Gendered Monies: Affective and Sexual Regimes in 19th Century France. In the first half of the Nineteenth Century, France slowly underwent a radical shift in affective and sexual semiotics. From a feudal socio-economic regime and signifying system, and its attendant model of gendered behaviors and expectations, the culture slowly started to incorporate the imperative of the capitalist form of social organization in its affective functioning. Literature, and the novel in particular, is the exemplary form of expression for this changing semiotics, at all levels: commercial production, creative processes, audience building and social circulation. We will study this essential passage in 5 novels dating from about 1820 until 1860, by authors such as Madame de Charriere, Madame de Duras, Stendhal and Honoré de Balzac. Our critical insights will be mostly framed in 21st century post- Marxist cultural criticism, gender studies and the work of Jacques Rancière.
Number of Credits
3
Giuseppina Mecchia