What has become of the novel at the beginning of the 21st century? This seminar will provide us with an opportunity to reflect on this question by examining the paths and forms taken by the French novel after the Nouveau Roman, and particularly during the period that critics describe as the "extreme contemporary" (from the 1990s onward). Criticized, deconstructed, or as pretext for autobiographical confessions, is the novel still relevant today? Through a variety of perspectives, we will question the very notion of the novel and the romanesque to find meaning following the multiple declarations of the death of the genre. The seminar will be organized around specific theoretical hypotheses related to varied approaches to the novel (parody, eroticism, intertextuality, rewriting) and its forms: polyphonic novel, novel-essay, theatrical novel, autobiographical novel, family novel, antinovel. We will study each novel through a singular perspective, highlighting the most important and innovative characteristics in relation to poetics of the novel. While the seminar focuses on novels produced in the last two decades in France, it will remain open to cross-readings structured around works by contemporary authors (from Quebec or the Francophone world) or with novelists from other periods with whom the authors under study have constructed privileged intertextual relationships.

Students from other graduate programs may submit assignments in English with approval of the instructor.