Estelle Murail
Institut Catholique de Paris, Paris, Faculty Member
- Université Paris Cité, LARCA UMR 8225 - UFR Études Anglophones, Faculty Memberadd
- The City in Literature and Culture, Cultural Studies, Flâneur, French Literature, Paris, History Of London, and 23 moreVictorian Literature, Comparative Literature, Victorian cultural studies, Charles Baudelaire, Charles Dickens, Honoré de Balzac, Cultural History, Popular Culture, Narrative, History of Paris, History of the City, Communication, London Docklands, Opium War, Opium, Opium in Literature, Visual Studies, Film Studies, Film Adaptation, Contemporary Literature, Victorian Studies, The Historical Novel, and Postcolonial Studiesedit
- I am currently a Senior Lecturer in English Literature and Culture at the Catholic University of Paris and an associa... moreI am currently a Senior Lecturer in English Literature and Culture at the Catholic University of Paris and an associate researcher and teacher at the Université Paris Cité, LARCA (CNRS UMR 8225). I completed a jointly-supervised PhD in Victorian literature at the Université Paris Diderot and King’s College London in 2013. My thesis, entitled 'Beyond the Flâneur: Walking, Passage and Crossing in London and Paris in the Nineteenth Century', examined the figure of the urban stroller in London and Paris. I co-run the Victorian Persistence research group at the Université Paris Diderot. My current research focuses on nineteenth-century, neo-Victorian and postcolonial novels, urban spaces, crossings and networks, docklands, harbours and piers, the story of opium, and the notion of persistence.edit
This book analyses the evolution of literary and artistic representations of the soul, exploring its development through different time periods. The volume combines literary, aesthetic, ethical, and political considerations of the soul in... more
This book analyses the evolution of literary and artistic representations of the soul, exploring its development through different time periods. The volume combines literary, aesthetic, ethical, and political considerations of the soul in texts and works of art from the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries, spanning cultures and schools of thought. Drawing on philosophical, religious and psychological theories of the soul, it emphasizes the far-reaching and enduring epistemological function of the concept in literature, art and politics. The authors argue that the concept of the soul has shaped the understanding of human life and persistently irrigated cultural productions. They show how the concept of soul was explored and redefined by writers and artists, remaining relevant even as it became removed from its ancient or Christian origins.
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This introduction to the book "Dickens and the Virtual City: Urban Perception and the Production of Social Space" explores the aesthetic practices used by Dickens to make the space which we have come to know as the Dickensian City. It... more
This introduction to the book "Dickens and the Virtual City: Urban Perception and the Production of Social Space" explores the aesthetic practices used by Dickens to make the space which we have come to know as the Dickensian City. It concentrates on three very precise techniques for the production of social space (counter-mapping, overlaying and troping). The chapters show the scapes and writings which influenced him and the way he transformed them, packaged them and passed them on for future use. The city is shown to be an imagined or virtual world but with a serious aim for a serious game: Dickens sets up a workshop for the simulation of real societies and cities. This urban building with is transferable to other literatures and medial forms. The book offers vital understanding of how writing and image work in particular ways to recreate and re-enchant society and the built environment. It will be of interest to scholars of literature, media, film, urban studies, politics and economics.
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The cultural crossings between two mythical urban archetypes, this article argues, may have contributed to shaping Dickens’s idiosyncratic gaze over London. For Michel De Certeau, there are two ways of seeing the city – there is the... more
The cultural crossings between two mythical urban archetypes, this article argues, may have contributed to shaping Dickens’s idiosyncratic gaze over London. For Michel De Certeau, there are two ways of seeing the city – there is the panoptic aerial viewpoint of the map-maker, which renders the city legible, and the walker’s perception of space at ground-level, which has to be apprehended through a rhetoric of walking – all too familiar to Dickens. The omniscient devil Asmodeus and the urban stroller and keen observer of Parisian streets, the flâneur, are two literary figures that seem to embody these two seemingly opposed modes of apprehending the city. This article demonstrates how these two protean figures became blurred during the nineteenth century, both in Parisian literature and Dickens’s imagined London.
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This article probes the links between the Baudelairean flâneur and the walking protagonist depicted in De Quincey’s Confessions. Baudelaire famously writes that his poetry finds its roots in ‘the criss-cross of the innumerable... more
This article probes the links between the Baudelairean flâneur and the walking protagonist depicted in De Quincey’s Confessions. Baudelaire famously writes that his poetry finds its roots in ‘the criss-cross of the innumerable interrelations’ which the city is made of. The polysemy of the word croisement lends itself well to analysing the flâneur’s journey. It’s a spatial term which refers both to physical movement and geography. It’s a social term which provides a way to talk about encounters and connections, or lack thereof. Finally, it’s a textual term which refers to the workings of intertextuality. Through the kaleidoscopic lens of this word, the flâneur appears as a figure who traverses space, time and texts, and whose croisements were already at work in De Quincey’s writing.
The Burning Man festival started in 1986 with a spontaneous moment of “shared togetherness” sparked by the burning of an eight-foot wooden man on Baker Beach. First set against the countercultural backdrop of San Francisco, the event now... more
The Burning Man festival started in 1986 with a spontaneous moment of “shared togetherness” sparked by the burning of an eight-foot wooden man on Baker Beach. First set against the countercultural backdrop of San Francisco, the event now gathers 70,000 inhabitants for one week at an ephemeral city in the Nevada desert for “an annual experiment in temporary community dedicated to radical self-expression and radical self-reliance” (Burning Man Project, “The Event”).
Black Rock City is impermanent: much of its art is burnt to the ground, its 70,000 inhabitants disperse back to their homes around the globe after the burn, and the city leaves no trace. Yet community, with its emphasis on stability, permanence, and strong ties, is one of its structuring principles. How can transience and community work together?
This paper will explore how community is imagined, structured and fostered in this temporary city. It will examine what forms of “art” are present in the city, and interrogate the role of temporary art and artistic encounters in the construction of a community. It will focus on the roles of participatory experience and maker culture, and suggest that the building of the city by all the participants, this “making together” is perhaps the most valuable form of art created at Burning Man – the art of living together which binds people together and creates a community. It will conclude by looking at how this community-oriented event has turned into a global non-profit organization which supports over a hundred regional events worldwide, and which encourages the development of local communities through that of the “imagined community” of Burners.
Black Rock City is impermanent: much of its art is burnt to the ground, its 70,000 inhabitants disperse back to their homes around the globe after the burn, and the city leaves no trace. Yet community, with its emphasis on stability, permanence, and strong ties, is one of its structuring principles. How can transience and community work together?
This paper will explore how community is imagined, structured and fostered in this temporary city. It will examine what forms of “art” are present in the city, and interrogate the role of temporary art and artistic encounters in the construction of a community. It will focus on the roles of participatory experience and maker culture, and suggest that the building of the city by all the participants, this “making together” is perhaps the most valuable form of art created at Burning Man – the art of living together which binds people together and creates a community. It will conclude by looking at how this community-oriented event has turned into a global non-profit organization which supports over a hundred regional events worldwide, and which encourages the development of local communities through that of the “imagined community” of Burners.
Research Interests:
The flâneur is well-known for being the most emblematic nineteenth-century observer of urban life. Critics have often compared the flâneur to a camera eye which records everything and insisted on the predominance of sight over other... more
The flâneur is well-known for being the most emblematic nineteenth-century observer of urban life. Critics have often compared the flâneur to a camera eye which records everything and insisted on the predominance of sight over other senses in the cognitive process. This article emphasizes the embodiedness of the flâneur’s vision, which is an experience of all the senses. Urban public space can be envisaged as a ‘metabolic space,’ in which “the links between background and figures are very unstable” (Augoyard 1991). The moving body of the flâneur, which can adapt to this changing space, seems to be in an ideal position to apprehend the metabolic body of the city. The flâneur is not only a “transparent eye-ball” (Emerson 2003), he is “a living eye” which communicates with all the other senses and captures the whole experience of moving through the city. By looking at texts by Balzac, Baudelaire, Dickens and Charlotte Brontë, the article shows that flânerie is a sensory activity that shapes our perception of the city as much as the city shapes our own flâneries by transforming our bodies into scribes who write the “thicks and thins of the urban text” (de Certeau, 1984).
Research Interests:
This article proposes to reread Poe’s short story ‘The Man of the Crowd’ through the prism of the Baudelairean word croisement or ‘crossing’. Poe’s London-set tale famously crossed the Channel to inform Baudelaire’s visions of Paris, but... more
This article proposes to reread Poe’s short story ‘The Man of the Crowd’ through the prism of the Baudelairean word croisement or ‘crossing’. Poe’s London-set tale famously crossed the Channel to inform Baudelaire’s visions of Paris, but this traffic of influences goes both ways. The Baudelairean word croisement, enriched by its crossings with French texts and contexts, condenses several meanings which can shed light on Poe’s story. It designates a certain way of occupying space, and when applied to human relations, it can evoke (dis)connections. As a textual term, it can refer to the workings of intertextuality. This combination of spatial, social, and textual connotations makes it relevant to ‘The Man of the Crowd’. The sense of illegibility which pervades this enigmatic tale stems from these different forms of croisements. Both narrator and reader are confronted with the fear of not being able to read the many crossings at work in the (urban) text, which turns them into detectives on an endless hermeneutic journey. Indeed, the tale constantly seeks to involve us in hermeneutic crossings which shape the text, and thus forces us to ‘cross and re-cross the way repeatedly’.
This article focuses on the dream of transparency which pervaded the nineteenth-century literary cityscape, and which, I argue, is embodied in the figure of the flâneur, the ubiquitous observer of urban life. To shed light on the function... more
This article focuses on the dream of transparency which pervaded the nineteenth-century literary cityscape, and which, I argue, is embodied in the figure of the flâneur, the ubiquitous observer of urban life. To shed light on the function and makeup of this enigmatic figure, I analyze the flâneur through the lens of transparency and through the prism of three objects which use transparency as their core functioning principle. I start by considering the idea that the flâneur is akin to a transparent glass pane. However, a closer look at the flâneur reveals him to be far from simply transparent. Beholding him through the lens of a stereoscope brings his multi-layered nature into relief. This paper concludes by examining the flâneur’s vision, which could be said to function like a spyglass. For the flâneur, being ‘transparent’ in the city is ultimately translating modernity through his gaze, footsteps, and words. To see and to give solidity to the dream of transparency, transparency cannot be absolute, but must be mediated and filtered through the opacity of writing.
The Burning Man festival started in 1986 with a spontaneous moment of “shared togetherness” sparked by the burning of an eight-foot wooden man on Baker Beach. First set against the countercultural backdrop of San Francisco, the event now... more
The Burning Man festival started in 1986 with a spontaneous moment of “shared togetherness” sparked by the burning of an eight-foot wooden man on Baker Beach. First set against the countercultural backdrop of San Francisco, the event now gathers 70,000 inhabitants for one week at an ephemeral city in the Nevada desert for “an annual experiment in temporary community dedicated to radical self-expression and radical self-reliance.”
Black Rock City is impermanent: much of its art is burnt to the ground, its 70,000 inhabitants disperse back to their homes around the globe after the burn, and the city leaves no trace. Yet community, with its emphasis on stability, permanence, and strong ties, is one of its structuring principles. How can transience and community work together?
This paper will explore how community is imagined, structured and fostered in this temporary city. It will examine what forms of “art” are present in the city, and interrogate the role of temporary art and artistic encounters in the construction of a community. It will focus on the roles of participatory experience and maker culture, and suggest that the building of the city by all the participants, this “making together” is perhaps the most valuable form of art created at Burning Man – the art of living together which binds people together and creates a community. It will conclude by looking at how this community-oriented event has turned into a global non-profit organization which supports over a hundred regional events worldwide, and which encourages the development of local communities through that of the “imagined community” of Burners.
Black Rock City is impermanent: much of its art is burnt to the ground, its 70,000 inhabitants disperse back to their homes around the globe after the burn, and the city leaves no trace. Yet community, with its emphasis on stability, permanence, and strong ties, is one of its structuring principles. How can transience and community work together?
This paper will explore how community is imagined, structured and fostered in this temporary city. It will examine what forms of “art” are present in the city, and interrogate the role of temporary art and artistic encounters in the construction of a community. It will focus on the roles of participatory experience and maker culture, and suggest that the building of the city by all the participants, this “making together” is perhaps the most valuable form of art created at Burning Man – the art of living together which binds people together and creates a community. It will conclude by looking at how this community-oriented event has turned into a global non-profit organization which supports over a hundred regional events worldwide, and which encourages the development of local communities through that of the “imagined community” of Burners.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This paper will explore how nineteenth-century representations of opium have evolved and persisted to reach us today, and will examine how Amitav Ghosh’s writing is contributing to changing the way we think about opium. Opium’s powerful... more
This paper will explore how nineteenth-century representations of opium have evolved and persisted to reach us today, and will examine how Amitav Ghosh’s writing is contributing to changing the way we think about opium.
Opium’s powerful presence in our collective imagination conjures up images of opium dens in port cities like London, Shangai or New York, and usually go hand in hand with fantastic visions conjured up in the smoker’s mind.
This key scene was brought to life by the writing of Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde, and has carried on travelling through the popular imagination ever since. It has never ceased to be reconstructed by the technologies of the different eras it passed through – from mass-produced novels to engravings, photographs, films, amusement machines and video games.
However, the production and reproduction of this key scene means that the smoke of the opium den has long obfuscated the complex and multi-layered history of opium. But the publication of Amitav Ghosh’s work of historical fiction, the Ibis Trilogy (2008-2015), has added more elements to this tableau.
Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke and Flood of Fire are set at the time of the nineteenth-century opium wars, and deal with the trade of opium between India and China run by the East India Company.
The trilogy shows us a flower being harvested in the poppy fields of India, a product being transformed in the Ghazipur opium factory, a merchandise being smuggled into Chinese ports, an intoxicant creating millions of addicts, and a commodity associated with British imperial expansionism. Ghosh’s writing demonstrates that the history of opium is one made of crossings and crossovers, one of rhizomic connections which touched the lives of many, and has sparked a renewal of academic and popular interest in the history of opium.
Opium’s powerful presence in our collective imagination conjures up images of opium dens in port cities like London, Shangai or New York, and usually go hand in hand with fantastic visions conjured up in the smoker’s mind.
This key scene was brought to life by the writing of Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde, and has carried on travelling through the popular imagination ever since. It has never ceased to be reconstructed by the technologies of the different eras it passed through – from mass-produced novels to engravings, photographs, films, amusement machines and video games.
However, the production and reproduction of this key scene means that the smoke of the opium den has long obfuscated the complex and multi-layered history of opium. But the publication of Amitav Ghosh’s work of historical fiction, the Ibis Trilogy (2008-2015), has added more elements to this tableau.
Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke and Flood of Fire are set at the time of the nineteenth-century opium wars, and deal with the trade of opium between India and China run by the East India Company.
The trilogy shows us a flower being harvested in the poppy fields of India, a product being transformed in the Ghazipur opium factory, a merchandise being smuggled into Chinese ports, an intoxicant creating millions of addicts, and a commodity associated with British imperial expansionism. Ghosh’s writing demonstrates that the history of opium is one made of crossings and crossovers, one of rhizomic connections which touched the lives of many, and has sparked a renewal of academic and popular interest in the history of opium.
Research Interests:
This paper will explore the construction and peculiar persistence of a key scene of Victorian novels, that of the opium den. This emblematic scene usually evokes the image of a secretive place run by a Chinese man who supplies and... more
This paper will explore the construction and peculiar persistence of a key scene of Victorian novels, that of the opium den. This emblematic scene usually evokes the image of a secretive place run by a Chinese man who supplies and prepares the opium. The opium paraphernalia – the pipes and lamps which are necessary to smoke the drugs and the opium beds on which the smokers recline – are also part and parcel of the scene. Finally, the fantastic visions which are conjured up in the smokers’ minds are often, paradoxically, the most vividly present elements of this key scene.
This key scene was brought to life through the writing of Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde, and it has carried on travelling through the popular imagination ever since. It has never ceased to be reconstructed by the technologies of the different eras it passed through. It was engraved on the pages of mass-produced novels. Directors had life-size reconstructions of opium dens built for the stage or for film sets (one might think of Griffith’s 1919 Broken Blossoms). It was reconstructed in miniature in strange amusement machines that can be found on American or European piers, and it is now being reconstructed by programmers in the virtual world.
Through its many reincarnations, this key scene has imprinted itself onto the collective imagination and keeps inspiring contemporary writers and artists alike.
This key scene was brought to life through the writing of Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde, and it has carried on travelling through the popular imagination ever since. It has never ceased to be reconstructed by the technologies of the different eras it passed through. It was engraved on the pages of mass-produced novels. Directors had life-size reconstructions of opium dens built for the stage or for film sets (one might think of Griffith’s 1919 Broken Blossoms). It was reconstructed in miniature in strange amusement machines that can be found on American or European piers, and it is now being reconstructed by programmers in the virtual world.
Through its many reincarnations, this key scene has imprinted itself onto the collective imagination and keeps inspiring contemporary writers and artists alike.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The flâneur is well-known for being the most emblematic nineteenth-century observer of urban life. Critics have often compared the flâneur to a camera eye which records everything and insisted on the predominance of sight over other... more
The flâneur is well-known for being the most emblematic nineteenth-century observer of urban life. Critics have often compared the flâneur to a camera eye which records everything and insisted on the predominance of sight over other senses in the cognitive process. I would like to lay emphasis on the embodiedness of the flâneur’s vision, which is an experience of all the senses. I would like to envisage the whole of the flâneur’s body as a surface on which the city leaves its imprint.
The city is a space whose sights, sounds and smells are constantly changing and mutating. The city space can be envisaged as a ‘metabolic space,’ in which ‘the links between background and figures are very unstable’ (Augoyard). The moving body of the flâneur, which can adapt to this changing space, seems to be in an ideal position to apprehend the metabolic body of the city. The flâneur’s whole body is a perceptive surface which allows things in. He makes his way through the sounds, smells, tastes and textures of the city as well as through its sights. The flâneur is not only ‘an eye impaled on a stake’ (Wittgenstein), he is ‘a living eye’ which communicates with all the other senses and captures the whole experience of moving through the city. His body might be compared to a seismograph that not only registers all kinds of sensory impressions but also translates and transmits them.
By looking at texts by Balzac, Baudelaire, Dickens and Charlotte Brontë, I will demonstrate that flânerie is a sensory activity that shapes our perception of the city as much as the city shapes our own flâneries by transforming our bodies into scribes who write the ‘thicks and thins of the urban text.’ (De Certeau)
The city is a space whose sights, sounds and smells are constantly changing and mutating. The city space can be envisaged as a ‘metabolic space,’ in which ‘the links between background and figures are very unstable’ (Augoyard). The moving body of the flâneur, which can adapt to this changing space, seems to be in an ideal position to apprehend the metabolic body of the city. The flâneur’s whole body is a perceptive surface which allows things in. He makes his way through the sounds, smells, tastes and textures of the city as well as through its sights. The flâneur is not only ‘an eye impaled on a stake’ (Wittgenstein), he is ‘a living eye’ which communicates with all the other senses and captures the whole experience of moving through the city. His body might be compared to a seismograph that not only registers all kinds of sensory impressions but also translates and transmits them.
By looking at texts by Balzac, Baudelaire, Dickens and Charlotte Brontë, I will demonstrate that flânerie is a sensory activity that shapes our perception of the city as much as the city shapes our own flâneries by transforming our bodies into scribes who write the ‘thicks and thins of the urban text.’ (De Certeau)