New Books in LGBTQ+ Studies

Tracy Rutler, "Queering the Enlightenment: Kinship and Gender in Eighteenth-Century French Literature" (Oxford UP/Liverpool UP, 2021)

Sep 23, 2023

Tracy Rutler, author of Queering the Enlightenment, explores how French literature in the 18th century resisted heteronormativity. She analyzes works by Prévost, Crébillion, Marivaux, and Graffigny that questioned patriarchal power and relations. Rutler examines themes of reproduction, masculinity, marriage, and same-sex community, offering unique readings informed by philosophers and theorists such as Foucault and Rancière.

54:29

Episode guests

Tracy Rutler

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Quick takeaways

18th century French literature questioned and resisted heteronormativity and bourgeois family relations.

Authors like Crebillon and Marivaux presented unconventional forms of family and kinship that deviated from societal norms.

Deep dives

The Context and Inspiration: From Kansas to France

Tracy Rutler, the author of Queering the Enlightenment, traces her fascination with France and French literature back to her childhood. Growing up in Kansas, Tracy was captivated by Audrey Hepburn's film Sabrina, which depicted a woman living in Paris. This sparked her desire to learn French and engage with French culture. Tracy's interest in 18th century French literature was sparked during her master's program at the University of Kansas, when she read an article from Voltaire's Encyclopedia that felt remarkably relevant to contemporary discussions. This led her to delve into the literature and philosophy of the Enlightenment, ultimately becoming a scholar specializing in this period.

Introduction

2min

Mapping the Transition: French Literature in the 18th Century

24min

Analyzing the Structure and Themes of the Book

4min

Exploring the Intention behind Utopian Fictions in 18th-century French Literature

4min

Exploring the Role of Female Authorship in the Book

2min

Patriarchy in 18th Century French Literature

13min

Exploring the Legacies of Enlightenment Science and Care

4min

Tracy Rutler's Queering the Enlightenment: Kinship and Gender in Eighteenth-Century French Literature (Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, Liverpool UP, 2021) explores the imaginaries of novels and plays from the "liminal" period that followed the end of Louis the XIV's reign in France. Examining a range of French works from the 1730s and 1740s, including writing by Antoine François Prévost, Claude Crébillion, Pierre de Marivaux, and Françoise de Graffigny, Rutler traces a set of utopian themes and impulses that questioned and resisted heteronormativity and bourgeois family relations during this period. Interrogating gender, sexuality, and kinship in both the content and the form of their work, these authors challenged patriarchal power and relations as the foundations of state and society in France. At once intimate and political, the characters, scenes, and narratives these authors produced also posed questions about (the) Enlightenment more broadly.

In readings informed by thinkers like Foucault and Rancière, as well as the work of psychoanalytic, feminist, and queer theorists, Queering the Enlightenment is divided into three sections: Family Remains, Prodigal Sons, and Narrative Spinsters. Beginning with an analysis of eighteenth-century powerhouses Montesquieu and Voltaire on patriarchal decline and repair, Rutler goes on to consider literary representations of reproduction, masculinity, the public sphere, marriage, maternity, and same-sex community. The book will be of great interest to literary scholars and historians alike, particularly anyone interested the legacies of the Enlightenment and how historical struggles/debates over kinship, gender, and sexuality continue to resonate in the present.

Roxanne Panchasi is an Associate Professor of History at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada who specializes in twentieth and twenty-first century France and empire. She is the founding host of New Books in French Studies, a channel launched in 2013.

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