Penser le potentiel utopique des corps en mouvement : Subversion et recréation contemporaines des logiques spatiales chez Maylis de Kerangal

Abstract

Considering the spatial instability of the world, it seems urgent and necessary to rethink the relationship between space and human beings. In this article, I would more precisely like to argue that the work of the French author Maylis de Kerangal is relevant to interrogate the ways we experiment with space, by highlighting new and critical ways of travel and movement. While M. de Kerangal exploits territories and spaces through precise descriptions, it is mainly the movements of the characters that come to life within her writings. By analyzing the novels Corniche Kennedy and Tangente vers l’Est, this article seeks to demonstrate that the movements of the protagonists (a group of teenagers in Corniche Kennedy, a young Russian soldier in Tangente vers l’Est), far from being insignificant, are in fact endowed with a utopian potential, i.e. a critical spatial power. This utopian potential plays on two levels: on the one hand, it invents new connections with space, both on an individual and a collective level. On the other hand, it criticizes and questions spatial characteristics of our contemporary world.

Keywords:

• Utopian potential
• De Kerangal
• movements
• space

Notes

1 Géraldine Brausch, “Logiques de pouvoir et logiques spatiales chez Foucault, des intentions socio-politiques de l’espace architectural et urbain et de leurs effets.” Materiali foucaultiani, vol. 1, no. 1, 2012, pp. 75–90.

2 Louis Marin, Utopiques: jeux d’espaces. Paris, Minuit, 1973 (pp. 153–170).

3 Voir les travaux de Pierre Musso : Saint-Simon et le saint-simonisme. Paris, P U de France, 1999.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Émilie Ieven

Emilie Ieven, after two B.A. degrees in Philosophy and Literature, completed her M.A. degree in French and Romance Languages and Literatures. She’s currently finishing a Ph.D. dissertation about new forms of utopia in the works of contemporary authors (J. Echenoz, M. de Kerangal, P. Vasset, and M. Redonnet). She has published several articles and has recently organized an international colloquium on literary and contemporary places.