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Conference Paper: Charlot s'amuse, onanism and the question of literature
Title | Charlot s'amuse, onanism and the question of literature |
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Authors | |
Issue Date | 2013 |
Publisher | University of London. |
Citation | The 16th Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Law, Culture & the Humanities (ASLCH 2013), University of London, Birkbeck, UK., 22-23 March 2013. In Conference Programme, 2013, p. 116 How to Cite? |
Abstract | This paper examines the obscenity trial sparked by the publication of Paul Bonnetain’s Charlot s’amuse (Charlot plays with himself), a late nineteenth-century French novel about the life of an onanist, or compulsive masturbator. Bonnetain’s lawyer argued that the novel should not be considered as an obscene text because it was a work of scientific merit contributing to the medical discussion of onanism. This paper examines the interpretative assumptions behind this argument, and posits an alternative reading which suggests that the novel in fact interrogates some of the fundamental ideas in the scientific discourse on onanism in the late nineteenth century. It concludes that this interrogation can be said to form the foundation of the novel’s ‘literary’ status, and that Bonnetain’s text emerges from the trial as a site in which the possibility of judging another human being becomes problematised. |
Description | Session 3: 7.4 Trials: Panelist 1 |
Persistent Identifier | http://hdl.handle.net/10722/187146 |
DC Field | Value | Language |
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dc.contributor.author | Wan, M | en_US |
dc.date.accessioned | 2013-08-20T12:31:27Z | - |
dc.date.available | 2013-08-20T12:31:27Z | - |
dc.date.issued | 2013 | en_US |
dc.identifier.citation | The 16th Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Law, Culture & the Humanities (ASLCH 2013), University of London, Birkbeck, UK., 22-23 March 2013. In Conference Programme, 2013, p. 116 | en_US |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10722/187146 | - |
dc.description | Session 3: 7.4 Trials: Panelist 1 | - |
dc.description.abstract | This paper examines the obscenity trial sparked by the publication of Paul Bonnetain’s Charlot s’amuse (Charlot plays with himself), a late nineteenth-century French novel about the life of an onanist, or compulsive masturbator. Bonnetain’s lawyer argued that the novel should not be considered as an obscene text because it was a work of scientific merit contributing to the medical discussion of onanism. This paper examines the interpretative assumptions behind this argument, and posits an alternative reading which suggests that the novel in fact interrogates some of the fundamental ideas in the scientific discourse on onanism in the late nineteenth century. It concludes that this interrogation can be said to form the foundation of the novel’s ‘literary’ status, and that Bonnetain’s text emerges from the trial as a site in which the possibility of judging another human being becomes problematised. | - |
dc.language | eng | en_US |
dc.publisher | University of London. | - |
dc.relation.ispartof | Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Law, Culture & the Humanities, ASLCH 2013 | en_US |
dc.title | Charlot s'amuse, onanism and the question of literature | en_US |
dc.type | Conference_Paper | en_US |
dc.identifier.email | Wan, M: mwan@hkucc.hku.hk | en_US |
dc.identifier.authority | Wan, M=rp01272 | en_US |
dc.description.nature | postprint | - |
dc.identifier.hkuros | 217158 | en_US |
dc.identifier.spage | 116 | - |
dc.identifier.epage | 116 | - |
dc.publisher.place | United Kingdom | - |