Contemporary French and Francophone Futuristic Novels

Emmanuel Buzay is Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA. His research interests include contemporary French and Francophone literature, literatures of the imagination (science fiction, anticipatory novels, and fantasy), memory studies, and narrative and semiotic studies of film and video games. He has published in Contemporary French & Francophone Studies: SITES, Res Futurae, and Lectures croisées de l’œuvre de Michel Houellebecq (2017), and he has articles forthcoming in Nouvelles Etudes francophones and the Australian Journal of French Studies.

• 1 Introduction.- Bibliography.-2 Reading the Enigmatic Worlds of Futuristic Novels.- Looking for Clues: The Investigations Entrusted to the Reader.-The Broader Scope of the Books of Nature and the World.-The Figure of the Last Man.- Bibliography.-3 Modalities and Fictional Storyworlds in Futuristic Novels.-Dissonant Minds of Fictional Storyworlds.- Dualities and Modal Structures of Fictional Storyworlds: Knowledge, Duty, and Ability.-Differences in Actions of Fictional Minds as Readers.-Bibliography.- 4 The Idea of the Book and Its Symbolism in Times of Change.-Metaphors of the Closed Symbolism of the Book.-Metaphors and Metalepses of the Open Symbolism of the Book.- Metamorphoses and Human Mutations: The Relationship to Insect Animalism.-Bibliography.-5 Regaining Humanity by Learning from Escapes and Detours.- The Metaphysical Manhunt.-Traces and Memories in Information and Knowledge Societies of the Future.-The Trial of Walking.- Bibliography.-6 Encounters with Bodies and Narratives: A Matrix of Contemporary Philosophical Quests.-The Value of Speech and Literature Under the Threat of Violence in Amélie Nothomb.- Writing and Walking the Wilderness as a Scribe in Alain Damasio.- Shifting Determinism with the Reminiscent Body of an Artificial Intelligence in Romain Lucazeau.-Bibliography.- 7 Conclusion.-Bibliography.