La rédaction du grand œuvre balzacien est contemporaine d’avancées médicales importantes ; mais si la médecine revêt sous la Restauration une dimension plus scientifique, à la suite du développement des sciences exactes au xviii e siècle, elle n’atteint pas les progrès de la médecine expérimentale de la seconde moitié du siècle sous l’impulsion en particulier de Claude Bernard.

Balzac se situe au croisement de ces deux médecines. Chez lui, la notion d’occultisme ne réfère pas systématiquement au mysticisme mais à une approche scientifique, dont l’écheveau est jugé méconnu : il est, pour lui, des connaissances que la science a tort de mépriser et doit au contraire découvrir. Ce « docteur es-sciences magiques », encore intéressé par les théories anciennes des humeurs, des tempéraments et de l’écoulement des fluides, ne cesse de mettre en scène la puissance du psychique sur le physique, déplaçant le merveilleux vers un réalisme fantastique.

Ce numéro de L’Année balzacienne s’interroge sur les savoirs scientifiques et médicaux dans l’œuvre balzacienne mais aussi dans d’autres œuvres de l’époque. Les articles prennent en considération les tensions et les rapports entre le merveilleux et le médical ou entre le mysticisme et la science.

Since the beginning of the XX^e century, art and literature have asserted their desire to give an account of mass crimes other than through the work of historians; to convey a share of meaning in these experiences that question and affect the collective consciousness.

What about the role of testimonies, between the objectivity of facts and the subjectivity of narrative? How do they help us find our bearings in the chaos of polemics generated by certain media framings? Does their transmission enable us to escape the nihilisms that threaten our times?

This meeting revisits the overlapping and contradictory stakes of academic research, artistic creation and political engagement. In the age of fake news and "alternative truths", which both make the world and dislocate it, how are these fields affected by the attacks and vacillation of truth as a value?

Catherine Coquio is professor of comparative literature at Université Paris Cité, member of the Cerilac lab, "Écrire et penser avec l'histoire" axis.

Her work focuses on the writing of history and political violence, literary testimonies, the notion of the world, literary-historical-political relations, and the mutations of nihilism and utopia in the XIX-XXI^e centuries.

In 1997, with Irving Wolfarth, she co-founded the Association Internationale de Recherche sur les Crimes contre l'Humanité et les génocides.

Since 2012, she has co-edited the "Littérature Histoire Politique" collection at Garnier classiques.

His thinking, informed by psychoanalysis, literature and deconstructive thought, also questions gender categories and deconstructs the masculine/feminine dichotomy.

The interpretation of love and desire unfolds against a backdrop of Arab-Muslim heritage, between poetic, mystical and unconscious readings.

This talk weaves a dialogue between psychoanalysis, literature and gender thinking, rethinking love, the feminine and the masculine in the light of their multiple symbolic inscriptions.

Raja Ben Slama is a Tunisian university professor (Université de la Manouba) and psychoanalyst. She is the author of several books questioning the myths and silences of Arab-Islamic tradition, as well as the paradoxes of modern mutations. She was editor-in-chief of the electronic journal of critical thought Alawan between 2007 and 2020 and director general of the National Library of Tunisia between 2015 and 2023, where she digitized and made freely available much of Tunisia's written heritage. Since December 2023, she has been elected director of the journal IBLA (Revue de l'Institut des belles lettres arabes), which has been published in Tunis since 1937.

Raja Ben Slama is committed to defending human rights and democratic values. She has thus helped found the Manifeste des libertés (France), the Association culturelle tunisienne pour la défense de laïcité and the Ligue des Rationalistes arabes.

This conversation is moderated by Hatem Bourial, journalist, critic and cultural mediator and presented by Amira Zili.