Finding the Plot ― Storytelling in Popular Fictions

Diana Holmes is Professor of French at the University of Leeds. Her published work on women writers includes monographs on Colette, Rachilde, French Women Writers 1848-1994 and romance. She is also the co-author of a study of Truffaut's cinema, and co-edits the Manchester University Press series French Film Directors. Her current research is on the poetics and practice of middlebrow fiction. David Platten is Professor of Modern French Studies at the University of Leeds. He has published on a wide range of modern French writers, including Michel Tournier, Philippe Djian, Jorge Semprun and Jules Verne. His most recent book, published by Rodopi in 2011, is entitled The Pleasures of Crime: Reading Modern French Crime Fiction. A scholar and fan of detective and crime fiction, he has recently produced studies of the literary thriller and of the links between the media and politics in the contemporary crime novel. Loic Artiaga is Assistant Professor at the University of Limoges, and Associate Researcher of the Centre d'histoire culturelle des societes contemporaines (Universite de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines). He is a member of the executive committee of the LPCM (Association internationale des chercheurs en Litteratures Populaires et Cultures Mediatiques). His publications include "Des Torrents de papier" in Mediatextes, and "James Bond: modes d'emploi (1965 - annees 1990)", in James Bond (2)007: Anatomie d'un mythe populaire. His forthcoming book, Fantomas. Figure mythique, with Matthieu Letourneux, is due out in 2013. Jacques Migozzi is Professor of French Literature at the University of Limoges, and President of the Association internationale des chercheurs en Litteratures Populaires et Culture Mediatique. His more recent publications include "Boulevards du populaire" (Mediatextes, 2005); two co-edited special issues of journals; "Storytelling: opium du peuple et / ou plaisirs du texte?" in a special issue of French Cultural Studies; and "Cet obscur objet du desir universitaire: coup d'oeil dans le retroviseur sur 15 ans de recherches sur les fictions populaires" in Fictions populaires.