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Project

Outsider literature in Belgium, 1968-2008. A polysystemic analysis.

The central question in this research project is the following: how wasliterature written by authors who are said to be mad outsider literature spoken about in the second half of the twentieth century in Dutch and French literary discourse? Which are the discursive conditions that enable the fact that we can speak (in a specific way) about outsider literature? With this research project, I attempt to analyze the attitude towards madness, as a biographic characteristic attributed to an author, and the way it evolved. How do literary critics write about authors saidto be mad? With what kind of terminology do literary scholars approach their texts? How do authors present themselves as mad?
    Discourse analysis, and more specifically Michel Foucaults archeology, is used as methodological perspective. Insights stemming from a broad range of literary and cultural theories are integrated into this framework. Because of the emphasis on discourse, literature and madness, the oeuvre of Foucault  not only functions as methodological perspective, but is also present as a highly intriguing case (and in particular his Histoire de la folie</>). In this study, four significant anthologies presenting outsider literature are analyzed: Gedoemde dichters</> (Paul Rodenko, 1957), Écrits bruts</> (MichelThévoz, 1979), Les fous littéraires </>(André Blavier, 1982) and Gestoorde teksten</> (Jacq Vogelaar, 1983). The selectioncriteria used by the anthologists and the way they present the selectedtexts are discussed. This analysis leads up to a clear image of the dispersion of the concept of madness (and literature). Subsequently, this dissertation focuses on the discourse surrounding four different mad authors, all having a singular profile and permitting a geographical, linguistic and temporal variation in the case studies.  The reception of Jan Arends (1925-1974) has a complex relation to the anti-psychiatric current that became popular during the 1970s. At the beginning of the decade, Arends became an author with a mythical and mad kind of profile. Both biographical anecdotes as well as his ego-documents took in a crucial place in the image of the author as a psychiatric patient. In the chapter devoted to J.M.H. Berckmans (1953-2008) the analysis focuses on the theatricality of the mad author: the way Berckmans created an image of himself is confronted with the recent enactment of his work and persona on stage. The way in which (literary) theoretical discourses appropriate works of mad authors is studied in the chapter devoted to the French-language author Sophie Podolski (1953-1974). Both in a psychoanalytically orientated feminist discourse (Tel Quel, Kristeva), as in the presentation of the history of French-Belgian literature as characterized by irregularity, her texts take in a crucial position. The work of Simon Vinkenoog (1928-2009) reveals how the theme of madness and the way it structures the image of an author, is linked to related discourses centered around subjects such as love and drug-use in the context of the counter-culture of the 1960s.
    These case-studies result in a complex and nuanced image, revealing the patterns and paradoxes that structure the way outsider literature is spoken about. It is argued that the literary discourse in the period after 1960 is characterized bythe construction of the mad author as a subject that is beyond description, by an explicit reference to the problematic relation between the commentary and the commented text (outsider literature), and by the productive effect of these paradoxical characteristics on the discourse on outsider literature, resulting in the incessant possibility for literature and madness to be defined by each other.
Date:1 Oct 2010 →  30 Sep 2014
Keywords:Literature, Madness, Polysystem theory, Antonin Artaud, Gerrit Achterberg, JMH Berckmans, Sophie Podolski
Disciplines:Language studies, Literary studies, Theory and methodology of language studies, Theory and methodology of linguistics, Theory and methodology of literary studies, Other languages and literary studies
Project type:PhD project