Overview
Magali Molinie is Adjunct Associate Professor of French in the Department of Romance Studies, a member of the International Research Network “Word Gender in Translation”, and of the French Studies Program at Cornell.
After studying cinema and literature at the University of Paris III, Sorbonne Nouvelle, she obtained a PhD in Psychology at the University of Paris VIII, Vincennes-Saint Denis (France). Starting from the pathbreaking works of Tobie Nathan, Isabelle Stengers and Bruno Latour, her first book “Soigner les morts pour guérir les vivants” offers a new way to describe the relationships between the living and the dead. Investigating the dispositifs, rituals, practices, words, and attachments through which the dead are constructed as social beings, she describes these connections as a cultural and social factory of reciprocal transformations. She is now enlarging the areas of her research by looking at other actors: people who hear voices, have visions and other unshared perceptions. While the biomedical approaches pathologize these experiences, she considers them, in the perspective of Mad Studies and Survivor Research, as messages to decipher and signs of possible emancipatory paths. Since the second half of the nineteenth century, French literature—notably with Balzac, Flaubert, Maupassant and Zola—has mirrored these kinds of conflicts, resistances and arrangements, which are the topics of her research and seminars. She is currently working on a second book devoted to the cultural forms and meaning of hearing voices, based on literary investigations, empirical inquiries, and theoretical confrontations.
Recent Courses
- FREN 4000. Sorcery, Demonic Possession or Hysteria?
- FREN 4780. Madness Narratives. XIXth–XXth centuries
- FREN 3850. Literature and Medicine in 19th Century France
- FREN 4930.The Uncanny and the Fantastic
- FREN 3420. Wandering souls, Ghosts and Revenants: Cultural Practices and Literary Fictions in Nineteenth Century France
- FREN 3400. French identities: XXIe century culture and society in France
Research Focus
- 19th and 20th century French Literature
- History of Psychiatry
- Mad Studies
- Critical Psychology
- Ethnopsychiatry
- Death Studies
Publications
Books
In Progress: Healing Voices and Transformative Experiences.
2006: Soigner les morts pour guérir les vivants. Paris, Le Seuil.
Edited Books
2011: Invisibles orphelins. Comprendre, accompagner. Paris, Editions Autrement.
2007: La Psychanalyse. Points de vue pluriels. Auxerre, Editions Sciences Humaines.
Contributions to Collected Books
2016: Molinié M., Marie J.-M., “Entendeurs de voix plutôt que schizophrène : une voie vers l’émancipation”, Valérie Boucherat-Hue, Denis Leguay, Bernard Pachoud, Florence Weber, Arnaud Plagnol (Eds) Handicap psychique, actualités, problèmes et perspectives, Toulouse, ERES: 215-231
2016: Molinié M., Demassiet V., “Des groupes d’entendeurs de voix, pour qui, pourquoi, pour quoi faire ?”, Jardri R. Laroi F., Favrod J., Psychothérapies des hallucinations, Issy les Moulineaux, Elsevier Masson: 93-106.
2013: Molinié M., “Grandir orphelin ou l’invisible gestation du parent défunt” (grow up fatherless), Ben Soussan (dir.) L’Enfant confronté à la mort d’un parent (The Child Confronted with The Death of a Parent), Paris, Erès: 47-62
2009: “Pratiques de deuil, fabrique de vie.” Pascal Dreyer (dir.) Faut-il faire son deuil ? Perdre un être cher… et vivre, Paris, Editions Autrement: 24-36.
2006: “L’hôpital, le deuil et la migration des âmes face à la médicalisation du mourir”. Jacqueline Lalouette (dir.) L’hôpital entre religion et laïcité. Paris, Editions Letouzey et Ané.
