Is a woman a reader like any other? Gender and reception in contemporary fiction

Author(s)

  • Maxime Decout Sorbonne Université
  • Estelle Mouton-Rovira Université Bordeaux Montaigne

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51777/relief18416

Keywords:

female readers, reception studies, contemporary literature, feminism, gender

Abstract

While women readers have long been associated, on the one hand, with a form of vulnerability, linked to the topos of the dangers of reading, and on the other with an eroticised vision of reading, it has to be said that the contemporary period is working to change these images. The development of feminist theories and gender studies, and the pragmatic inflection of reception theories are all new critical legacies that are changing the literary representation of women and, a fortiori, of women readers. Such figures enable us to think about reading practices through the prism of gender. The aim is to ask whether the female reader is a reader like any other, in order to explore the ways in which literature creates its own critical knowledge of gender.

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Author Biographies

  • Maxime Decout, Sorbonne Université

    Maxime Decout is professor of literature at Sorbonne University. He is the author of four essays published by Éditions de Minuit on the relationship between writing, reading and interpretation: En toute mauvaise foi (2015), Qui a peur de l'imitation ? (2017), Pouvoirs de l'imposture (2018) and Éloge du mauvais lecteur (2021). He also works on the relationship between Jewishness and literature, to which he has devoted two books: Albert Cohen : les fictions de la judéité (Classiques-Garnier, 2011) and Écrire la judéité (Champ Vallon, 2015). He contributed to the publication of Perec's works in the “Bibliothèque de la Pléiade” (2017) and wrote the Album Romain Gary (“Bibliothèque de la Pléiade”, 2019). His latest book, Faire trace. Les écritures de la Shoah, was published by Éditions Corti in 2023.

  • Estelle Mouton-Rovira, Université Bordeaux Montaigne

    Estelle Mouton-Rovira is an Associate Professor at Bordeaux Montaigne University. Her research focuses on theories of reading and representations of reception and interpretation in contemporary literature. She is also interested in the intermedial aspects of reading (literary performances, digital literature). She is currently preparing the publication of the book resulting from her doctoral thesis, devoted to the imaginaries of reception in contemporary narrative. She is also developing a research project on critical legacies and academic background of contemporary writers.

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Published

2023-12-14

Issue

Vol. 17 No. 2 (2023): Is a woman a reader like any other ?

Section

Editorial

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Estelle Mouton-Rovira, Maxime Decout

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

All articles published in RELIEF appear in Open Access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0). Under this licence, authors retain ownership of the copyright of their article, but they allow its unrestricted use, provided it is properly cited.

How to Cite

Decout, M. and Mouton-Rovira, E. (2023) “Is a woman a reader like any other? Gender and reception in contemporary fiction”, RELIEF - REVUE ÉLECTRONIQUE DE LITTÉRATURE FRANÇAISE, 17(2), pp. 1–12. doi:10.51777/relief18416.