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Michèle Schaal, "Grrrl Writing: Virginie Despentes's Authorial Politics" (Peter Lang, 2026)
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- [00:01]
Gina Stam
Welcome to the New Books Network. Hello and welcome to the New Books Network French Studies Channel. I'm your host, Gina Stam, associate professor of French at the University of Alabama, and with me today is Michelle Schall to discuss her new book, Girl Virginie d' Pense Authorial Politics. That's G R R R L, out this year from Peter Lange. And this is the first of two planned volumes. Dr. Schall is professor of French and Women's and Gender Studies at Iowa State University and is also the author of Uneasimes vague Feminist de litteraire Les Femmes de lettres de la Nouvelle Generation, published in 2017. In addition to writing many texts and scholarly journals and edited volumes, Dr. Schall has been the co editor of three special journal issues on related topics, including a themed volume of the Rocky Mountain Review, en Tepant in 2018. Dr. Schall, welcome to the podcast.
- [00:55]
Michelle Schall
Well, thank you, Professor Stam, for having me and for the invitation and thanks, of course, everyone, for listening to this podcast.
- [01:02]
Gina Stam
Could you tell us about the genesis of this project?
- [01:05]
Michelle Schall
Yes, absolutely. So I would say it's a kind of logical outcome of all the work I've done on d' Ponts since actually graduate school. And I could even take it back to my teenage years because like I say in the introduction to my monograph, Virgin Desponte appeared in a popular show that was broadcast on the channel canal plus at that time in the 1990s. And like a typical French teenager, I would watch it every evening. And I was actually there. I can claim I was there when she did her appearance on Nil Parriere, so nowhere else in English. And I was already very intrigued by this person who absolutely did not look like any of the other literary guests, at least at that time back then. So you can even trace the genesis of my book to back then, to being intrigued and curious about what this author, so different from everyone else, had to say, but from a more scholarly perspective, yes, it's a continuation of the work I started as a graduate student that always had an emphasis on d', Ponte and that gradually became kind of an area of specialization. More specifically. Also, I was approached by my editor, Laurel Plapp, at Peter Lang, because at that time, or just a few years before, the professor in London, Jill Wry, who really is an icon in contemporary French women's writing writing, had created these studies in contemporary women's writing. And she invited me to potentially consider doing something on Des Pontes. And of course, I immediately accepted because this is something I had always in mind as a potential second or even third monograph. So, yes, it was part of an ongoing perspective and also an invitation from Jill Wry at that time to contribute to the collection.
- [03:05]
Gina Stam
And what do you mean by girl writing and politics, as stated in your title with that specific spelling?
- [03:11]
Michelle Schall
So Girl is of course connected to the punk movement that happened in the 1990s in the USA, riot girl. And I chose that title because as I was developing my scholarship on Dupont, I always had a connection to the usa, which Dupont has claimed anyway, and especially how third wave feminism happened in usa, but also later a little bit in France, even if there are of course specific differences, which I also address in my scholarship. But the punk expression at play in Riot Girl, I could really see it also playing out in Dupont's approach to literature that is, of course punk infused, like many other scholars have underlined as well. So it's a way of reflecting how Desponte's approach to literature, and especially her three first novels, that really defined her authorial politics, how she writes her fiction. That was a way to translate that connection.
- [04:16]
Gina Stam
And as you said, this book focuses on her first three novels, and I understand that this is part of a projected two volume set. But how did you choose to divide up the corpus in that way?
- [04:27]
Michelle Schall
Well, initially the monograph was supposed to cover all of our seven novels. Then Cher Conard was published in 2022, and I wanted to add it to the corpus as well, but it became this absolutely long and never ending project, and it would have been too long for just one monograph. So I talked to the editors and to Laura Plop again, and we decided that a two volume would make sense. And also because the first volume then covers how she got started, including in the biography, which we'll address later, or the bio bibliography that I provide as an opening chapter in my monograph. And we decided that it would be a natural cut to have, you know, a quote, unquote natural, of course, cut to first cover how she got started, how she established herself, and then how her career developed as a writer of fiction.
- [05:20]
Gina Stam
And while the book engages, as we'll get into in extensive close readings, you also discuss both d' Ampe's biography and public position taking, as well as her reception and the way this has changed over the years. Why do you feel that it's important for readers to be aware of and understand this reception?
- [05:38]
Michelle Schall
Of course, you must always be, you know, careful not to fully conflate an author's biography and their work, especially when it's not claimed as autofiction. But at the same time, D' Ente's the way she evolved, you know, from even before becoming a writer to now, there were several foundational experiences that explain also, you know, how she got started and later on how she evolved. And also it made sense to me, you know, when I started writing the chapters on the fiction, I realized that I kept on coming back to some of these foundational moments. So it made sense to have them in a separate chapter first to explain how she got started, how she evolved as a writer, and also to be able to go back to some of these, you know, details and aspects when studying the fiction. And also, like you mentioned, of course, anyone who becomes a famous writer becomes, you know, the object of a projection, some kind of fantasy on part of readers. And in the beginning, she was absolutely rejected by mainstream audiences, even if in the end a lot of people read her books. So it was quite fascinating for me too, you know, when I got started as a graduate student, where I was literally told that I had no future if I studied d', Pon, that she would never amount to anything, and neither would I if I persisted to, you know, this with Sheikh Konal, especially to these praises that were never ending. And what was particularly intriguing to me is that what she was once absolutely hated for was praised even in mainstream media, in women's magazines even. She was completely praised for what she was once hated for and rejected for. Of course, you're still rejected generally in right leaning publications, but that shift was quite interesting, and I thought it was interesting to document it for readers as well. The other thing is that the study or the collection I've just mentioned, the studies in contemporary women's writing, is meant for a broad audience or scholars that are not necessarily in French studies. So potential readers of that collection may have no idea who Virginie des Ponte is or only a limited idea. So the biography or the biblio biobibliography also made sense because of that potential readership beyond French or feminist studies?
- [08:16]
Gina Stam
Absolutely. And your second chapter also serves as a theoretical introduction to your analysis, where you highlight some of the terms that become part of your analytical framework. Heteropatriarchy, gender bending, and punk. Could you explain the significance of these terms?
- [08:33]
Michelle Schall
Yes, absolutely. And again, it goes back to the nature of the collection itself. That people may be interested in women's writing or contemporary women's writing, but they may not necessarily be familiar with feminist terms like heteropatriarchy, queer feminist terms like gender bending, or even punk. And what I noticed specifically for heteropatriarchy and punk is that a lot of people use these terms, whether in populist or academic writings, including when analyzing dupont's fiction or nonfiction. But few people actually provide definitions for those terms. So when I started working on the monograph, I asked myself, how would I define those terms? And I realized then that at least a minimal definition, but definitely not a definite one, because these are very flexible terms, terms that you can't easily pinpoint or pin down. So providing at least, if not a definition, at least a contextualization so that my readers would also understand why I use them. So heteropatriarchy was important because a lot of time when it's used, people use it to describe a system that relies on binaries, which is true, but limited often to gender based binaries or sexuality based binaries. But if you delve a bit deeper into the literature, especially the feminist, queer and indigenous literature, or biwalk, black, indigenous, women of color, feminist perspectives, you realize that the way they understand and they present this system is more like a tentacular one. So it's not just about gender, it's not just about sexuality, but it's also about the economy, it's about kinship, it's about race, it's about class. It really is more. More than just, sorry, than just gender or sexuality. And I thought that was important to underline it, because even if in her early work, dupont may have addressed more gender and class, there were still certain considerations for race and other forms of potentially of oppression. Although it is true, as other scholars and me have also noticed, that her early fiction tends to be very white and heterocentric, that is true. And for punk, what I also noticed is that a lot of studies on dupont, while using the term, sometimes use a very populist, very mainstream definition of punk that does not necessarily account for the complexity of the movement. And a lot of people, you know, if you ask them what punk is, most people would cite music, right? But of course, music is important to the movement, but it's also a political movement, a cultural movement, an ongoing movement. So it's not just limited to the 70s or one specific, you know, region in the world, the UK or the usa. And it's also a way of life. I don't want to use lifestyle because that can be, you know, kind of a neoliberal, self improvement thing, but a way of life, an alternative way of life. And I thought that was really important to underline that in my research as well, because that way of life is something dupont has experience with and that she has also translated into her early and of course, all other fictions or other publications, or even, I would say, all of our other artistic endeavors. So again, to sum it all up, these terms have often appeared in scholarship, including for the Pont, but they have not necessarily been defined. And I thought it was important to do that. Gender bending is actually the more palatable, palatable word for a queer praxis that was started in the 1960s or that most scholars locate in the 1960s, and that was called gender fuck, but which is basically a performance of gender that is meant to upset gender based norms and show how cultural they are. That gender is not derived from, like Butler would say later, Julia Butler is not derived from some essence or some biological reality, but really is a social construction. And practices such as drag queens, drag kings already back then, were a way of contesting this supposedly natural, quote, unquote, natural origin of gender. But like I said, it evolved and became gender bending because it was, at least for mainstream, for mainstream audiences, a more palatable word. Although I must say, what was interesting when I did my research for the monograph is that in France, the less palatable word, the English term, is used more than gender bending.
- [13:47]
Gina Stam
So, speaking of unpalatable words, in your chapter dealing with d' Pont's debut novel, which is titled in French, Baisemoi, you highlight the importance of genre in understanding the book, and in particular the picaresque genre. How does Besma fit within this genre or play with its conventions? And why is that important for you?
- [14:08]
Michelle Schall
Well, generally, what I explore in the monograph is that the political cannot be separated from the literary in De Ponce fiction, and that every one of her novels has always kind of played with a specific genre. Now, for Bessemer, there have been several interpretations of the novel as a, you know, take on rape, revenge narratives or trash fiction narratives or exploitative fiction, which is true. It's undeniably true. But looking, you know, reading this novel several times, I also realized that they were connection to more classical genres. It's not necessarily something that Des Ponte has claimed, and it's difficult to say if she intentionally used the picaresque or not. But as someone who has claimed to be an avid reader and continues to be so, it is still plausible that she also, you know, used more classical genres, just like the picaresque. And the reason why I made that connection, including because it had not been made before, is because when you look at baise noir, just like the picaresque, it focuses on the downtrodden, on those who are excluded from society, and it also doubles like the picaresque genre always has as a critique of mainstream society and what dynamics create this exclusion and the reason why the protagonists are so the downtrodden in those narratives. And also what's interesting with the picaresque but other genres I've looked at in the monograph is that they can be both prescriptive and the locus or the site for rebellion. And so this is why I thought it was a fitting way to read Baisemoir as a picaresque novel, because you have these two protagonists, Manu and Nadine, who are at the bottom of society, who bear the brunt of heteropatriarchal. So of course gender based violence, and that's connected to sexual violence, but also class based violence, potentially also depending on how you interpret the protagonist, race based violence. And also a way to not overcome, but at least try to resist that violence by rebelling against it, of course, in a very violent way that has been criticized. But that is a way for them to access agency, even if it's a problematic matter.
- [16:42]
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- [17:10]
Gina Stam
Experian, and as you just evoked right there, there has been this criticism that condemns the violence of the novel and or the perceived lack of agency of its main characters. How do you respond to that criticism of d'? Pont?
- [17:26]
Michelle Schall
Well, she has responded to it herself and I agree with that response in the sense that, you know, this is not the first time that in classical or mainstream literature there have been very explicit narrat published and being popular and being studied. One of the most obvious examples is the market sad. I mean, those narratives are very explicit. I mean, you have it all, right? You have explicit sexuality, torture, cannibalism. And yet Sade would never be questioned as a classic author or a classic of French literature. So it is definitely. There are several double standards at play in the critique against Bessois. Not that it's unjustified to criticize violence in any given narrative and why people would or authors would choose violence or to be explicit in their novels, but the fact that she was not only a woman writer, like she underlined, but also someone who came from the working classes, from a punk subculture that made it less acceptable than another author who would have been at that time, equally explicit. And you also mentioned agency. Of course, it's complicated. And you can certainly contest that agency through violence does not change or leave the mainstream violent system, the dominant violent system, unchallenged, which is not untrue. But at the same time, that way of dealing with agency is a way to highlight the violence that is inflicted on those who are at the bottom of society.
- [19:12]
Gina Stam
Thank you. And so the second chapter of the body of your work deals with Les Chiens savants, which is, as you point out, one of d' Ampe's least well known works. Could you describe it for the listeners and talk about how it relates to the conventions of the noir or the hard boiled detective genre?
- [19:32]
Michelle Schall
Actually, can I just go back quickly back to Vezma?
- [19:35]
Gina Stam
Absolutely.
- [19:36]
Michelle Schall
What I would also like to add is because what I also argue in my monograph is that whether you, I mean, punk gender bending are both relying on, you know, reversing codes, establish codes to precisely expose them as constructions and as codes that we all internalize without even realizing it. So we don't understand that they're actually norms and standards we abide by. And by reversing the violence in Baisemois and other narratives, she exposes those very norms, those very standards for what they are. And that is, I think, also what made the violence to some people, at least, unacceptable at the time, that someone dared to reverse them and therefore expose their very nature.
- [20:24]
Gina Stam
Thank you, that's very helpful. So to come back to Les Chiens avant. So this is not a very well known novel and hasn't been as much discussed as some of her other work. So could you talk a little bit about the work and then also about its relationship to the noir genre?
- [20:43]
Michelle Schall
Absolutely. Well, if you look at interviews, you know, with d', Inte, whether past or recent one, it's true that it's a novel that she doesn't dwell a lot on either. She always makes it part of her past, but she never goes on explaining much about it. So that partially explains, or potentially also partially explains, why people have not focused so much on, has been approached mostly in a comparative manner. Because it's true that the depiction of sexual violence, and especially rape, is not similar, but in both, the depiction is extremely explicit. And that's again, like I said, one of the reasons why people might not Necessarily dwell on it. Baisemoir already was associated with, you know, crime fiction, hard boiled noir genre as well, because there is such an emphasis on explicit violence. But once again, analyzing the novel using that genre is useful because it's again a genre that is infamous for having a very stereotypical representation of crime, of gender based standards, but also has been used by marginalized authors or minoritized authors to precisely issue a critique of society. And even when written by other authors, or quote unquote dominant authors, it was always used to do a critique of society, of mainstream society. Corruption, for example, has always been at the heart of hard boiled and noir genre. So that was again perfect for ponce girl author politics, reversing, using those standards, reversing them to expose, you know, how dominant society and especially heteropatriarchy functions.
- [22:38]
Gina Stam
And you argue in your analysis that the novel represents materialist feminist analyses of society and values. How does this connection or intertext operate for you?
- [22:50]
Michelle Schall
So one thing from materialist feminism that Dipont is reveals in Les Chien Savants, but generally in her early fiction and later fiction as well, is that how women, but later she would also develop that for other marginalized folks, remain appropriated objects. They have no to minimal agency, and as such they do remain appropriated objects. So for women specifically, they're still defined as related to men and women defined by men. And that is especially explicit in Lucien Savants. But at the same time, it is a way of showing how these norms are internalized and how even when victimized by that system, used by that system, the standards are so internalized that the most marginalized always end up becoming complicit to the system that victimizes them. And I thought this is what l' Chien Savant helped reveal, using the hardball noir genre, reversing, for instance, the femme fatale trope, making that character a man, to always show how heteropatriarchy always triumphs because of the internalization of those standards by women. So the investigation is really into heteropatriarchy, how it works, what it does, and why. Those who should contest that system in some instances end up being its accomplices, uncritical accomplices, like the main character, Louis Cypher in the end does.
- [24:34]
Gina Stam
And in your final chapter, you analyze Les Jolie Chose as an example of a buildings Roman. How is it exemplary of that genre in your eyes, and especially the feminine variations on such a story?
- [24:47]
Michelle Schall
Yes. So if you look at the Billungsromane or coming of age novel as a genre itself, it's always been in one way or another, whether explicitly or more symbolically, about going out into the world and learning and coming back more mature or having learned something. But what specialists have underlined is that in the case of women, at least at some point in time, for instance, the 18th or the 19th century, that literally going out into the world was not possible, so that these narratives tended to be more a narrative of stunted growth and stunted maturity instead of learning and doing something. And like Hard Boyle or crime fiction, or like the Picaresque, the Bildungsroman has always doubled as a critique of society or a way to, or especially in the Bildungsroman, a way to champion dominant standards in some narratives or to contest them in others. And just like, you know, crime fiction, the Hard Boiled Jar, or the Picaresque, it's later been reclaimed by marginalized, minoritized authors to precisely, you know, provide a standpoint, narrative from their perspectives on what mainstream society does to them. So a way to address violence and for Des Ponte, of course, to address heteropatriarchal violence. So she uses the bellums Roman in Les Jolie chose to precisely show how women, and especially young women that were roughly Despin's age back in 1998, went through a sort of general socialization that in the end didn't have them grow as human beings, but stunted that very growth that had them remain. Just like in Lychy and Savant and also baisemoit, at least initially appropriated objects.
- [26:36]
Gina Stam
And in this novel, d' ente uses the device of twin sisters, one of whom winds up taking the other one's place in her social role. And how does. What does this device allow Daphn to do, and in particular with reference to the concatenation of gender and age based violence?
- [26:54]
Michelle Schall
Well, because, you know, one of the twin sisters dies by suicide, the other one literally because she wants to become her, to succeed in the music industry, she has to literally walk into her shoes. She has to become her sister. So this is one way where she learns what heteropatriarchy means and what socializing into or successful socialization into heteropatriarchy actually entails what you have to do to be recognized as someone, another woman, a straight young woman, what it means to successfully socialize or be accepted within that society. And using twins allowed for Dupont to do that, including on different stages in their lives, because, you know, there are flashbacks, narratives, where both twins actually look at what happened to them in their childhood and during that era. Pauline, the surviving Twin initially is favored by the father because she corresponds to all the age based and gender based standards. She is pretty or perceived as such, she's smart, she has a good relationship with her father, so she's basically favored by him. And her twin sister, Claudine is perceived as the opposite and therefore rejected in very violent ways. But once they become teenagers, a time that also marks anyone's entrance into heteropatriarchy and therefore also into their sexual identity and especially heterosexuality, then that dynamic changes. Then Claudine, who becomes a very conventional young woman who self sexually objectifies, then becomes the favored twin and Pauline ends up rejected because she does not play that heteropatriarchal game. So using twins was a really good means to show how these standards evolve based on age, but also based on class, even if class is only indirectly addressed in the novel.
- [29:08]
Gina Stam
And you also point out that this book was often received as representing a softened d'. Etre. And many of the male characters in the book appear, at least, at least at first, as more positive than they do in prior novels. But in your analysis, these masculine characters still have a diagnostic value for heteropatriarchal violence in society. Could you tell us some more about that?
- [29:31]
Michelle Schall
Yes. So if you know, gender based norms evolve throughout time for women, for anyone, and you know, for being people identify as non binary, they also evolve for people who identify or straight white men. And it's true that in the 1990s there was this talk about new standards of masculinity, or quote unquote, new men more caring, more involved in their families, more involved in domestic work at home. And so dupont was trying to represent that, so an openness and a challenge to more, let's say, say constricting gender based standards for men. But she also demonstrated at the same time that privileges still come with masculinity and that men were not necessarily willing to renounce those privileges, or they still benefited so much from them that they were uncritical to those privileges. And that is something that dupont wanted to address. So by still benefiting from these privileges, there was only so much that young men at that time were willing to give up or even to question or challenge. But that can happen also again, unintentionally, because oftentimes, and this is something that has been underlined numerous times by biwak feminists, when you benefit from privileges, oftentimes you do not realize that you have them. You consider them as taken for granted. And that is, I think, what d' Espem wanted to address with masculinity in Les Julie chose well.
- [31:16]
Gina Stam
Thank you so much for your very rich answers to my questions and hopefully this will prompt our listeners to go out and read the book for themselves and if they don't, if they aren't familiar with diepontes, then to familiarize themselves with her. And finally, as we come to the end of our time, do you have any ongoing projects our listeners should be on the lookout for? Sure.
- [31:37]
Michelle Schall
Actually, right now I'm working on a co edited special journal issue on Virgin des Pontes and intersectionality for the Journal Contemporary, A French Civilization and Intersections. So we are waiting for the peer reviews to come in, but this will be a really interesting approach to Dupont's fiction and nonfiction. We have articles on both because again, intersectional or intersectionality is an approach that has been used to talk about DES work, but few have really analyzed in depth what specifically makes Dupont's fiction intersectional, or what makes Dupont herself an intersectional author, or what makes her nonfiction intersectional. So that special issue co directed with my colleague from the uk, Dominique Carlini Versini, an interesting approach because it's the first time that we will try to look in depth into what makes Dupont an intersectional author, thinker or feminist. And of course there's a second volume for Girl Writing that will have a completely different title. I'm still working on that, but I don't want to jinx it either. But it will cover basically the fiction from 2002 to 2022, and if another novel is released in the meantime, potentially also that one.
- [33:04]
Gina Stam
Well, maybe you can join us again to talk about the rest of d' ins oeuvre when that one comes out. But for the time being, thank you very much for being with us again and for our listeners. This is Dr. Michelle Schall and the book is Girl Writing Virginie des Paints Authorial Politics.