Textual and Visual Selves: Photography, Film, and Comic Art in French Autobiography

286 Pages·2011·3.011 MB·English

by  Natalie Edwards (editor), Amy L. Hubbell (editor), Ann Miller (editor)

Textual and Visual Selves

Textual & Visual
Photography, Film, and Comic Art
in French Autobiography

Edited by Natalie Edwards, Amy L. Hubbell, and Ann Miller

University of Nebraska Press ■ Lincoln and London
© 2011 by the Board of Regents of Library of Congress
the University of Nebraska Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Textual and visual selves: photography,
Chapter 3 was previously published as
film, and comic art in French autobiogra-
“Photography and Autobiography in
phy / edited by Natalie Edwards, Amy L.
Hélène Cixous’s Photos de racines and
Hubbell, and Ann Miller. p. cm. Includes
Annie Ernaux and Marc Marie’s LUsage de
bibliographical references and index.
la photo,” French Review 84.4 (2011). Used
ISBN 978-0-8032-3631-8 (pbk.: alk. paper)
with permission of the American Associa-
1. French prose literature — History and
tion of Teachers of French; permission
criticism. 2. Authors, French — Biogra-
conveyed through Copyright Clearance
phy — History and criticism. 3. Art in
Center, Inc.
literature. 4. Autobiography — Author-
A different version of chapter 5 was ship. 5. Visual perception in literature.
previously published in Women in French 6. Literature and photography — France.
Studies 17 (2009). 7. Self in literature. I. Edwards, Natalie.
II. Hubbell, Amy L. III. Miller, Ann, 1949
All rights reserved. Manufactured in the
Sept. 1– PQ771.T49 2011
United States of America
840.9'35 — dc23 2011020265
Set in Chaparral.
Designed by Nathan Putens.
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction:
Textual and Visual Selves 1
Natalie Edwards, Amy L. Hubbell,
and Ann Miller
1 Beyond Autobiography 29
Véronique Montémont
2 Chronicles of Intimacy: Photography in
Autobiographical Projects 51
Shirley Jordan
3 The Absent Body: Photography and
Autobiography in Hélène Cixous’s
Photos de racines and Annie Ernaux and
Marc Marie’s L’Usage de la photo 79
Natalie Edwards

4 The Photobiographical Today: Signs of

an Identity Crisis? 99
Floriane Place-Verghnes
5 Reclaiming the Void: The Cinematogra-
phic Aesthetic of Marguerite Duras’s
Autobiographical Novels 115
Erica L. Johnson
6 Illustration Revisited: Phototextual
Exchange and Resistance in Sophie
Calle’s Suite vénitienne 139
Johnnie Gratton
7 Viewing the Past through a
“Nostalgeric” Lens: Pied-Noir
Photodocumentaries 167
Amy L. Hubbell
8 Georges Perec, Memory, and
Photography 189
Peter Wagstaff
9 The Self-Portrait in French Cinema:
Reflections on Theory and on Agnès
Varda’s Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse 209
Agnès Calatayud
10 Autobiography in Bande Dessinée 235
Ann Miller
Contributors 263
Index 267
Illustrations
1 Anne Brochet includes this photograph
with no caption 38
2 Harboring shadows of others 58
3 Dis-locating the autobiographical self
in Marie NDiaye 62
4 A degree zero of photographic
evidence 68
5 Image of the girl leaning on the railing
of the steamship 128
6 Original view of the girl leaning on the
ferry railing 129
7 The mistake in the tile in Jacques
Derrida’s house in El Biar, Algeria 181
8 Italian child finds first penny, 1926,
Ellis Island 205

9 The artist in the mirror 214

10 I’m an animal I don’t recognize 229
11 The fading of memory 247

12 The proliferation of the self within the
panel 252

13 The graphiator deplores the need to

exhibit himself as character 255

Acknowledgments
This book is the product of discussions and debates initiated at
two conferences, one in Leicester, England (November 2007),
and the other in Buffalo, New York (April 2008). The editors
would like to thank all colleagues who were involved, including
several who were present at both. Particular thanks are due to
Professor Susan Hayward for her valuable input at the Leices-
ter conference, and to Dr. Elizabeth Jones, the co-organizer.
For the Buffalo conference, thanks are due to the Northeast
Modern Languages Association and, from Amy Hubbell and
Ann Miller, to Natalie Edwards, who convened the Textual
Visual Selves panel. We are grateful to the French Review,
which originally published chapter 3 by Natalie Edwards,
and to Women in French Studies, which originally published
chapter 5 by Erica L. Johnson. We much appreciate the care-
ful guidance we have received from Kirsten A. Elias Rowley
and her colleagues at the University of Nebraska Press, and
we would also like to express our gratitude to Christopher
Hogarth, Malcolm Hope, Douglas Powell, and Sorenne Powell
for their support and patience.