Jenai Engelhard Humphreys Defends Dissertation

Jenai is a student in our doctoral program in French Language & Literature. She wrote her dissertation on “Decadence Embodied:  Anorexia, Allegory, Marrow,” under the guidance of Professor Dorothy Kelly.

Jenai describes the subject of her dissertation as follows:

“My research argues for the recognition of a contemporary phenomenon of literary decadence, one that can be understood only in relation to the aftermath of France’s colonial past and subsequent loss of empire. My work calls into question Camille Paglia’s formulation that “excess” is the “hallmark of decadence.” I examine texts, including Amélie Nothomb’s Robert
des Noms Propres and J.K. Huysmans’ À Rebours, in which decadence becomes a mode of asceticism, a constraint/restraint, and a quest for purification that pushes both aesthetic and corporeal limitations to their outermost edge. My vision of decadence is thus epitomized not by
excess, but by hunger and lack.”