Online Archive of University of Virginia Scholarship
Meaning in Motion: Curtsies, Cotillions and Counter-Ritual in the Belle Époque1861 views
Author
Schauer, Erica, French - Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Virginia
Advisors
Horne, Janet, Department of French Language and Literatures, University of Virginia
Kreuger, Cheryl, Department of French Language and Literatures, University of Virginia
Levine, Allison, Department of French Language and Literatures, University of Virginia
Abstract
Human bodies are culturally conditioned to move in ways that show others who they are. This dissertation is a study of the critical and lifelong training of women’s bodies conducted not in the classroom, but in familial and social settings. I argue that, despite parents’ intentions, this physical instruction was never simply a matter of reproducing past gender roles and class structures. Rather, the internalization of certain gestures and postures, along with body movements at more formalized rituals, often allowed young Frenchwomen of the Belle Époque to generate an innovative space for the production of new meaning in the conduct of their lives. As I am to demonstrate in this thesis, physicality—that is, the socially inscribed postures, gestures, and movements of human interaction—is a useful category of cultural analysis.
Degree
PHD (Doctor of Philosophy)
Keywords
literature; cultural history; gesture; posture; gender; Belle Epoque; etiquette
Language
English
Rights
All rights reserved (no additional license for public reuse)
Schauer, Erica. Meaning in Motion: Curtsies, Cotillions and Counter-Ritual in the Belle Époque. University of Virginia, French - Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, PHD (Doctor of Philosophy), 2014-05-15, https://doi.org/10.18130/V31G0F.
