UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Maddening Truths: Literary Authority and Fictive Authenticity in Francophone and Post-Soviet Women’s Writing A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature by Melanie Veronica Jones 2021 © Copyright by Melanie Veronica Jones 2021 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Maddening Truths: Literary Authority and Fictive Authenticity in Francophone and Post-Soviet Women’s Writing by Melanie Veronica Jones Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature University of California, Los Angeles, 2021 Professor David MacFadyen, Co-Chair Professor Laure Murat, Co-Chair At the start of the “post-truth” era, women writers in post-colonial France and post-Soviet Russia were searching for a strategy to respond to the crises of authority and authenticity unfolding around them. Linda Lê, Gisèle Pineau, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, and Anna Starobinets exploit the ambiguity of literary madness to destabilize traditional sites of knowledge and work towards new conceptions of truth. All four women’s works have traditionally been approached as narratives of trauma, detailing the ravages of mental illness or cultural upheaval. This dissertation argues that they instead work to expose the irreconcilability of medical, sociological, and spiritual authorities, forcing readers to constantly question who (if anyone) can be considered trustworthy and which ii (if any) perspective can be declared reliable. The texts provide fictional reference points, like intertextual allusions and meta-literary framing, as the surest way for readers to anchor their assumptions. Linda Lê’s autofictional text Calomnies and Gisèle Pineau’s autobiographical novel Chair Piment depict a Francophone world wracked with social fractures in the wake of decolonization and economic crisis: amidst the splintering chaos, literature acts as a tenuous web holding contradictory discourses in suspension. Ludmilla Petrushevskaya’s novella Vremia Noch’ and Anna Starobinets’ novella Perekhodnyi vozrast instead depict literature as a veil cast over the hollowed-out remnants of authority after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, each of these women’s works rejects any assumed conflation between knowledge and truth, and by extension an unquestioned relationship between authority and authenticity. In the wake of its successful dismantling of these sites, mad literature serves as a surprisingly promising step towards truth, rather than an obstacle to reaching it. Drawing on French philosopher Alain Badiou’s conception of the void as no-thing, I argue that madness in Ludmilla Petrushevskaya’s oeuvre both models Badiouan subjectivization and encourages readers to approach truth as an axiomatic intervention. Utilizing Russian existentialist Lev Shestov’s work, I then approach Gisèle Pineau’s continuous engagement with despair and insanity as a way to reintroduce singularity and contingency to reader consciousness, pitting them against the constrictive forces of necessity. Both Petrushevskaya and Pineau tackle madness as something to be passed through via literature; Lê and Starobinets, by contrast, follow philosopher Gilles Deleuze in their encouragement of endless engagement with dis-order. Linda Lê draws on Russian muse Marina Tsvetaeva in her search for adequate truths, transforming autofiction into a schizo-analytic iii process. Anna Starobinets instead draws on Franz Kafka to trace contemporary obstacles to true Deleuzian creation, illustrating the infinite potentialities of meaning. In all four cases, mad literature is a crucial tool for producing truths that come before or outside frameworks of knowledge — its authenticity not yet, and perhaps never, authorized. iv The dissertation of Melanie Veronica Jones is approved. Eleanor Kaufman Kathleen Komar David MacFadyen, Committee Co-Chair Laure Murat, Committee Co-Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2021 v TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract of the Dissertation ii Acknowledgements vii Vita viii Introduction 1 1 Illegitimate, Undefined: Epistemic Destabilization and Auto-Fictional 35 Interweaving in Contemporary French Literature 2 No Way Out: Conflating Lenses and Cannibalizing Genres in 72 Contemporary Russian Literature 3 No-Thing To See: Petrushevskaya and Pineau in the Search for 104 Truths To Come 4 Abandoning the Theater of Representation: Becoming-Mad and Becoming- 148 Monstrous in the Work of Linda Lê and Anna Starobinets Conclusion 194 Works Cited 202 vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the generous support of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Graduate Division’s Dissertation Year Fellowship. I would also like to thank the UCLA Center for European and Russian Studies, the American Councils for International Education, and the UC Paris Study Center for enabling me to further my language studies and begin my research in Moscow and Paris. I would like to express my appreciation for my dissertation committee. Their feedback and support bolstered me as this project developed, over-expanded, and became manageable again. Kathleen Komar has been a consistent guide through my graduate experience. Eleanor Kaufman’s insights on Alain Badiou and the works of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guatarri were especially appreciated. Thank you to Co-Chair David MacFadyen, for his continuous commentary, his patience, and for his insights regarding contemporary Russian culture. Most of all, thanks to my Co-Chair and advisor Laure Murat for her encouragement as the dissertation took shape, and for her belief in the significance of this work from the beginning. I am immensely grateful to those friends, colleagues, and family members who helped me weather the emotional highs and lows of past four years. This dissertation would not have been possible without their strength and wisdom. To Brandon Archambault, Maggie Astor, Allison Collins, and Shayda Kafai especially: you have my deepest gratitude. I dedicate this dissertation to Colin, who holds my heart and gives it reason to beat. vii VITA EDUCATION Ph.D., Comparative Literature, University of California, Los Angeles; expected June 2021 M.A., Comparative Literature, University of California, Los Angeles; June 2016 B.A., Comparative Literature, Barnard College, Columbia University; June 2011 PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYMENT Spring 2020 Teaching Assistant Consultant, First-Year Training in Literature and Writing Pedagogy; University of California, Los Angeles 2018-2020 Teaching Fellow, Department of Comparative Literature, UCLA CL 4CW “Mad Voices: Disorder, Dissidence, Dreaming” CL 4CW “Horror and Identity” Summer 2019 Language Learner Instructor, Writing Programs, UCLA ESL 23 “American Culture Through Film” Fall 2018 Graduate Student Researcher, UC Paris Study Center Summer 2018 Language Learner Instructor, Writing Programs, UCLA ESL 25 “Academic Reading and Writing” 2017-2018 Teaching Associate, Department of Comparative Literature, UCLA 2015-2017 Teaching Assistant, Department of Comparative Literature, UCLA PUBLICATIONS “Embrace the Lie: Defying Origins through Reading, Madly.” Mad Scholars: Reclaiming and Reimagining the Neurodiverse Academy. Co-edited with Shadya Kafai, Ph.D. Manuscript under review by Syracuse University Press. Advance contract offered by McFarland Press. “Dracula or Draculitz? Translational Forgery and Bram Stoker’s “Lost Version” of Dracula.” Victorian Review 45.2 (Fall 2019) 293-306. Co-written with Katy Brundan and Benjamin Mier- Cruz (Icelandic and Swedish translations). SELECT FELLOWSHIPS AND HONORS UCLA Dissertation Year Fellowship, 2020-2021 Del Amo Fellowship, 2017-2018 viii Komar Shideler Graduate Fellowship, Summer 2017 Title VIII Fellowship, Spring 2017 Center for European and Russian Studies Grant, Spring 2017 Graduate Summer Research Mentorship, Summer 2016 Center for European and Russian Studies Grant, Summer 2016 Del Amo Fellowship, 2014-2015 RECENT CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS April 2021 “Thornytorinx: Devouring Discourse in the Eating Disorder Memoir.” Panel Organizer, “Literary Diagnosis and the Anti-Medical Humanities;” American Comparative Literature Association Annual Conference, Virtual Session. January 2021 “Postcolonial Dostoevsky: Revolutions, Radical, Rêveurs.” Panel Organizer, “Dostoevsky at 200: International Receptions;” Modern Language Association Annual Conference, Virtual Session. September 2019 “Poet, Prophet, Martyr, Spy: Marina Tsvetaeva in French Tongues.” Reception Study Society Annual Conference, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. January 2019 “Prince Myshkin and the Female Fool.” Modern Language Association Annual Conference, Chicago, Illinois. June 2018 “Laura as Forged Document in Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White.” Fraud and Forgery: Victorian Literature Conference, Aarhus, Netherlands. UNIVERSITY SERVICE 2016-2020 Reviewer, Undergraduate Journal of Slavic and East European Studies 2016-2018 Humanities Council Representative, Graduate Student Association 2015-2017 Co-Organizer, the University Undercommons Fall 2016 Contributing Researcher, Medical Humanities EPIC Proposal 2015-2016 Co-Organizer, Comparative Literature Graduate Student Conference 2015-2016 Archivist, Center for Primary Research and Training (CFPRT) Spring 2015 Contributor, Forum to Reclaim Diversity 2014-2016 Co-Founder and Officer, Women’s Graduate Student Association ix INTRODUCTION Doubt… is an illness that comes from knowledge and leads to madness. — Memoirs of a Madman (1838), Gustave Flaubert From its beginnings, the