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Annie Ernaux's 'Zones of Ordinariness': Regarde les lumières mon amour and Mémoire de fille

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Kathryn RobsonORCiD

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Abstract

This article explores Lauren Berlant’s notion of ‘zones of ordinariness’ in two texts by Annie Ernaux, Regarde les lumières mon amour (2014) and Mémoire de fille (2016). These two texts portray zones of ordinariness that push us to rethink how we understand and relate to personal and collective contemporary historical experience. Drawing on Berlant’s ideas of ‘cruel optimism’ and ‘crisis ordinariness’, I show that Ernaux’s texts pose challenges to the reader to look differently at contemporary neoliberal social structures and to recognize our own complicity within them. Writing and reading are themselves also shown to be mired in cruel optimism.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Robson K

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Modern Language Review

Year: 2025

Volume: 120

Issue: 4

Pages: 506-522

Online publication date: 06/10/2025

Acceptance date: 19/03/2025

Date deposited: 01/04/2025

ISSN (print): 0026-7937

ISSN (electronic): 2222-4319

Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association

URL: https://doi.org/10.1353/mlr.00123

DOI: 10.1353/mlr.00123

ePrints DOI: 10.57711/bydf-7h83

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