Le roman d'entreprise: breaking the silence

This article looks at three recent French novels novels in order to explore key themes in what has become known as the roman d’entreprise: Pierre Mari’s Résolution (2005), Nathalie Kuperman’s Nous étions des êtres vivants (2010) and Thierry Beinstingel’s Retour aux mots sauvages (2010). The figure o...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Marks, John
Format: Article
Published: Sage 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47236/
_version_ 1848797496730451968
author Marks, John
author_facet Marks, John
author_sort Marks, John
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description This article looks at three recent French novels novels in order to explore key themes in what has become known as the roman d’entreprise: Pierre Mari’s Résolution (2005), Nathalie Kuperman’s Nous étions des êtres vivants (2010) and Thierry Beinstingel’s Retour aux mots sauvages (2010). The figure of the entreprise functions both as a fictional representation of the post-Fordist workplace environment in companies such as France Télécom, and also as a means of tackling wider issues of work and social organisation in an era of neoliberal managerialism. The concepts of capitalist realism, organisational miasma and virtuality are used to analyse the ways in which the three novels convey the distinctive affective landscape of the contemporary entreprise. Fiction is used to consider the prolix and self-referential nature of the managerialist entreprise, which enables it to exert a significant influence on the individual and collective subjectivities of employees. The three novels focus on the capacity of the entreprise to capture language and impose an affect of silence on employees.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T20:04:48Z
format Article
id nottingham-47236
institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T20:04:48Z
publishDate 2017
publisher Sage
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling nottingham-472362020-05-04T19:15:45Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47236/ Le roman d'entreprise: breaking the silence Marks, John This article looks at three recent French novels novels in order to explore key themes in what has become known as the roman d’entreprise: Pierre Mari’s Résolution (2005), Nathalie Kuperman’s Nous étions des êtres vivants (2010) and Thierry Beinstingel’s Retour aux mots sauvages (2010). The figure of the entreprise functions both as a fictional representation of the post-Fordist workplace environment in companies such as France Télécom, and also as a means of tackling wider issues of work and social organisation in an era of neoliberal managerialism. The concepts of capitalist realism, organisational miasma and virtuality are used to analyse the ways in which the three novels convey the distinctive affective landscape of the contemporary entreprise. Fiction is used to consider the prolix and self-referential nature of the managerialist entreprise, which enables it to exert a significant influence on the individual and collective subjectivities of employees. The three novels focus on the capacity of the entreprise to capture language and impose an affect of silence on employees. Sage 2017-11-01 Article PeerReviewed Marks, John (2017) Le roman d'entreprise: breaking the silence. French Cultural Studies, 28 (4). pp. 371-386. ISSN 1740-2352 Roman d’entreprise post-Fordism manageralism neoliberalism novlangue. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0957155817724957 doi:10.1177/0957155817724957 doi:10.1177/0957155817724957
spellingShingle Roman d’entreprise
post-Fordism
manageralism
neoliberalism
novlangue.
Marks, John
Le roman d'entreprise: breaking the silence
title Le roman d'entreprise: breaking the silence
title_full Le roman d'entreprise: breaking the silence
title_fullStr Le roman d'entreprise: breaking the silence
title_full_unstemmed Le roman d'entreprise: breaking the silence
title_short Le roman d'entreprise: breaking the silence
title_sort le roman d'entreprise: breaking the silence
topic Roman d’entreprise
post-Fordism
manageralism
neoliberalism
novlangue.
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47236/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47236/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47236/