Antithèses

The thesis is often considered to be a wholly academic genre. However, since the mid-nineteenth century, several great French writers have written a doctoral thesis, each in an original way. Mallarmé began a linguistics thesis in order to recover from an existential crisis, Péguy's thesis is nothing but a long insult to the Sorbonne, Paulhan's thesis is lost in countless drafts written over more than 35 years. Céline submitted a self-portrait barely concealed behind a tribute to a Hungarian doctor, and Barthes said that the thesis should be a "corps erotique," an "erotic body." Antithèses is a historical inquiry where the literary and academic worlds meet and challenge each other. It is also an anti-manual of theses in which writers question academic norms and standards while distilling their writing advice.