Audrey Millet receives nomination for prestigious Renaudot Essay Prize 2022

MSCA postdoc and Creative IPR associate member, Audrey Millet, is shortlisted for her latest book, Les dessous du maillot de bain - Une autre histoire du corps (Les Pérégines).

The image is split into two sections. On the left side, the cover of Audrey Millet's book and on the right a photographic portrait of Audrey Millet. She is a white woman with pink hair. A pair of black glasses rest upon her head. The book to the left is yellow and has black typography.

Photo: Les Pérégrines and UiO

In Les dessous du maillot de bain [The underside of the swimsuit], Audrey examines the political aspect of swimwear, tracing its history from a symbol of female liberation and bodily autonomy, to that of current subjugation taking shape through standardized notions of beauty and unattainable perfection. With this, she offers a vital reinterpretation of seemingly harmless summer garments and their contribution to shaping and upholding current gender norms and our relationship to the body. 

 

Audrey Millet is a fashion historian, author and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Archaelogy, Conservation and History at the University of Oslo. Her current research project, MISS: Made in Sweatshops, investigates the role and treatment of female workers in the garment industry in Paris and Shanghai in the late 19th to late 20th Centuries. 

Audrey has previously held positions at the Université de Paris and the Université Panthéon-Sorbonne, in addition to being a Max Weber fellow at the European University Institute (2016-2017). She is the author of numerous books. Her most recent publications Le Livre noir de la mode. Création, production, manipulation (2021) and Les dessous du maillot de bain - Une autre histoire du corps (2022) were both published to critical acclaim. 

The Renaudot Prize was established in 1926 and typically rewards French novelists and essayists. This year the jury's spring list recommendation comprised of 13 novels and 9 essays, including Audrey Millet's. The jury will reconvene on the 7th of September to announce their first list of the literary season.

 

Published May 12, 2022 11:08 AM - Last modified May 12, 2022 9:08 PM