Lozier, C (2018) Empowering Signs: Writing and e-motions in Michel Houellebecq’s Platform. Open Cultural Studies, 2 (1). pp. 668-675. ISSN 2451-3474
Abstract
This article explores the working of the cultural literacy concepts of rhetoricity and textuality in Michel Houellebecq’s third novel Platform through the lens of French philosopher Frederic Lordon’s affect theory, with a view to understanding the way emotions and motion operate jointly through writing in this post-travel literature text dealing with the contemporary travel industry, sex tourism, and emotional alienation. As such, it contributes to the current reassessment of the role played by emotions in human interactions. By exploring the specific layered textuality of Platform, which purposefully recycles a series of discursive cliches and tropes, I show how Houellebecq’s writing style demands to be considered not only for its literary value but also for its potent, and perhaps unexpected, moving effects, or rhetoricity, which invite readers to reconsider their perception of alterity-i.e. the world and the other-but also of the performative power of art and literature. In order to demonstrate this, the article looks first at the failure of travel writing orchestrated in the novel; it then analyses alternative textual modalities of affect mediation trialed in the text; and finally, it considers the strategies used in Platform to “empowerise” signs and, as a result, those who read them.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 Claire Lozier, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. |
Keywords: | Houellebecq; Lordon; rhetoricity; travel writing; affects |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Languages Cultures & Societies (Leeds) > French (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 06 Dec 2018 12:57 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 21:37 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | De Gruyter |
Identification Number: | 10.1515/culture-2018-0060 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:139613 |