Oriane

What are my goals for the year?

I hope to engage in a collective learning process, meaning seeing everyone learning at the same time, but differently. I hope to grow as an individual in a group setting which will require perpetually being aware of others’ ideas, projects, hopes, and dreams, while accepting compromise and evolution. I also hope to dip my feet in the coding world, but more generally learn more about the resources offered by the Scholar’s Lab and UVa Library in general. I hope to make people feel good about themselves and their ideas. I also hope to develop a strong connection with my peers, but also the people working with us at the Scholar’s Lab.

What do you spend time on?

Most of my time is spent on reading, my favourite activity. So far, I’ve managed to earn a living out of it!

What is a major issue/challenge/bone of contention in your field?

Eighteenth-century French literature has been the subject of many debates since the Metoo movement of 2017, the major one being the representation of sexual violence. Libertine literature is filled with sexual violence presented as consensual and filled with seemingly grey areas of consent. For me and for many others, we should be teaching sexual violence in these texts as it is, present the complex subject of consent for women in eighteenth century France, and use “care” practices to respect our students’ responses to these texts.

What don’t people understand about something you work on?

People usually don’t understand that women writing erotic literature in the eighteenth century was a huge literary and social revolution. Women had many more challenges to writing and publishing erotic literature (whether it was internalized morality of what is expected from a “good” woman, concrete editorial obstacles, or ferocious critique once their novels were published), which justifies not equating erotic literature written by men versus by women.

If I were a song, I would be…

”Brianstorm” by Arctic Monkeys.