This dissertation examines the use of the quotidien (the everyday) in contemporary French film and literature to understand its relationship with notions of place and space. Defined as the paradoxical process of how one repeatedly constructs each day "anew" on a routine basis, the quotidien in the texts of my analysis is not static, but rather a means for articulating changes in French communities and ways of life, while further reflecting ongoing changes to attitudes, politics, and identity. I advance current readings of the quotidien by viewing it as both descriptive, a recurring manifestation of change, as well as transformative, able to effect change. I argue that, in these depictions, the quotidien effectively erodes traditional spatial categories to create and reveal new and less stable versions. Specifically, places lose their real and symbolic sway to indeterminate spaces in which meaning is uncertain, in flux, or non-existent. My dissertation is novel for its interest in tracing the quotidien across spatial categories, so that its chapters move from the more "stable" categories of the rural and the urban to those in more obvious flux, edges and interstices. Chapter 1 studies the depicted quotidiens of rural France in Agnès Varda's film, Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse (2000), and Raymond Depardon and Claudine Nougare's film series, Profils paysans (2000-2008). Chapter 2 investigates the quotidiens of urban centers in Cédric Klapisch's film, Chacun cherche son chat (1996), Patrick Modiano's novel, Dora Bruder (1997), and Laurent Cantet's film, Entre les murs (2008). Chapter 3 examines everyday France at the periphery of Paris in Gérard Gavarry's novel, Hop là! Un deux trois (2001). The Conclusion addresses the emergence of a new space, the interstitial, in which its dwellers float, move, or exist between places on a daily basis, such as a commute to work. I analyze Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas's short film, Loin du 16ème (2006), Abdellatif Kechiche's film, La Graine et le mulet (2007), and Alain-Paul Mallard's film, L'Origine de la tendresse (1999). These mini-ethnographies of French society reveal a France grappling with issues related to globalization, shifting populations, the relative newness of the European Union, and consequently, identity. Who is French, and where does "authentic France" lie? / text

Thèse en recherche-création Cotutelle avec l'Université de Lorraine, Nancy, France / Cette thèse porte sur le récit de retour aux origines dans la littérature contemporaine française et se concentre sur des auteurs transclasses, c’est-à-dire qui ont quitté leur milieu d’origine et changé de statut social. Elle s’intéresse spécifiquement à un corpus d’auteurs originaires de régions non attractives de l’Hexagone. Elle concentre son analyse sur des textes de Nicolas Mathieu, Annie Ernaux, Didier Eribon, Édouard Louis et Raymond Depardon. Ce travail détermine d’abord ce qui est entendu par « récit de retour » en littérature, notamment lorsqu’il s’agit de représenter les campagnes qui intéressent ces auteurs. Il dégage des poétiques du retour chez chacun de ces auteurs, en observant l’hybridité générique qui les traverse : la photobiographie et le documentaire avec Depardon, le roman avec Ernaux et Mathieu, l’autobiographie avec Louis, l’essai avec Eribon. Dans un second temps, la thèse examine la temporalité et la géographie du retour, en particulier les motifs de la nostalgie et du déplacement. La thèse explore ensuite le point de vue de l’auteur, narrateur ou personnage transclasse sur son milieu d’origine, point de vue tantôt décalé, renouvelé ou surplombant. À cette recherche succède un texte de création, Je t’envoie des photos des primevères dans le sable, qui allie, en deux temps, fiction et enquête photolittéraire et qui questionne lui aussi le geste de retour aux origines en milieu rural. / This thesis focuses on the return to origins in contemporary French narratives. It examines the works of authors who left their hometown or their village and experienced social mobility. It specifically investigates the works of authors who come from post-industrial and non-touristy areas in France: Nicolas Mathieu, Annie Ernaux, Didier Eribon, Édouard Louis and Raymond Depardon. First, this work analyzes what the notion of return in literature implies, especially when French rural life is represented. The study aims to define a poetics of return for each of these texts, focusing on how these books are multi-genre or genre-bending: photobiography and documentary with Depardon, fiction with Ernaux and Mathieu, autobiography with Louis, essay with Eribon. In a second part, we examine the temporality and the geography of return, in particular nostalgia and displacement. This thesis also explores the author, narrator or character’s point of view on their background, as someone who left and changed their social status: the final chapter analyzes how this point of view has shifted, how it is renewed, but also how it can present itself as distant and apart. A creative text follows this research: titled I am sending you pictures of the primroses in the sand, it brings fiction and documentary (which includes photographs) together and reflects on the return gesture within rural areas.