In this episode, we talk about the importance of sociology to Annie Ernaux’s Nobel-Prize-winning literary project, specifically focusing on the influence of Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of ‘habitus’. Our special guest, Clare Carlisle, Professor of Philosophy at King’s College London, introduces the concept, explaining what Bourdieu hoped to achieve by coining a new term to designate the idea of a collective disposition or class sensibility. Together, focusing on the opening of The Years (2008), Ernaux’s magnum opus, we consider the ways in which the book’s treatment of self, class, and nation can be read as ‘applied Bourdieu’. 

Our philosophical starting-point is a chapter by Karl Maton entitled ‘Habitus’ and published in Pierre Bourdieu: Key Concepts, ed. Michael Grenfell, 2012. 

Our literary focus is on pages x-51 of Annie Ernaux’s The Years in Alison L. Strayer’s translation (Fitzcarraldo, 2018).

Hosts: 

Scarlett Baron, Associate Professor of English at University College London.

Alice Harberd, PhD student in the Philosophy Department at University College London.

Guest: 

Clare Carlisle, Professor of Philosophy at King’s College London.