Michel Houellebecq (b. 1956) is one of the most acclaimed contemporary French fiction writers. He attracts as many readers as he provokes ethical and aesthetic ambivalence. With a strong essayistic influence, his literary work is marked by a caustic and sordid tone, combining the uniqueness of human experience with the relentlessness of social laws. In The Possibility of an Island, the author explores a post-apocalyptic scenario characterised by the triumph of technical reason in the generation and eternalisation of life. The end of death and the end of sex are two major phenomena responsible for the collapse of a chain of multiple and diverse social connections, and therefore the extinction of meaning in the human condition. This horizon paves the way for a legal imagination of sex imbued with the nostalgic counterpoint of a time when sex, for better or worse, was a source of bonds.

Commentary by: Douglas Morrey (University of Warwick)

_{The seminars will take place on Zoom. Participation is free, but advance registration is required. Upon registration participants will receive Moodle login instructions and credentials to access all materials for the discussion.}

Bio notes

Tiago Ribeiro is research assistant at CES and invited lecturer at the School of Education and Social Sciences – Polytechnic Institute of Leiria. He holds a bachelor’s degree (dissertation on the role of political technocracy in the late authoritarian context) and a master’s degree (dissertation on the legal construction of sexual inequality) in sociology from the University of Coimbra. He is currently concluding the writing of his PhD thesis in sociology of law, focused on sexual invocation in jurisdictional practices.

Douglas Morrey is Professor of French Studies at the University of Warwick (UK) and has published widely on contemporary French literature and French cinema. He is notably the author of Michel Houellebecq: Humanity and its Aftermath (2013) and is currently completing a book entitled Masculinity and the Origins of Autofiction in Contemporary French Literature. 

The “Law and Books” series is organised by Ana Oliveira and Tiago Ribeiro, and takes place within the scope of the LAWCUS project – reference 2023.12608.PEX, funded by national funds through the Foundation for Science and Technology. DOI: https://doi.org/10.54499/2023.12608.PEX