Description
Book SynopsisFocusing on representations of women’s experiences in contemporary France, ‘Taking Up Space’ examines how women inhabit a variety of work spaces. It also speaks to the importance of cultural productions in calling out labour issues affecting women, as well as in offering a platform that allows us to imagine a future where inclusive and equitable work spaces are the norm. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s phenomenological use of objects, the book explores women’s experiences through different metaphors of the door related to labour. The contributors demonstrate how doors are not only closed or open, but also serve as a threshold. Taken together, the chapters convey how women’s work experiences can range from states of oppression to survival and celebration, and demonstrates how through deliberate stances and actions, various work spaces can become sites of liberation and revolution.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Notes on Contributors Introduction - Siham Bouamer and Sonja Stojanovic PART I Behind Closed Doors: Work and Intimate Spaces A Transmedial and Transtemporal Reading of Labour on the Run in Albertine - Sarrazin’s L’Astragale Polly Galis Good Housekeeping: Domestic Noir and Domestic Work in Leïla Slimani’s Chanson douce - Ciara GormanA Woman’s Huis clos: Exhausted Feminism in Paule Constant’s Confidence pour confidence - Jennifer Willging A Life’s Work: Accounting for Birth in Naissances - Amaleena Damlé Sexual Identity as Work in Mireille Best’s Il n’y a pas d’hommes au paradis - Blase A. Provitola Psychoanalytical Work in Chahdortt Djavann’s Je ne suis pas celle que je suis - Rebecca Rosenberg PART II Revolving Doors: Liminal and Precarious Spaces ‘Be proud of all the Fatimas’: From Alienated Labour to Poetic Consciousness in Philippe Faucon’s Fatima - Siham Bouamer Chimerical Cashiers: Exposure, Ableism and the Foreign Body in Marie-Hélène Lafon’s Gordana and Nos vies - Sonja Stojanovic Subterranean Space and Subjugation: ‘Being Below’ in Delphine de Vigan’s Les Heures souterraines - Dorthea Fronsman-Cecil In Concrete Terms: Gendering Labour in Anne Garréta’s Dans l’béton - Jennifer Carr Woman at Sea? Space and Work in Catherine Poulain’s Le grand marin - Amy Wigelsworth From Cabaret to the Classroom: Bambi’s Professional Transition - Maxime Foerster PART III From Opening a Few Doors to Blowing Them Off Women’s Bénévolat militant at the Beginning of the MLF - Sandra Daroczi Women Working – Women Rebelling. Female Community and Gender Relations in Ah!Nana - Valentina Denzel ‘Putting Us Back in Our Place’: #MeToo, Women and the Literary/Cultural Establishment - Mercédès Baillargeon Breaking Down Barriers and Advocating for Change in the French Film Industry: The Career and Activism of Actress Aïssa Maïga - Leslie Kealhofer-Kemp Unapologetically Visible? Representing and Reassessing Contemporary French Womanhood in Dix Pour Cent - Loïc Bourdeau Tracées to Black Excellence? Black Women at Work in Mariannes Noires by Mame-Fatou Niang and Kaytie Nielsen - Johanna Montlouis-Gabriel Conclusion - Siham Bouamer and Sonja Stojanovic
