Zizanies

Zizanies tells the story of how a research, initially academic and conducted according to the rules of art, deviates from its course. Clara Schulmann, a young researcher and art critic, began her work on women’s voices, initially dedicated to cinematic voice-overs. Gradually, her readings broaden, gain ground, leave the supposedly reserved domain of academic research. Her own life interfered with what she wrote, the podcasts she listened to resonated differently, the stories of her friends stayed in her head. These women’s voices that invade her break down the walls that still separate the different fields of contemporary thought.
Helped on her way by authors who reflect today on the effects of transversality (Donna Haraway, Vinciane Despret), by those who revitalize the stakes of literature (Nathalie Quintane, Valeria Luiselli, Chris Kraus), Looking back to a feminist heritage that is little known in France and that already knew how to put theory and cinema or poetry and critical writing into dialogue (Denise Riley, Mary Ann Doane, Susan Howe), Clara Schulmann is interested in the powers of orality when it allows for a rethinking of writing in a broad sense.

The women’s voices gathered here form a family with unexpected contours and attachments, but whose commitments are linked to the most contemporary political concerns: how to form a group? how to be heard? how to find the right words?