Castonguay-Bélanger, Joël, «Les écarts de l’imagination. Pratiques et représentations de la science dans le roman au tournant des Lumières (1775-1810)», Montréal et Paris, Université de Montréal et Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne, thèse de doctorat en cotutelle, octobre 2007, 2 vol., xiii/508 p. Ill. Dir. : Benoît Melançon (Université de Montréal) et Michel Delon (Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne). URL : <https://doi.org/1866/18240>.
What is the place given to science and technology in the French novel? While it seems difficult for literary history to study the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century without taking into account the major changes generated by the French revolution, it is surprising to realize that this discipline has not yet considered the impact of the concomitant revolution taking place in sciences, and of its consequences on fictional representations. The period was characterized by deep transformations within the practices of scientific institutions. It is legitimate to study the attitudes of those who were at the forefront of this revolution and who contributed, along with the chroniclers, the editors of gazettes and the historians, to the literary rendition of this effervescence: the novelists. This dissertation studies the specific novelistic approaches to questions found in contemporary scientific debates (inoculation, galvanization, reproduction) or technological discussions (aerostatics, electric batteries and all sorts of new machines). Our objective is to understand not only the fictional outcome of science (vulgarization, mystification, act of faith in the progress, suspicion, etc.), but also schemes of representation (thematization of the real versus the unreal, the utopian figuration versus the nightmarish).
Keywords: Eighteenth century • Nineteenth century • Novel • History of science • Cultural history
Prix de la meilleure thèse de la Faculté des études supérieures et postdoctorales de l’Université de Montréal pour l’année 2008 dans la catégorie Sciences humaines, arts et lettres
Prix de la meilleure thèse en cotutelle France-Québec décerné par le ministère des Relations internationales du Québec et par le Consulat général de France à Québec (2008)
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Castonguay-Bélanger, Joël, Les écarts de l’imagination. Pratiques et représentations de la science dans le roman au tournant des Lumières, Montréal, Presses de l’Université de Montréal, coll. «Socius», 2008, 365 p. Ill. ISBN : 978-2-7606-2117-6. (34,95 $ / 31 euros) |
