In this virtual Brown Bag lecture, Julie Gaillard, Assistant Professor of French, will speak about her book Réalités Pseudonymes (“pseudonymous realities”), published with Brill Rodopi in November 2019. This book explores the question of reality through the lens of the proper name and its referential mechanisms in French literature and arts at the turn of the 21st century, more specifically through the works of J.-F. Lyotard, S. Beckett, E. Levé, R. Cojo, and Invader. In analyzing how these thinker, authors, and artists all question the referential transparency of the proper name in order to show how reality can be transformed, suspended, or even faked, this book aims at questioning the fabric of reality, at a time when societies are shifting from analogue to digital modalities of its mediation.
