{"title":"Alain Ehrenberg: Autonomy and empowerment","authors":"J. Marks","doi":"10.1177/09571558211063336","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09571558211063336","url":null,"abstract":"This article considers Alain Ehrenberg's extensive analysis of individualism in contemporary France. It shows how he has traced the emergence of autonomy as a key social value, and it goes on to analyse the distinctive features of Ehrenberg's sociological approach. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Ehrenberg does not regard the growth of individualism in France as a tragic process of anomie and isolation. In fact, he is critical of what he sees as a pervasive French discourse of ‘declinology’, and he has expressed his growing frustration with this perspective more recently in explicitly political terms. Although he acknowledges that autonomy can be burdensome for individuals, he feels that the state should respond to the sociological fact of autonomy by supporting and empowering citizens as autonomous agents. The article concludes by drawing attention to the limitations of this political position.","PeriodicalId":12398,"journal":{"name":"French Cultural Studies","volume":"33 1","pages":"105 - 117"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-12-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41937110","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Le regard décolonial d’Alfred Alexandre: Les villes assassines ()","authors":"Silvia Hueso","doi":"10.1177/09571558211058848","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09571558211058848","url":null,"abstract":"This article focuses on the novel Les villes assassines ( 2011) by the Martinican writer Alfred Alexandre that shows his decolonial and critical vision of the politics indirectly established from France on overseas territories. The author paints a topography of misery where mafia, drugs and prostitution reign, showing the mechanisms of control and subjection of popular minorities, belonging to the «urban mangrove», whose only way out is, according to the author, a violent position to subvert an order inherited from the slavery regime.","PeriodicalId":12398,"journal":{"name":"French Cultural Studies","volume":"33 1","pages":"118 - 134"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41350271","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Unpacking Rachel Félix's “constructed” and “self-constructed” Jewishness","authors":"Irina Rabinovich","doi":"10.1177/09571558211045052","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09571558211045052","url":null,"abstract":"This paper aims at unpacking the cultural, historical and political significance behind the representations (including pictures, caricatures, journalistic articles, etc.) and self-representations of Rachel Félix (1821–1858), the first prominent Jewish performer on the French and British and American stage, as a prism which may afford a broader discussion about the literary formations of the figure the Jewish female artist Félix, renowned for her exquisite beauty and daring sensuality, serves as an excellent paradigm of how Jewish artists used and, at times, manipulated their “biblical\"/\"oriental\"/ “sensual” beauty with the aim of promoting their artistic career. My discussion, adopting a New Historicist outlook, also aims at explaining the correlation between such literary formations and their political implications with regards to the representation of Jewish artists. Since the identity of an actress is so obviously “constructed,” and because of the intricate relationship between the Jewishness, artistic vocation and femininity, the figure of Félix provides a direct engagement with a particular set of cultural and political assumptions about Jewish female artists. Looking at Félix's literary and artistic representations by her contemporaries and at her own self-representation as reflected on the stage and in her letters leads us to a better understanding of the relationship between the cultural, political and artistic constructs of Jewish female artists.","PeriodicalId":12398,"journal":{"name":"French Cultural Studies","volume":"33 1","pages":"19 - 39"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42439925","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Entre « nonne » et « monstre » : images « du professeur femme » dans la France de la Belle Époque","authors":"Loukia Efthymiou","doi":"10.1177/09571558211022008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09571558211022008","url":null,"abstract":"Le « professeur femme » est inventé en 1881 par la toute jeune IIIe République dans le cadre d’une entreprise de large envergure visant à la laïcisation du système scolaire français. Soucieux de ne point nuire au succès d’une oeuvre si importante pour la stabilité du régime même, les républicains s’emploient à faire intégrer cet être « hermaphrodite » tenant autant du masculin que du féminin à la norme. Ainsi est façonnée une nouvelle identité féminine aussi paradoxale que complexe dans la mesure où elle concilie deux extrêmes : celui de la nonne laïque entièrement vouée à ses élèves et, par ailleurs, celui de la savante, usurpatrice d’une profession définie au masculin, indépendante certes, mais au prix du sacrifice de sa féminité.","PeriodicalId":12398,"journal":{"name":"French Cultural Studies","volume":"32 1","pages":"403 - 416"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/09571558211022008","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46118755","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"« Corps de gloire » et « corps sans organes » : Artaud médecin de lui-même","authors":"M. Philippe","doi":"10.1177/09571558211026871","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09571558211026871","url":null,"abstract":"Cet article propose une réévaluation critique de la notion de corps sans organes dans l’oeuvre d’Antonin Artaud à la lumière des cahiers d’Ivry publiés fin 2011 et dans lesquels Artaud mentionne un nouveau « corps de gloire ». L’auteur commence par préciser la relation entre « le corps sans organes » et la tradition catholique de façon à montrer comment Artaud détourne cette dernière de façon hérétique. Le corps sans organes d’Artaud est ensuite distingué de sa conceptualisation par Gilles Deleuze et Félix Guattari en prenant appui sur des commentaires de Paule Thévenin, qui a édité les Œuvres complètes d’Artaud, ainsi que sur des textes d’Artaud contemporains à l’émission radiophonique qui contredisent la lecture deleuzo-guattarienne. En effet, le corps sans organes d’Artaud est défini de façon explicite en réaction à la psychanalyse freudienne et sa définition hérétique en tant que « corps de gloire » est destinée à s’opposer dans un même geste à la religion ainsi qu’à la psychanalyse.","PeriodicalId":12398,"journal":{"name":"French Cultural Studies","volume":"32 1","pages":"375 - 387"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/09571558211026871","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41425905","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Incendies, les sons du silence","authors":"Mary Ellen Aronoff, N. Ba","doi":"10.1177/09571558211021697","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09571558211021697","url":null,"abstract":"Résumé Des pièces comme Incendies permettent de libérer des voix silencieuses afin qu’elles puissent raconter des histoires de peine et de souffrance, et le théâtre donne un espace sûr pour présenter ces histoires. L’analyse suivante explore le comportement énigmatique de la protagoniste Nawal et cherche à expliquer pourquoi elle a choisi de s’éloigner de son monde et de vivre en silence. Il y a deux côtés à Nawal. Dans son pays natal, elle est une combattante qui ne recule devant rien. Au Canada, toutefois, Nawal est le contraire. Elle apparaît comme timide et effacée. Le silence dans la pièce revêt de nombreuses formes qui méritent une attention particulière et une analyse poussée. En outre, on peut trouver dans ce silence des dichotomies qui cherchent la réconciliation. La lentille à travers laquelle l’analyse est présentée souligne l’importance que les récits de difficultés et de souffrance soient racontés par ceux qui ont un lien direct avec leur propre histoire.","PeriodicalId":12398,"journal":{"name":"French Cultural Studies","volume":"32 1","pages":"364 - 374"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/09571558211021697","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44055988","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Voyageurs malgré eux: Silence, embodiment, and exposure in Minh Tran Huy and Doan Bui","authors":"Caroline D. Laurent","doi":"10.1177/09571558211025908","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09571558211025908","url":null,"abstract":"In recent Franco-Vietnamese literature written by descendants of immigrants, the liminality of exile is portrayed in all its complexity through migrant bodies – that of parents’ bodies – and through political and social bodies – linked to History and the Việt Kiều’s positionality in French society. The experience of external movement becomes an internal one, creating porosity between the outside and the body, self and others, places and times. This article argues that, in Minh Tran Huy’s Voyageur malgré lui and Doan Bui’s Le Silence de mon père, by representing their family’s migration, both authors present the silenced histories of the Vietnamese community in France. In order to do so, Tran Huy and Bui first focus on uncovering and writing the stories of their silent fathers: through their embodiment of exilic history, the fathers transmit the wound of their immigrant condition to their daughters. Consequently, daughters come to manifest similar bodily expressions of traumas they have not experienced and know little about. The fathers’ histories are eventually voiced and re-invested by the second generation. This shows how the unearthing of their fathers’ life stories is also about reappropriating a dual identity as well as making Asian diasporic perspectives and histories visible, notably to create new avenues of representation for French individuals of Asian descent.","PeriodicalId":12398,"journal":{"name":"French Cultural Studies","volume":"32 1","pages":"346 - 363"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/09571558211025908","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44238176","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Destabilising myths of origin: Collaborative storytelling and biopolitical communities in Wajdi Mouawad's Le Sang des promesses","authors":"Nicholas A Strole","doi":"10.1177/09571558211048404","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09571558211048404","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyses how diverse communities are formed through storytelling and mythmaking in Wajdi Mouawad's theatrical tetralogy, Le Sang des promesses (1999–2009). Mythic origin stories, which Mouawad's migratory characters collect and share on their journeys from one community to the next, draw individuals from their pasts on stage to act out the events from each narrative. Mouawad thus reveals how the theatre can serve as an ideal venue for spectators from diverse backgrounds to gather and experience the various conditions many migrants face. Drawing on Roberto Esposito's biopolitical theory of communitas and Lévi-Strauss's structuralist analysis of myth, this article argues that collaborative storytelling and mythmaking allow Mouawad's migratory characters to cross various types of borders and form unexpected communities that defy barriers of time and space.","PeriodicalId":12398,"journal":{"name":"French Cultural Studies","volume":"33 1","pages":"135 - 146"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-10-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45935003","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Transit intestinal: Tactical mobility and the Parisian netherworld in Raymond Queneau's Zazie dans le métro","authors":"Livi Yoshioka-Maxwell","doi":"10.1177/09571558211041700","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09571558211041700","url":null,"abstract":"This article draws on Michel de Certeau's notion of tactical resistance to examine the practices of reading and of using urban space in Raymond Queneau's Zazie dans le métro. Departing from formalist approaches that frame Queneau's Paris as a ‘construction verbale,’ I offer a historically situated analysis of the novel's representation of post-war Paris, demonstrating that the theme of semiotic instability, frequently explored in studies of the novel, reflects not only the author's preoccupations with language but also the social and cultural upheavals of its historical moment. The article first examines the Parisian metro's status as a uniquely legible site in the chaotic urban landscape of Zazie dans le métro in relation to the conflicting images of the metro as alternately a hellscape and a refuge in the post-war period. The article then shifts the usual critical focus on the eponymous Zazie's anarchic adventures on the city's surface to explore the transgressive détournements of subterranean urban space performed by a range of characters seeking to resist the dominant social order. The article closes with a discussion of underground Paris as a zone of ambiguity that eschews simple truths and rigid categories of identity.","PeriodicalId":12398,"journal":{"name":"French Cultural Studies","volume":"33 1","pages":"59 - 73"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49172678","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Feminist psychogeography long after May 1968: Whatever Happened to My Revolution","authors":"M. Breen","doi":"10.1177/09571558211051283","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09571558211051283","url":null,"abstract":"Whatever Happened to My Revolution offers a French feminist perspective on the impact today of the uprising by the left in Paris in May 1968. The continuing appeal of the events of ‘68 are considered to be in decline, yet the film suggests that the energy of 50 years ago continues to mobilize cultural politics through cinematic appeals that amount to the radical recuperation of some of the ambitions of the day, a continuation of the past in the present. Whatever Happened to My Revolution is explored with reference to Guy Debord's concept of psychogeography, which suggested new phases of discovery in social life for remaking urban life, cross-referencing aspects of Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytical approach that appear in the film, especially the concept of desire, informing its feminist psychogeography. The challenges facing the current generation can be described as a desire by the French left, in this film defined and described by women, for the realization of May ‘68s cultural transformations in public and private culture.","PeriodicalId":12398,"journal":{"name":"French Cultural Studies","volume":"33 1","pages":"168 - 178"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46772539","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}