Edward Welch
Coming to Terms with the Future: The Experience of Modernity in Annie Ernaux's Journal du dehors
Welch, Edward
Authors
Contributors
Hélène Stafford
Editor
Abstract
This article examines Annie Ernaux's Journal du dehors (1993), and its representation of life in the New Towns which emerged on the outskirts of Paris in the post-war period. Revisiting the recent history of urban development around Paris, and in particular the Schéma directeur d'aménagement et d'urbanisme drawn up by Paul Delouvrier in 1965, it sets Ernaux's text in the context of other recent portrayals of life in the Parisian suburbs to argue that what seems at first to be a narrative of alienation, as the narrator is confronted by strange and threatening urban worlds, in fact emerges as one of adaptability, as we watch her become absorbed into the systems and networks designed by the planners. The text offers us a portrait of an individual who is not so much modern as modernised, as she gradually becomes accustomed–or more accurately, conditioned–to life in the New Town.
Citation
Welch, E. (2007). Coming to Terms with the Future: The Experience of Modernity in Annie Ernaux's Journal du dehors. French Cultural Studies, 18(1), 125-136. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957155807073319
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Publication Date | 2007-02 |
Deposit Date | Jan 27, 2009 |
Publicly Available Date | Feb 1, 2010 |
Journal | French Cultural Studies |
Print ISSN | 0957-1558 |
Electronic ISSN | 1740-2352 |
Publisher | SAGE Publications |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 18 |
Issue | 1 |
Pages | 125-136 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1177/0957155807073319 |
Keywords | Banlieue, Delouvrier, Ernaux, modernity, New Town, Schéma directeur, Urban planning. |
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The final definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal French cultural studies 18 (1) 2007 Copyright © SAGE Publications by SAGE Publications Ltd at the French cultural studies page: http://frc.sagepub.com/ on SAGE Journals Online: http://online.sagepub.com/
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