Echoes of Contemporary Indian Francophone Literature
A Cognitive Reading of Shumona Sinha’s "Fenêtre sur l’abîme" (2008)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12797/Politeja.16.2019.59.12Keywords:
Shumona Sinha, Indian-Francophone literature, fictional minds, cognitive literary studiesAbstract
This article analyzes Shumona Sinha’s first novel, Fenêtre sur l’abîme (Window to the Abyss, 2008) from a cognitive perspective. As the narrator, a young Bengali woman named Madhuban, is struggling to make sense of her existence, past events and present sensations, as well as nightmares and memories unfold in an accelerating rhythm, questioning the impact of her life experience upon her mental health. Drawing on Alan Palmer’s typology of fictional minds, the aim of this work is to provide some preliminary remarks on the textual representation of the narrator’s mind, depicted on the verge of a mental breakdown triggered the by physical and emotional abuse she was subjected to by her family in Calcutta, and reinforced by her emigration to Paris.
Downloads
PlumX Metrics of this article
References
Allard C., De Balsi S. (eds.), Le choix d’écrire en français. Études sur la francophonie translingue, Amiens 2016.
Google Scholar
Andler D., Cognitive Science, 27 January 2006, at <https://andler.dec.ens.fr/pdf/94.pdf>.
Google Scholar
Ausoni A., “Écriture translingue et autobiographie”, in A. Ausoni, F. Arribert-Narce (eds.), L’autobiographie entre autres. Écrire la vie aujourd’hui, Oxford 2013.
Google Scholar
Ausoni A., “L’écriture translingue comme conversion. Notes sur la posture littéraire d’Hector Bianciotti, et sa postérité”, CoSMo. Comparative Studies in Modernism, vol. 11 (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.13135/2281-6658/2248.
Google Scholar
Ausoni A., Mémoires d’outre-langue. L’Écriture translingue de soi, Genève 2018.
Google Scholar
Bogdanova M., “Cognitive Science: From Multidisciplinarity to Interdisciplinarity”, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education, vol. 5, no. 2 (2017), https://doi.org/10.5937/ijcrsee1702145B.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5937/ijcrsee1702145B
Google Scholar
Bridgeman T., “Thinking Ahead: A Cognitive Approach to Prolepsis”, Narrative, vol. 13, no. 2 (2005), https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2005.0007.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2005.0007
Google Scholar
Collins T., Andler D., Tallon-Baudry C. (eds.), La cognition. Du neurone à la société, Paris 2018.
Google Scholar
Colonna V., L’autofiction, essai sur la fictionalisation de soi en littérature, Paris 1989.
Google Scholar
Deleuze G., Guattari F., Kafka. Toward a Minor Literature, transl. by D. Polan, Minneapolis−London 2003.
Google Scholar
Eco U., The Role of the Reader. Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts, Bloomington 1991.
Google Scholar
Egan S.J., Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Causes, Symptoms and Treatment, Hauppauge 2010.
Google Scholar
Fludernik M., “Narratology in the Twenty-First Century: The Cognitive Approach to Narrative”, PMLA, vol. 125, no. 4 (2010), https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2010.125.4.924.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2010.125.4.924
Google Scholar
Garratt P. (ed.), The Cognitive Humanities. Embodied Mind in Literature and Culture, London 2016.
Google Scholar
Herman D. (ed.), The Emergence of Mind. Representations of Consciousness in Narrative Discourse in English, Lincoln 2011, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1df4fwq.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1df4fwq
Google Scholar
Hoemann K., Barrett L.F., “Concepts dissolve artificial boundaries in the study of emotion and cognition, uniting body, brain and mind”, Cognition and Emotion, vol. 33 (2019), https://www.doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2018.1535428.
Google Scholar
Hutchins E., Cognition in the Wild, Cambridge, Mass. 1995.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/1881.001.0001
Google Scholar
“An interview with Shumona Sinha”, YouTube, 20 January 2016, at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW-W4fvNx0c>.
Google Scholar
Jack B., Francophone Literatures. An Introductory Survey, Oxford 1996.
Google Scholar
Jarvis M., Psychodynamic Psychology. Classical Theory and Contemporary Research, London 2004.
Google Scholar
Kalsched D., The Inner World of Trauma. Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit, London−New York 1996.
Google Scholar
Kellman S.G., The Translingual Imagination, Lincoln 2000.
Google Scholar
Kirklin D., Richardson R. (eds.), Medical Humanities. A Practical Introduction, London 2001.
Google Scholar
Koelb C., “Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature (review)”, MSF. Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 33, no. 2 (1987), https://doi.org/10.1353/mfs.0.1120.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/mfs.0.1120
Google Scholar
Krishnaswamy R., “Toward World Literary Knowledges: Theory in the Age of Globalization”, Comparative Literature, vol. 62, no. 4 (2010), https://doi.org/10.1215/00104124-2010-024.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/00104124-2010-024
Google Scholar
Lavocat F. (ed.), Interprétation littéraire et sciences cognitives, Paris 2016.
Google Scholar
Lejeune P., Le pacte autobiographique, Paris 1975.
Google Scholar
Makine A., Dreams of My Russian Summers, transl. by G. Strachan, New York 1997.
Google Scholar
Melchior-Bonnet S., The Mirror. A History, transl. by K.H. Jewett, New York−London 2002.
Google Scholar
Merritt M. et al., “Cognition without borders: ‘Third wave’ socially distributed cognition and relational autonomy”, Cognitive Systems Research, vol. 25-26 (2013), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogsys.2013.03.007.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogsys.2013.03.007
Google Scholar
Michael M.C., Feminism and the Postmodern Impulse. Post-World War II Fiction, New York 1996.
Google Scholar
Olsen J.-A., L’esprit du roman. OEuvre, fiction et récit, Bern 2004.
Google Scholar
Palmer A., Fictional Minds, Lincoln 2004.
Google Scholar
Palmer A., “Intermental Thought in the Novel: The Middlemarch Mind”, Style, vol. 39, no. 4 (2005).
Google Scholar
Palmer A., Social Minds in the Novel, Columbus 2010.
Google Scholar
Patron S., “Représentations de l’esprit dans la narratologie post-classique: un bref état de l’art”, Revue Critique de Fixxion Française Contemporaine (2016), “Fictions de l’intériorité”, at <http://www.revue-critique-de-fixxion-francaise-contemporaine.org/rcffc/article/view/fx13.11/106>.
Google Scholar
Patron S. (ed.), Introduction à la narratologie postclassique. Les nouvelles directions de la recherche sur le récit, Villeneuve d’Ascq 2018.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/books.septentrion.19105
Google Scholar
Pinker S., How the Mind Works, New York−London 1997.
Google Scholar
Porra V., “Malaise dans la littérature-monde (en français): de la reprise des discours aux paradoxes de l’énonciation”, Recherches & Travaux, vol. 76 (2010).
Google Scholar
Richardson A., “Cognitive Science and the Future of Literary Studies”, Philosophy and Literature, vol. 23, no. 1 (1999), https://doi.org/10.1353/phl.1999.0023.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/phl.1999.0023
Google Scholar
Rouaud J., Le Bris M. (eds.), Pour une littérature-monde, Paris 2007.
Google Scholar
Ryan M.-L., “Kinds of Minds: On Alan Palmer’s Social Minds”, Style, vol. 45, no. 4 (2011).
Google Scholar
Shapiro L., Embodied Cognition, London 2010, https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203850664.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203850664
Google Scholar
Sen N., Family, School and Nation. The Child and Literary Constructions in 20th-Century Bengal, New Delhi−London−New York 2015, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315684925.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315684925
Google Scholar
Sinha S., Fenêtre sur l’abîme, Paris 2008.
Google Scholar
Troscianko E., “Why We Need Cognitive Literary Studies to Help Us Understand & Treat Mental Illness”, YouTube, 26 October 2016, at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRu6LmP351c>.
Google Scholar
Troscianko E., Burke M. (eds.), Cognitive Literary Science. Dialogues between Literature and Cognition, Oxford 2017, https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190496869.001.0001.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190496869.001.0001
Google Scholar
Tsur R., What Is Cognitive Poetics?, Tel Aviv 1983.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1772453
Google Scholar
Tsur R., Toward a Theory of Cognitive Poetics, Brighton−Portland 2008.
Google Scholar
Turner M., The Literary Mind, Oxford 1996.
Google Scholar
Yalom I.D., Becoming Myself. A Psychiatrist’s Memoir, New York 2017.
Google Scholar
Zunshine L., “Introduction. What Is Cognitive Cultural Studies?”, in eadem (ed.), Introduction to Cognitive Cultural Studies, Baltimore 2010.
Google Scholar
Zunshine L. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Literary Studies, Oxford 2015.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199978069.013.0001
Google Scholar
Other works cited:
Google Scholar
Böll H., The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, or: how violence develops and where it can lead, transl. by L. Vennewitz, London 1975.
Google Scholar
Journal of Literary Semantics, vol. 42, no. 2: “Explorations in Cognitive Literary Science” (2013).
Google Scholar
Flaubert G., Madame Bovary, transl. by L. David, New York 2010.
Google Scholar
Palmer A., “Social Minds in Criticism and Fiction”, Style, vol. 45, no. 2 (2011).
Google Scholar
Palmer A., “Introduction: Social Minds in Factual and Fictional Narration”, Narrative, vol. 23, no. 2 (2015).
Google Scholar
Sinha S., Apatride, Paris 2017.
Google Scholar
Sinha S., Assommons les pauvres!, Paris 2011.
Google Scholar
Sinha S., Calcutta, Paris 2014.
Google Scholar
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
