Description: In Career Stories, Juliette Rogers considers a body of largely unexamined novels from the Belle poque that defy the usual categories allowed the female protagonist of the period. While most literary studies of the Belle poque (18801914) focus on the conventional housewife or harlot distinction for female protagonists, the heroines investigated in Career Stories are professional lawyers, doctors, teachers, writers, archeologists, and scientists. In addition to the one well-known woman writer from the Belle poque, Colette, this study will expand our knowledge of relatively unknown authors, including Gabrielle Reval, Marcelle Tinayre, and Colette Yver, who actively participated in contemporary debates on womens possible roles in the public domain and in professional careers during this period. Career Stories seeks to understand early twentiethcentury France by examining novels written about professional women, bourgeois and working-class heroines.
Brief description: Juliette M. Rogers is Associate Professor of French at the University of New Hampshire.