Francophonie et littérature comparée Un Entretien avec Jean Bessière

ABSTRACT

A few days before we met in Paris, at the beginning of July 2017, I asked Jean Bessière to share his point of view on the relationship between francophonie and comparative literature, and on the stakes for future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Réflexivité
• francophonie
• littérature comparée
• anthropologie
• interdépendance
• universel

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maya Boutaghou

Assistant Professor of French and Global Cultures at the University of Virginia and Andrew Mellon Fellow (Institute of the Humanities and Global Cultures), Maya Boutaghou is the author of Occidentalismes, Romans historiques postcoloniaux et identités nationales au XIX^e siècle (Honoré Champion, 2016) that offers a new approach to the fields of comparative literature and postcolonial studies in the nineteenth century. She guest-edited a special issue for l'Esprit créateur, “The Algerian War of Independence and its Legacy in Algeria, France and Beyond,” Winter 2014, and a forthcoming book, Représentations de la guerre d'indépendance algérienne (Classiques Garnier). Her articles are published in Expressions Maghrébines, French Studies, International Journal of Francophone Studies, and Dalhousie French Studies.

Jean Bessière is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at the Sorbonne and Professor honorado at the Universidad Tres de Febrero-Buenos Aires. He directed the Association internationale de Littérature comparée from 1997 to 2000. He has taught widely outside of France—in North America, Europe, Argentina, Brazil, and China. He is the author of some fifteen books including Le Roman ou la problématicité du monde (2010), Questionner le roman (2012), Inactualité et originalité de la littérature française contemporaine (2014), and, with Gerald Gillespie, co-editor of Contextualizing World Literature (2015).