view of the world. More than many other novelists, his work is a reflection of the social and economic reality of life in a post-industrial society.

Michel Houellebecq is one of the most successful and controversial contemporary French novelists. Translated worldwide, with three film adaptations of his works, he has also been at the center of a host of media scandals in France. In this book, Douglas Morrey examines Houellebecq's stark representation of humanity—a terminal state of decadence and decline ripe for replacement by a posthuman successor—looking at the global significance of his visions at the same time that he situates them in the contexts of French literature, culture, and society.

When fiction and reality meet: Probably no contemporary novel has shaped reality as powerfully Houellebeck’s Submission. No previous analysis of Submission is as deep and encompassing as this volume written by experts on politics and literature

Widely acknowledged as an important, if highly controversial, figure in contemporary literature, French novelist and poet Michel Houellebecq has elicited diverse critical responses. In this book Carole Sweeney examines his novels as a response to the advance of neoliberalism into all areas of affective human life. This historicizing study argues that le monde houellebecquien is an 'atomised society' of banal quotidian alienation populated by quietly resentful men who are the botched subjects of late-capitalism. Addressing Houellebecq's handling of the 'failure' of the radical thought of '68, Sweeney looks at the ways in which his fiction treats feminism, the decline of religion and the family, as well as the obsolescence of French 'theory' and the Sartrean notion of 'engaged' literature. Reading the world with the disappointed idealism of a contemporary moralist, Houellebecq's novels, Sweeney argues, fluctuate between despair for the world as it is and a limp utopian hope for a post-humanity.

Unlock the more straightforward side of The Map and the Territory with this concise and insightful summary and analysis! This engaging summary presents an analysis of The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq, which tells the story of an artist’s rise to preeminence and subsequent downfall, focusing on the capitalist aspect of the art market and the sexual poverty of the modern man. It is written in a darkly ironic style, which is a key characteristic of the author’s works. Houellebecq is French writer whose hard-hitting works have made him popular with modern audiences, and he was awarded the Prix Goncourt, a prestigious and coveted award in France. Find out all you need to know about The Map and the Territory in a fraction of the time! This in-depth and informative reading guide brings you: • A complete plot summary • Character studies • Key themes and symbols • Questions for further reflection Why choose BrightSummaries.com? Available in print and digital format, our publications are designed to accompany you in your reading journey. The clear and concise style makes for easy understanding, providing the perfect opportunity to improve your literary knowledge in no time. See the very best of literature in a whole new light with BrightSummaries.com!

This annual French XX Bibliography provides the most complete listing available of books, articles, and book reviews concerned with French literature since 1885. Unique in its scope, thoroughness, and reliability of information, it has become an essential reference source in the study of modern French literature and culture. The bibliography is divided into three major divisions: general studies, author subjects (arranged alphabetically), and cinema. Number 59 in the series contains 12,703 entries. William J. Thompson is Associate Professor of French and Undergraduate and Interdisciplinary Programs in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Memphis.

The contributors to Transnational French Studies situate this disciplinary subfield of Modern Languages in actively transnational frameworks. The key objective of the volume is to define the core set of skills and methodologies that constitute the study of French culture as a transnational, transcultural and translingual phenomenon. Written by leading scholars within the field, chapters demonstrate the type of inquiry that can be pursued into the transnational realities – both material and non-material – that are integral to what is referred to as French culture. The book considers the transnational dimensions of being human in the world by focussing on four key practices which constitute the object of study for students of French: language and multilingualism; the construction of transcultural places and the corresponding sense of space; the experience of time; and transnational subjectivities. The underlying premise of the volume is that the transnational is present (and has long been present) throughout what we define as French history and culture. Chapters address instances and phenomena associated with the transnational, from prehistory to the present, opening up the geopolitical map of French studies beyond France and including sites where communities identified as French have formed.

This study explores the diverse representations of sexuality, eroticism, and gender as expressed in French and Francophone literary thought – both past and present. From Françoise de Graffigny’s epistolary “refusal” of eroticism – to the challenge of nineteenth-century notions of rape in the novels of Emile Zola, Victor Hugo, and Eugène Sue – to desire and eroticism as social taboo in the surrealist works of Georges Bataille and Luis Buñuel – its historical focus demonstrates that issues of sexuality, eroticism, and gender existed at the heart of France’s literary tradition long before they became a staple in its universities. Taking a more contemporary view, it examines the notion of écriture féminine in such authors as Monique Wittig, Anne F. Garréta, Nina Bouraoui, Assia Djebar, and Luce Iragaray, and also challenges accusations of misogyny in the works of Michel Houellebecq. While glimpsing the evolution of, challenges to, and conceptions regarding sexuality, eroticism, and gender, each chapter’s author focuses on language as both the obstacle and catalyst for change. For example, feminist strategies to avoid linguistic gender markers that subvert the phallogocentric paradigm, literary portrayals of rape as a means to affect French penal code, and use of the female body as language demonstrate that these notions are not only shaped by language but that language represents the key to deconstructing and redefining them. Whether picking this up to read about familiar authors such as Hugo and Djebar or discovering Graffigny and Houellebecq for the first time, each chapter promises to shed new light on its subject matter in regards to sexuality, eroticism, and/or gender.

Ethical Futures and Global Science Fiction explores the ethical concerns and dimensions of representations of the future of global science fiction, focusing on the issues that dominate utopian, dystopian and science fiction literature. The essays examine recent visions of the future in science fiction and re-examine earlier texts through contemporary lenses. Across fourteen chapters, the collection considers authors from Algeria, Australia, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Macedonia, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the UK and USA. The volume delves into a range of ethical questions of immediate contemporary relevance, including environmental ethics, postcolonial ethics, social justice, animal ethics and the ethics of alterity.

The attempt to produce films for the international market has led to lively exchanges and meeting points between local and national identity discourses and global processes of identity formation. Co-productions alone can no longer be seen as an incentive for national cultural production. Rather, it is necessary to regard co-productions as a privileged site for an analysis of the relations between identity, nation, and culture. Transnational Cinema in Europe is the result of a collaboration of two research groups in Madrid and Vienna. The book consists of articles by members of both research groups, as well as by several other experts. (Series: Contributions to the European Theater, Film and Media Studies / Beitrage zur europaischen Theater-, Film- und Medienwissenschaft - Vol. 4)