“Powers of Fiction: Scholastic Novels and Forgotten Women in Third Republic France (1870 to 1914)”

This project explores a large corpus or about twenty French scholastic novels never before studied from a literary perspective. The Scholastic novel is a primarily woman-led literary genre that appeared in the second half of the nineteenth century that has now fallen into disuse. These publications were innovative hybrid texts that combined recreational appeal and pedagogical function, weaving together narrative and didactic occurrences. This genre reached peak popularity during the Third Republic and focused on both transmitting the knowledge and instilling values, aligned with the new national curriculum. Grounded in feminist theories, narratology, and literary analysis, Laurie argues that the lessons disseminated and by each book were in fact not all “aligned” and vary greatly depending on the author as they used fiction as a vehicle for political and ideological explorations.