Introduction

This paper borrows its title from one narrator’s comment in Toby Olson’s third novel, in order to try and define the experience of being « touched » by storytelling, and by writing : or, what sort of « touch » may occur on the unstable, evasive limit between body and meaning ? The article discusses...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Auteurs principaux: Aji, Hélène, Guerlain, Pierre
Formato: Article ou chapitre numérique
Idioma:Français
Publicado: 2013
Acceso en liña:Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
Descripción
Résumé:This paper borrows its title from one narrator’s comment in Toby Olson’s third novel, in order to try and define the experience of being « touched » by storytelling, and by writing : or, what sort of « touch » may occur on the unstable, evasive limit between body and meaning ? The article discusses the many narrative mediations and obstacles presiding over this story of subjected and liberated bodies, and analyses the radical dissociation established by Olson between seeing and understanding. This serves an exploration of the somehow fabulous power to challenge, mobilize, and displace knowledge and meaning which is granted to the miniature animal bodies accompanying the affected human bodies throughout the novel. The paper then offers some remarks on reading as discontinuous tensions between meaning effects and presence effects, or else as pensive « leaps » inherent in aesthetic experience.