The Department of Modern Languages is delighted to announce that Éléonore Sibourg has been awarded a PhD under the supervision of Professor Peter Reid, Dr Larry Duffy and Dr Lucy O’Meara with a thesis entitled ‘Science et surnaturel dans le cycle de Durtal de Huysmans’ [‘Science and supernatural in Huysmans’ Durtal Cycle’].
Her thesis examines interactions between science and the supernatural in Huysmans’s Durtal tetralogy, his four-book series consisting of Là-bas (1891), En route (1895), La cathédrale (1898) and L’Oblat (1903). The protagonist, whose aesthetic and philosophical starting point is naturalism, converts to Catholicism. This unusual conversion reflects social upheavals contemporary with Huysmans’s cycle of novels. In the late nineteenth century, science, emerging as symbol of new hope and salvation for humanity, has in a sense replaced religion. The Durtal cycle catalogues the disorders generated by this replacement, and represents the creation of a new order more suited to Durtal’s persona, through deconstruction of existing codes and beliefs.
Our congratulations to Dr Sibourg
For more details of research programmes in French see: www.kent.ac.uk/secl/modern-languages/postgraduate/index.html