The Library
Migration and melancholia: From Kristeva's 'depression nationale' to Pineau's 'maladie de l'exil'
Tools
Haigh, Sam (2006) Migration and melancholia: From Kristeva's 'depression nationale' to Pineau's 'maladie de l'exil'. French Studies, Volume 60 (Number 2). pp. 232-250. doi:10.1093/fs/knl078 ISSN 0016-1128.
Research output not available from this repository.
Request-a-Copy directly from author or use local Library Get it For Me service.
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/fs/knl078
Abstract
In her recent Contre la depression nationale, Kristeva argues that France is currently suffering from a 'national depression' that is similar in character to the individual depression of the patient seeking psychoanalysis. Having never recovered its national self-esteem after the Second World War, France has, according to Kristeva, become isolated and inward-looking and, like the depressed analysand, is in need of a restored self-image. Openness to the other, the foreigner, the immigrant is one way in which France can rescue itself from depression and, building on its post-revolutionary, Enlightenment tradition of hospitality, begin to thrive and evolve once more. What is striking, of course, is that the immigrant him- or herself disappears as subject, and instead remains simply a means through which the French subject may be healed. Through an analysis of the dynamics of melancholia, this essay examines both Kristeva's notion of,national depression' and what Chinese-American theorist Anne Anlin Cheng has recently termed the 'racial melancholia' of the migrant subject elided by Kristeva. More specifically, and taking Gisele Pineau's L'Exil selon Julia as an example, it examines the 'maladie de l'exil' of the French Caribbean migrant subject who has been left out by almost all studies of immigration in France but who can be seen to have functioned as France's primary 'melancholic object'.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Subjects: | P Language and Literature > PQ Romance literatures | ||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Arts > School of Modern Languages and Cultures > French Studies | ||||
Journal or Publication Title: | French Studies | ||||
Publisher: | Oxford University Press | ||||
ISSN: | 0016-1128 | ||||
Official Date: | April 2006 | ||||
Dates: |
|
||||
Volume: | Volume 60 | ||||
Number: | Number 2 | ||||
Number of Pages: | 19 | ||||
Page Range: | pp. 232-250 | ||||
DOI: | 10.1093/fs/knl078 | ||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access |
Data sourced from Thomson Reuters' Web of Knowledge
Request changes or add full text files to a record
Repository staff actions (login required)
View Item |