Week 2: My research interests!

Hello everyone ! My name is Catherine and I am a CRO student, which means I am completing both the Master of Information (with a dual concentration in ARM and LIS) and the Master of Museum Studies. With a background in anthropology and French literature, I have very varied interests. Nevertheless, I think what connects my interests (at least with anthropology and French literature!) is how communities, societies and nations at large represent themselves, and particularly through objects, including books (I am leaving non-material means of representations such as oral histories, songs and dances to other researchers J).

I am still uncertain about a more specific topic I would like to explore for this course, but for the sake of the exercise, I have settled on one. During my previous studies in French literature, I developed a passion for autobiography and for the 18^th century. Luckily for me, it is during that period that autobiography, as we know it today, was really born, with the release of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions (which were later followed by two other autobiographies: Rousseau, judge of Jean-Jacques: Dialogues and the Reveries of a Solitary Walker). With his Confessions, Rousseau was the first author to write an autobiography focused on one’s own life, experiences and feelings. Rousseau’ work was groundbreaking and partly for this reason, it has been studied at length. Nevertheless, what I believe is particularly fascinating, and has not been studied at length yet, is how Rousseau stages a prosecution throughout his three main autobiographical works, and which is particularly explicit in his Dialogues. If, in literature, the judicial genre is usually based on a tension between two poles, the defender and the accuser, Rousseau likes to play both roles simultaneously. Thus, his discourse has the distinction of being both an indictment and a plea.

With that in mind, here are the questions I would like to explore:

Ø  How does the judicial discourse is manifested/represented in Rousseau’s autobiographies?

Ø  How does the argumentative system function?

Ø  How does the narration serve the argumentative strategy?

Ø  What are the stakes of this judicial discourse/prosecution on the autobiographical practice?

Ø  Is this judicial discourse/prosecution representative of 18^th century law/society, and if so, how? Or if it is not, why?

With these questions, I hope to situate Rousseau’s autobiographical works in a broader ideological context and see how they changed 18^th century’s imagination.

P.S. You may have realized that English is not my first language. Most of my knowledge about Rousseau was acquired during my French literature studies, and even though I try very hard to translate my ideas as best as I can, I understand some parts may be confusing. Please do not hesitate to ask me questions!