Talk 'Inhabiting precariousness'
15 October 2026, 5.00pm
Maison Française d'Oxford
As part of the 'Inhabiting the World in the Age of the Anthropocene' Lecture Series
Raphaëlle Guidée (Université Paris VIII-Vincennes-Saint-Denis)
Raphaëlle Guidée is a Professor of Comparative Literature at Paris 8 University and a junior member of the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF). Her research explores the intersections between literature and the social sciences, as well as the political dimensions of contemporary writing and the environmental humanities.
Her latest book, La ville d’après – Detroit, une enquête narrative (Flammarion, 2024), explores the vast body of narratives that emerged around the ruins of Motor City following the city’s bankruptcy, portraying Detroit in turn as a post-apocalyptic ghost town or as a garden city freed from the constraints of capitalism.
Approaching the birthplace of Fordism as a laboratory for imagining collapse and the worlds that might follow, Raphaëlle Guidée sets out in search of more nuanced narratives capable of capturing the complexity of worlds being reconfigured in the ruins of capitalism.
