Social and Literary Rituals. Drinking and Writing (Lille)

Study day for young researchers in doctoral studies.

Social and Literary Rituals. Drinking and Writing

Friday February 7, 2025

University of Lille

Drink or write? Or rather drink et writing… Not that writers must necessarily obey the bohemian stereotype of alcoholic inspiration to be able to be endowed with any literary value, despite the remarks made by Diana, a character who is a friend of the narrator Clara in The Little Horses of Tarquinia : “A bitter Campari is magic”. No, alcohol is not magic in itself… but it is nevertheless the support and vehicle of a sociability, and even of a trans-secular literary sociality which seems as a cultural context or literary motif to be infinitely reusable and therefore endowed with magical faculties. But these are ordinaryized, socialized magical faculties, of those that literary anthropologists, historians, sociologists, seek to grasp and this is why a transdisciplinary approach is to be favored. It assumes that one never writes alone, even if one writes alone. It also assumes that writing and literature, as practices and modes of being, can be thought of in relation to social rituals despite the famous doctrine of literary autotelism. And precisely, paradoxically: from the last third of the 19th century, because drinking and writing together could also mean the implementation of a certain modernity of emancipation of the literary Magister far from the platform, from eloquence, from a literature considered as discourse, alcohol could help to create a gap, a distance between the literary people and the rest of the men and women who did not participate in the separate feasts of Literature.

Unsurprisingly, this dual dynamic making alcoholic beverage a possible driving force for literary creation as well as a ritualized social practice, infuses the works of many authors. As a thematic object, alcohol has its followers. From Rabelais’s “divine bottle” to Baudelaire’s wine, the permanence of the celebration of libations is not in doubt. However, at a time when modernity is simultaneously driving technical advances in the industrial production of alcohol and considerable progress in medical science, the liquid also has its detractors. To take just one emblematic example, it is difficult not to think of The Assommoir by Zola, where literary nectar becomes a social scourge. As we can see, the motif of alcohol then becomes entirely political: sometimes a substance crystallizing a desire for nonconformist emancipation, sometimes a poison alienating the people.

Finally, as a structuring motif, alcohol consumption guides the steps of many novelistic protagonists and erects a typical fictional setting that is also useful for narrative construction. Thus, emblematic places appear as many points on the novel’s map: cafés, bars, restaurants, brasseries.

This call for contributions aimed at young researchers and doctoral students aims to compare some exploratory trajectories of these socialized literary rituals in order to share the issues, the problems, the choices made in academic awareness to deal today with method and rigor with what was precisely able to provoke a logic other than rational logic: alcohol in literature.

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Indicative bibliography

Historical works :

>AUGÉ Marc, In Praise of the Parisian BistroParis, Payot, 2015.

>BIHL Laurent, A popular history of bistrosParis, New World, 2023.

>INFANT Didier, To the guilty pleasure: the story of women who consume to excessParis, Payot, 2013.

>INFANT Didier, Raw and cooked: the drinker’s storyParis, Perrin, 2013.

Sociology works :

-BOURDIEU Pierre, The distinction: social critique of judgmentParis, Midnight Editions, 1979.

-CERTEAU Michel de, The invention of everyday life I. Arts of doingNew edition / established and presented by Luce Giard, Paris, Gallimard, 1990. (p.170-191)

-CERTEAU Michel de, The invention of everyday life. II. Living, cookingNew edition revised and expanded / presented by Luce Giard, Paris, Gallimard, 1994.

-CHABAULT Vincent, Sociology of consumption, [s. l.]Dunod, 2017.

-HERPIN Nicolas, Sociology of consumptionNew edition, Paris, la Découverte, 2004.

-DUCOURANT Helen, Sociology of consumptionMalakoff, Armand Colin, 2019.

-GOFFMAN Erving, How to behave in public places: notes on organization social gatheringsParis, Economica, 2013.

-GOFFMAN Erving, The staging of everyday life IParis, Les Éditions de Minuit, 1973.

-GOFFMAN Erving, The staging of everyday life. 2 . Public Relations, Paris, Éditions de minuit, 1973.

-SCARDIGLI Victor, Consumption: everyday cultureParis, University Press of France, 1983.

-TONTI Michela and HUMBLEY JOHN, The brand name in everyday speech:lexicultural and linguistic prismParis, le Harmattan, 2020.

Literary works :

-FARGUE, The Pedestrian of ParisParis, l’Imaginaire Gallimard, 1964.

– FARGUE, PoisonsParis, Republic of Letters, 2015.

– GIRAUD Robert, The lights of the zincParis, Le Dilettante, 1989.

– GIRAUD ROBERT, TOPOR ROLAND, GIRAUD Robert et al., Bistro Slang [Texte imprimé]Paris, Marval, 1989.

-HUYSMANS Joris-Karl, Parisian sketchesarts library, 2001.

-MAUPASSANT Guy, Tales and News, Boy, a beer!(pp. 1123 to 1129), tI, Pleiade editions, Gallimard, Paris, 1974.

– THOMAS Chantal, Living CoffeeParis, Seuil, 2020.

– THOMAS Chantal, Memory CafesParis, Points, 2021.

Collective publications on a related theme must be considered imperatively to avoid repetitions :

–He who has read will drink. Alcohols and the literary worldUnder the direction of Geneviève Boucher and Pascal Brissette, CONTEXTS [En ligne]6 | September 2009, posted on September 25, 2009.

-LACROIX Alexandre, Drowning in alcohol?Paris, PUF, 2001.

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Proposals should be sent to the following emails before December 20, 2024:

[email protected]
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