On Friday morning at the LANGSA conference during the panel centered around Queer migrations, LCL graduate student Ryan Evelyn delivered his paper, “Small Places, Voiceless Faces: Ambiguity and Cultural Displacement in Two Novels by Gide and Guibert.” Ryan discussed gender representations, specifically the representation of masculinity in homosexuality as well as the concepts of cultural migration and spatial dichotomy in the two novels Les Faux-Monnayeurs, written in 1925 by André Gide, and À l’ami qui ne m’a pas sauvé la vie, written in 1990 by Hervé Guibert. Ryan went on to compare and contrast the spatial representations of homosexuality in the two novels, making the distinction between the private domain and public domain. Through his analysis, Ryan demonstrated the migration from the private to the public domain that took place in time between the publications of the two novels. Ryan’s research brings to light questions of self-acceptance and marginalization, ideas that remain pertinent to discussions of identity within the homosexual community.
Ryan Evelyn is a second-year Master’s student studying French and Francophone literature in the Department of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages at the University of Connecticut. Though his research focuses primarily on the Early-Modern and Renaissance periods, he dabbles in literature of the 20th century. Gender, representations of masculine homosexuality, and spatial dichotomies remain at the forefront of his research.
