Towards a poetics of borders. Based on the study of French-language literature

Suter, Patrick (5 February 2022). Towards a poetics of borders. Based on the study of French-language literature (Unpublished). In: Recent Developments in Territorial, Cultural and Linguistic Border Studies. Saarbrücken. 4-5 February.

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A reflection on borders reveals the difficulty of defining them, as they are plastic objects in constant mutation. Perhaps it will be clearer if we distinguish between two main types (which are in a constant dialectical relationship): spatial borders on the one hand, and social boundaries on the other, with both borders and boundaries being translated into French by the same term (frontière), and with both types constantly evolving between opposing or diverse positions. The former can operate at various scales: between nations, intranational units, at the level of cities (urban boundaries), etc. The latter are based on the elements that distinguish social groups (nation, ethnicity, language, gender, skin colour or race, class, culture, etc.). When referring to the former, research tends to speak of borders (in geopolitics or geography), while the latter are more often called boundaries (in the work of anthropologists) - although this opposition is much less clear in dictionaries.
These different frontières are dynamic and constantly changing in form and function. They distinguish between social groups and therefore between different common and individual histories. They influence the journeys or movements of individuals or societies.
French-language literatures constitute a choice field for exploring borders and boundaries, insofar as they are written in (or in reference to) very diverse places on earth (sub-Saharan Africa, Belgium, the Caribbean, France, Lebanon, the Maghreb, the Indian Ocean, Quebec, Switzerland, etc.). The study of French-language literature makes it possible to discover a vast repertoire of histories of and at the borders, and to bring to light their functioning or their poetics. This was the aim of the recently published book, Poétique des frontières. Un parcours transversal des littératures de langue française (September 2021), which I co-edited with my colleague Corinne Fournier Kiss, and whose theoretical issues I intend to present in this paper.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Division/Institute:	06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies > Institute of French Language and Literature > Literary Studies 06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies > Institute of French Language and Literature
UniBE Contributor:	Suter, Patrick
Subjects:	800 Literature, rhetoric & criticism > 840 French & related literatures 400 Language > 440 French & related languages
Publisher:	Center for Border Studies - Université de la Grande Région/Grossregion
Language:	English
Submitter:	Patrick Suter
Date Deposited:	25 Mar 2022 10:42
Last Modified:	05 Dec 2022 16:15
Related URLs:	Organisation
Additional Information:	Paper presented during the panel New Crossing in Border Poetics organised by Johann Schimanski
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Borders; Boundaries; Poetics; Literatures written in French
URI:	https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/167352