On completion of this module, students should be able to: - analyze and engage in critical discussion of the nature and status of the object in postwar French culture; - analyze and discuss the set texts in relation to their medium of expression and in relation to the problematic of the object; - relate the set texts to a broader historical and intellectual context.

See general module description text for key issues that are addressed.

Set Works:
Francis Ponge, Le Parti pris des choses
Roland Barthes, Mythologies
Georges Perec, Les Choses: histoire des années soixante

Indicative Bibliography:

General Works:
Baudrillard, Jean, Le Système des objets (Paris: Gallimard, 1968).
Brown, Bill, ‘Thing Theory’, in Critical Inquiry, 28: 1 (2001), 1–22.
Latour, Bruno, Nous n’avons jamais été modernes: essai d’anthropologie symétrique (Paris: La Découverte, 1991).
____________, ‘From Realpolitik to Dingpolitik, or How to Make Things Public’, in Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel (eds), Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), pp. 14–41.
Marx, Karl, ‘The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof’, in Robert C. Tucker (ed.), The Marx-Engels Reader (1972; New York: Norton, 1978), pp. 319–29.
Pietz, William, ‘The Problem of the Fetish I’, in Res, 9 (1985), 5–17.
____________, ‘The Problem of the Fetish II’, in Res, 13 (1987), 23–47.
____________, ‘The Problem of the Fetish IIIa’, in Res, 16 (1988), 105–23.
Ross, Kristin, Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: Decolonization and the Reordering of French Culture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995).

On Ponge:
Genette, Gérard, ‘Le Parti pris des mots’, in Romanic Review, 46: 4 (1975), 283–87.
Harrow, Susan, ‘From Culture Critique to Poetic Capital: Ponge’s Things in Language’, in The Material, The Real and the The Fractured Self: Subjectivity and Representation from Rimbaud to Réda (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2004), pp. 113–63.
Higgins, Ian, ‘Introduction’, in Francis Ponge, Le Parti pris des choses, ed. by Ian Higgins (London: Athlone Press, 1979), pp. 1–36.
Ponge, Francis, Méthodes (Paris: Gallimard, 1961).
____________, Entretiens de Francis Ponge avec Philippe Sollers (Paris: Seuil, 1970).
Riffaterre, Michel, ‘Ponge tautologique ou le fonctionnement du texte’, in Philippe Bonnefis and Pierre Oster (eds), Francis Ponge: colloque de Cerisy (Paris: Union Générale d’Editions, 1977), pp. 66–84.
Robbe-Grillet, Alain, ‘Nature, humanisme, tragédie’ (1956), in Pour un nouveau roman (Paris: Minuit, 1961), pp. 45–67.
Richard, Jean-Pierre, ‘ Francis Ponge’, in Onze études sur la poésie moderne (Paris: Seuil, 1964), pp. 198–224.
Sartre, Jean-Paul, ‘L’Homme et les choses’, in Critiques littéraires (Situations I) (Paris: Gallimard, 1975), pp. 298–358.

On Barthes:
Culler, Jonathan, Roland Barthes (London: Fontana, 1983).
Leak, Andrew, Barthes: Mythologies (London: Grant and Cutler, 1994).
Ross, Kristin, ‘Yesterday’s Critique, Today’s Mythologies', in Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, 12:2 (2008), 231–42.
Ungar, Steven, ‘From Event to Memory Site: Thoughts on Rereading Mythologies’, in Nottingham French Studies, 36:1 (1997), 24–33.
Welch, Edward, ‘Une réconciliation du réel et des hommes: Mythologies and the Politics of Things’, in Nottingham French Studies, 47:2 (2008), 19–28.

On Perec:
Bellos, David, Georges Perec: A Life in Words (1993; London: Harvill, 1999).
Burgelin, Claude, ‘Les Choses, un devenir-roman des Mythologies’, in Recherches et travaux, 77 (2010), 57–66.
Perec, Georges, ‘Le Nouveau Roman et le refus du réel’ (1962), in L. G.: une aventure des années soixante (Paris: Seuil, 1992), pp. 25–45.
____________, ‘Pour une littérature réaliste’ (1962), in L. G.: une aventure des années soixante (Paris: Seuil, 1992), pp. 47–66.
____________, ‘L’Esprit des choses’, in Arts-Loisirs, 54–75 (October 1966–March 1967) (16 columns).
____________, ‘Pouvoirs et limites du romancier français contemporain’ (1967), in Les Choses (Paris: 10/18, 2007), pp. 147–71.
____________, ‘Approches de quoi?’ (1973), in L’Infra-ordinaire (Paris: Seuil, 1989), pp. 9–13.
____________, ‘Douze regards obliques’ (1976), in Penser/classer (Paris: Hachette, 1985), pp. 43–58.
Sheringham, Michael, ‘Georges Perec: Uncovering the Infra-Ordinary’, in Everyday Life: Theories and Practices from Surrealism to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 248–91.

Not applicable to this module.

• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment
• Group/class feedback, post-assessment

Essay submitted Week 7. Returned to students with individual written feedback. Group feedback in lecture.