Breaking free from the mesmerizing idea of the literary work: critical benchmarks on the performativity and the reception of literary arts

Author(s)

  • Corentin Lahouste Université Laval
  • René Audet Université Laval

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51777/relief17717

Keywords:

literary arts, contemporary literature, mediality, hybridity, performance, reception, publishing, materiality

Abstract

This article aims to affirm on a theoretical level what the literary arts, understood as writing practices outside the book, cause as both conceptual as empirical displacements with regard to the literary activity as it is commonly envisaged. The double question of performativity and reception of these types of productions is at the heart of the problematization: on the basis of five key points, we try to better define these works, practices and creative modalities which open to other uses and regimes of experience of the literary fact, by impelling movement in interartistic relations. This article is the result of a collective process of reflection that was carried out in collaboration with the participants of a scientific meeting held on this theme in October 2022.

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Author Biographies

  • Corentin Lahouste, Université Laval

    Recipient of a Banting postdoctoral fellowship (2022-2024), Corentin Lahouste is currently working at Université Laval (Canada) in Professor René Audet's team (Laboratoire Ex situ/Figura). His thesis, defended in March 2019 at UCLouvain (Belgium), resulted in the book Écritures du déchainement. Esthétique anarchique chez Marcel Moreau, Yannick Haenel et Philippe De Jonckheere (Classiques Garnier, 2021). His work on contemporary French-language literature focuses on the links between literature and politics and the mediatic diversification of the act of literary creation. From October 2020 to September 2022, he was associated with the  HANDLING research programme (ERC), led by Anne Reverseau, and is also an active member of the Littératures modes d’emploi project team, an international applied research network pioneering the study of literature and book exhibitions.



  • René Audet, Université Laval

    René Audet is a full professor at Université Laval (Québec) and a member of the Figura research center. He is a specialist in contemporary literature and digital culture, as well as being interested in current forms of narrativity, the digital transformation of the publishing world and digital literatures. He is the director of the Quebec pole of the "Littérature québécoise mobile" research project (SSHRC), director of the Laboratoire Ex situ and of the digital scholarly publisher Codicille. He co-edited with Nicolas Xanthos the book Ce que le personnage contemporain dit à la critique (Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2019) and co-authored with Tom Lebrun, in fall 2020, a white paper on "Artificial Intelligence and the Book Industry". He is closely involved in the critical and institutional development of the "literary arts" in Quebec and French-speaking Canada.

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Published

2023-09-15

How to Cite

Lahouste, C. and Audet, R. (2023) “Breaking free from the mesmerizing idea of the literary work: critical benchmarks on the performativity and the reception of literary arts ”, RELIEF - REVUE ÉLECTRONIQUE DE LITTÉRATURE FRANÇAISE, 17(1), pp. 183–194. doi:10.51777/relief17717.