French Romanticism... Ooo la la: Getting Physical in the 19th Century

French Romanticism and the Rewriting of the Sexual Contract - A French Literature lecture by Maxime Foerster, candidate for a position in the French History department

01/24/13 - 5:00pm - Lincoln Hall 1065

When I first walked into this lecture I was terrified. Everybody there was either a faculty member of either the French program or the Department of Linguistics or a grad student. They were all conversing in French and giving us odd looks, probably because they did not recognize us from any of their courses and did not expect anyone who wasn't a deep French enthusiast to attend this lecture.

Alejandra wrote on my paper because she is sassy.
 I re-wrote it... wrong. It would be J'aime le francais.

I was worried that the speaker, Maxime Foerster, would give his lecture en francais, but he did not. He just gave it in a sped up version of English. It was hard to keep up with what Maxime was saying, but I did the best I could. His lecture consisted of him going over selected French Romanticism works of literature and then discussing how it was relevant to the re-writing of the sexual contract (which kind of references patriarchy, gender roles, and why we perform these genders the way we do; again, it was hard to keep up with all of the concepts Maxime presented, he spoke at an incredible speed).  Luckily they had a handout which translated the passages that Maxime was reciting in French. I love handouts. Not only does it help you understand what is being presented, but you can take it home afterwards and touch it, read it, sit on the information that you heard hours ago. 10 points for Maxime for including a handout (as if my points mean anything)!

Maxime telling us about the exciting sexy things happening in French lit.

The lecture didn't really focus on sex but instead gender and the "heterosexual trouble" how men and women encounter issues with gender and hierarchy. Most of these concepts and theories I had encountered before in several of the gender and women's studies courses I had taken in past years, but there were a few concepts that really caught my eye and have made me think about my own work:

- Revolution must be devastatingly intimate

- Queerness isn't adopting new rules but instead is a rejection of a model of rules

Me looking sassy amidst a wave of French faculty.

It makes sense that revolution must be intimate but devastatingly intimate?! The way Maxime talked about it he basically made it sound like you must throw away your life, possibly even die for revolution. I guess it makes sense after more thought but still... is the only way to have revolution by giving your entire self away to the cause?

But also queerness solely as counter-culture and not as its own culture. If this is true, maybe it would be interesting not to focus on the odd behavior of the counter-culture but what is being countered.

Who knows. In the end my favorite part of this lecture was the fact that he had a handout and now I want to read the book Isidora. But the francophiles would definitely enjoy this lecture!