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1 PRINCETON UNIVERSITY Professor Natalie Berkman PRINCETON UNIVERSITY Professor Natalie Berkman [email protected] Department of French and Italian French 400 Th 1:30-4:20 The Oulipo and its Historical Context The OuLiPo (Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle) was founded in Paris in 1960 by a writer and amateur mathematician, Raymond Queneau, and a chemical engineer and chess expert, François Le Lionnais. Created as the private continuation of a conference at Cerisy-la-Salle entitled Une nouvelle défense et illustration de la langue française, this small group of friends and colleagues built upon the humorous, inventive, and often mathematical methods exemplified by Queneau in his fiction to create a new, Potential Literature through the principle of constraint. The group occupied itself with the creation, categorization, and theorization of these rules for literary creation — often mathematical, formal, rigorous procedures, whose implementations had subtle effects on the nature of the texts they produced; the individual members, on the other hand, wrote texts using these rules, following them as they saw fit, often only revealing their methods after the fact, in paratextual discourses or interviews. While the Oulipo is often taken at face value when it claims to be apolitical, it is undeniable that the individual members were extremely engaged in a variety of ways. These authors, many of whom actively participated in the resistance, were members of the French communist party, and who at the very least wrote their way through World War II in defiance of cultural, political, and economic constraints, acted very differently than they did in their subsequent monthly meetings upon founding the Oulipo in 1960. Several members — including François Le Lionnais (who was interned in the work camp, Dora, during the war), Georges Perec (whose parents died during the Holocaust), and Olivier Salon (whose father lost his first wife to the camps) — were deeply and personally affected by the events of the Holocaust. And while the group agreed upon a strict policy of political disengagement in opposition to other prominent literary figures of the time such as Jean-Paul Sartre, individual members continue to have their own political opinions and motivations. For instance, mathematician Michèle Audin has spent much of her career as an author grappling with questions of communism and Algerian independence, as her father, a vocal member of the communist party and mathematician, was killed there without cause in what is now known as the “Affaire Audin.” This course aims to situate the Oulipo within a larger historical context, understanding the various real-world influences that affected individual members as well as the group and its overall aesthetics. Through a series of discussions of World War I and surrealism (which is largely considered a foil to Oulipian constrained literature), World War II and the Holocaust, Mathematics, Computer Science, the Collège de ‘Pataphysique, Littérature engagée and politics, other contemporary experimental literary groups, and finally the war in Algeria, we will nuance our understanding of the group’s seemingly disengaged aesthetics and question whether or not the group can really be considered apolitical. 1 Semester Schedule: Week 1: Introduction Week 2: World War I and Surrealism Readings: André Breton, Les Manifestes du surréalisme; André Breton and Philippe Soupault, Les Champs magnétiques; various cadavre exquis; Un cadavre; Raymond Queneau, Odile; Chris Andrews, “Surrealism and Pseudo-Initiation: Raymond Queneau's ‘Odile’” in The Modern Language Review. Week 3: World War II and its aftermath Readings: Perec and the Oulipo (collective), Le voyage d’hiver et ses suites; Raymond Queneau, Zazie dans le métro. Week 4-5: The Occupation, Resistance, and the Holocaust Readings: François Le Lionnais, La peinture à Dora; Georges Perec, La disparition and W ou le souvenir d’enfance; Front national (excerpts of literary pamphlet). Week 6: Mathematics Readings: Bourabki, Éléments de mathématique and L’architecture des mathématiques; François Le Lionnais, Les Grands courants de la pensée mathématique (excerpts); David Aubin, “The Withering Immortality of Nicolas Bourbaki: A Cultural Connector” in Science in Context; Leo Corry, “The Origins of Eternal Truth in Modern Mathematics: Hilbert to Bourbaki and Beyond” in Science in Context; Raymond Queneau, Cent mille milliards de poèmes; François Le Lionnais, Les manifestes Week 7: Computer Science Readings: Raymond Queneau, Un conte à votre façon; Claude Berge, Qui a tué le duc de Densmore ?; Georges Perec, L’art et la manière d’aborder son chef de service pour lui demander une augmentation; Italo Calvino, L’incendio della casa abominevole. Week 8: ‘Pataphysics Readings: Alfred Jarry, Ubu Roi; Pataphysical Calendar; Subsidia Pataphysica (excerpts), Dossier 17 du Collège de ‘Pataphysique. Week 9: Politics, Littérature Engagée Readings: Les Temps modernes (excerpts); Jean-Paul Sartre, Qu’est-ce que la littérature ?; Christelle Reggiani, Poétiques oulipiennes. Week 10: Experimental Literature: Tel Quel, Nouveau Roman Readings: Alain Robbe-Grillet, Pour un Nouveau Roman and La jalousie; Roland Barthes, Interview with Tel Quel; Introduction to The Tel Quel Reader. Week 11: Mai ’68 and the war in Algeria Readings: Kristin Ross, May ’68 and its Afterlives; Michèle Audin, Mai quai Conti and Une vie brève. 2 .
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