The Ordinary Pathos of Ethnic Fiction

Abstract

La fiction ethnique contemporaine utilise une forme particulière du pathétique comme stratégie en vue de la connaissance ethnique. C’est un facteur majeur dans la construction de l’identité ethnique et l’identification d’une sémiotique basée sur la thématisation de la subjectivité. Légendes, culture populaire, quêtes généalogiques, scènes fondatrices suscitent un espace de solidarité communautaire visant à une prise de pouvoir dans une culture démocratique en proie au doute.There is in much contemporary ethnic fiction a peculiar form of pathos which functions tactically as a way to ethnic knowledge. This pathos has become a major factor both in the construction of ethnic identity and in the identification of a form of local semiosis based on the thematization of ethnic subjectivity. Through the use of legends, folk culture, visions, and genealogical inquiry into the past, this semiosis seeks to create a space of communal solidarity and empowerment within a disenchanted culture of democracy. More and more, ethnic fictions seem concerned with investigating scenes of origin and stories of foundations, and in doing so they systematically set about turning American literature into a haunted landscape. Ethnic fictions summon up ghosts in order to discover a cultural inside, a place of secrecy and refound identity. The pathos inherent in this practice of memory lies in the very form of return that defines ethnie intentionality as an imaginative project