From Marginality to Community: Virginie Despentes’ Populist Feminism

Abstract

In the context of the crisis of modernity in France, this article analyses Virginie Despentes’ literary trajectory. and examines the ways in which she has evolved, from aesthetic and ideological marginality, to a central, mainstream position in the French literary field. Namely, focusing on Baise-moi, King Kong Théorie and the trilogy Vernon Subutex. I identify alterity as aesthetic principle and ideological posture in her work, in relation to feminism(s), new populisms, according to Laclau (2005) and Mouffe (2018), and the creation of aesthetic and political communities defying the establishment