Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften Exposure: Revealing Bodies, Unveiling Representations: 29 (Modern French Identities)

The notion of «exposure» underlies much modern thinking about identity, representation, ethics, desire and sexuality. This provocative notion is explored in a collection of essays selected from, and inspired by, the proceedings of a conference held in the Department of French at the University of Cambridge in 2002. The authors engage with exposure as both object and mode of representation in a range of cultural media: literature, critical theory, visual art and film. They analyse a variety of works from the medieval, early-modern, and modern periods, examining not only canonical texts such as Montaigne's Essais but also lesser-studied works such as the psychoanalytic theory of Didier Anzieu, the photomontage self-portraits of Claude Cahun, and the novel La Nouvelle Pornographie by Marie Nimier. This volume thus both illustrates and, more importantly, interrogates the richness of the term «exposure», in a way that is stimulating for students and researchers alike. About the Author The Editors: Kathryn Banks is completing her Ph.D. thesis at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and will take up a post as lecturer in sixteenth-century French at King's College, London. Her Ph.D. thesis examines representations of space and the subject in French love lyric and philosophical poetry of the sixteenth century. Joseph Harris is a Fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge. His Ph.D. research was on cross-dressing in seventeenth-century French literature and culture, and he is currently working on desire and sexuality in eighteenth-century France.