{"title":"Gilets jaunes, Macron’s presidency, and France’s contradictions","authors":"Eric Touya de Marenne","doi":"10.3828/cfc.2020.24","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/cfc.2020.24","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The recent gilets jaunes movement in France has put in question the traditional oppositions (left/right, progressive/conservative) that has marked the French political discourse since the Second World War. What are the causes and ramifications of this significant transformation? Are these protests that paralyzed France for more than half a year only a “French story” or do they raise issues beyond the borders of France? Have the decisions made by the French government in response to the movement resolved the crisis? This article explores the extent to which the gilets jaunes movement reveals France’s current contradictions between its ambition to remain a major nation in the world and the formidable challenges it faces regarding the preservation of its sovereignty with respect to EU’s demands, its socio-economic welfare system in a globalized world, and its democratic form of governance with the rise of populism. These questions/issues that are deeply rooted in the movement have national but also global implications.","PeriodicalId":53563,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary French Civilization","volume":"45 1","pages":"393-402"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48988467","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Clothing and refugee identity in Des sneakers comme Jay-Z","authors":"Zachary R. Hagins","doi":"10.3828/cfc.2020.19","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/cfc.2020.19","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article presents and analyzes how clothing shapes refugee identity in Des sneakers comme Jay-Z, an engaged photographic project from 2018 by French photographers Frédéric Delangle and Ambroise Tézenas. Commissioned by the association Emmaüs Solidarité, the series features forty-six portraits of men seeking asylum in France. The refugees wear outfits they selected from available donations at the Centre de premier accueil de la Porte de la Chapelle in Paris. First-person texts featuring the men’s thoughts about their clothing choices accompany the images. I contend that vestimentary choices in Des sneakers comme Jay-Z reflect each man’s sense of agency in the social construction of his nascent transnational identity as he adapts to life within the French Republic. Although casual, everyday outfits rarely draw engaged reflection by those around us, photographing the refugees in their selected outfits and questioning them about these items creates a project that defamiliarizes common garments to encourage viewers to reflect on clothing’s role in fashioning new subjectivities. Reading the accompanying texts through the lens of the sociology of clothing and fashion, the article investigates how the men’s apparel choices reflect both nostalgia for their homelands and a desire to integrate into French society. Through the shared human experience of self-presentation through dress, Des sneakers comme Jay-Z thus constructs a narrative emphasizing refugees’ basic humanity in order to contest anti-migrant discourses.","PeriodicalId":53563,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary French Civilization","volume":"45 1","pages":"317-336"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49003301","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Édouard Louis, écrivain blanc","authors":"É. Achille","doi":"10.3828/cfc.2020.16","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/cfc.2020.16","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Étant donné l’image d’auteur engagé contre toute forme de pensée réactionnaire dont bénéficie Édouard Louis dans le champ littéraire et l’espace public français depuis la sortie évènementielle de son premier roman En finir avec Eddy Bellegueule (2014), la teneur du discours proposé par l’écrivain lors de la publication de son second livre, Histoire de la violence (2016), était remarquable. Louis n’a eu de cesse, sachant que l’agression autour de laquelle s’articule le récit implique un homme d’origine kabyle, d’insister sur la peur qu’il avait éprouvée de voir son texte faire l’objet d’une appropriation qui le transformerait en un “objet raciste,” et a systématiquement insisté sur sa volonté de faire du roman, au vu de la nature sensible des thèmes abordés, “un livre profondément antiraciste.” Il s’agira dans cet essai d’interroger les implications de cette angoisse littéraire à travers une réflexion sur la place ambiguë occupée par le facteur racial dans un dispositif narratif qui oscille entre d’un côté le besoin de s’assurer que “la lecture raciste devien[ne] comme impossible,” et de l’autre le souci d’inscrire l’expérience de la violence dans un contexte postcolonial. Histoire de la violence constitue selon nous un cas privilégié permettant de réfléchir à la question de la responsabilité et ce que nous appelons “l’éthique d’engagement des écrivains blancs” dans le contexte de la France contemporaine marqué à la fois par la montée en puissance du discours réactionnaire, et un intérêt croissant pour les récits mettant en scène des personnages postcoloniaux.","PeriodicalId":53563,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary French Civilization","volume":"45 1","pages":"271-283"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46626455","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Building bridges from K-12 to higher education in French and Francophone Studies","authors":"Audra L. Merfeld-Langston","doi":"10.3828/cfc.2020.22","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/cfc.2020.22","url":null,"abstract":"As scholars of French and Francophone Studies (FFS), our collective expertise encompasses a vast array of topics and methodological approaches. Too often, however, we write only for our peers, thereby neglecting opportunities and responsibilities to engage broader audiences. I advocate in this article for increasing the overlap between FFS, public humanities, digital humanities, and K-12 education, with a particular emphasis on the latter. In doing so, we can contribute to valorizing FFS, strengthen ties with our K-12 colleagues, inspire young people to pursue FFS in college, and promote intercultural understanding.","PeriodicalId":53563,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary French Civilization","volume":"45 1","pages":"365-379"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46382964","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Extending France’s empire into the desert: Régnauld de Lannoy de Bissy’s feuille 17: Timbouktou","authors":"Kory E. Olson","doi":"10.3828/cfc.2020.23","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/cfc.2020.23","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Upon the 1830 landing on the shores of Algeria, France solidified control of coastal territories. Although the French had little initial desire to move into the vast desert interior of North Africa, the so-called scramble for Africa and the glorification of Britain’s Dr. Livingston after his death later in the century inspired many French politicians and scientists to reexamine their own engagement with the continent. As a result, in 1883, Richard de Régnauld de Lannoy de Bissy (Lannoy), working on behalf of the Service géographique de l’armée, published the first thirty-eight of his sixty-three-sheet Carte d’Afrique. Although much of the continent had been visited and documented by Europeans as late as the early 1880s, there remained many blank spaces on French maps. This paper will examine Lannoy’s feuille 17: Timbouktou, which presents one such relatively unknown sector of the Sahara Desert, to the French people. Lannoy documents important physical characteristics such as the flow of the Niger River, large sections of desert, and both present and past caravan routes. However, he also de-legitimizes indigenous claims to the area and presents it as open and ready to accept French control.","PeriodicalId":53563,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary French Civilization","volume":"45 1","pages":"381-392"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45930527","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Lorsque rentrer à l’école, c’est rester à la maison: homeschooling in France as a contemporary critique of social institutions","authors":"Erin Tremblay Ponnou‐Delaffon","doi":"10.3828/cfc.2020.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/cfc.2020.11","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53563,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary French Civilization","volume":"45 1","pages":"189-210"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42495800","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Digital geographies: online spaces and gay identity in twenty-first-century France","authors":"Brian Troth","doi":"10.3828/cfc.2020.13","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/cfc.2020.13","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53563,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary French Civilization","volume":"45 1","pages":"229-244"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70457166","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Lorraine Noir: Didier Daeninckx and the writing of deindustrialization","authors":"T. Raboin","doi":"10.3828/cfc.2020.12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/cfc.2020.12","url":null,"abstract":"ENG) This article studies Didier Daeninckx as a writer of deindustrialization. In the novel PlayBack (1986) and in short stories such as “Traverse no 28” (1998), he weaves a multifaceted critique of France as haunted by its industrial past. Daeninckx’s first tool is to write a noir history of deindustrialization, thus producing a subaltern history of Lorraine. Reflecting on the uses of memory (and of his own work in that regard), Daeninckx also writes a criticism of the nascent business of industrial heritage. Finally, this article appraises Daeninckx’s critique by examining his writing’s nostalgia for a lost industrial world, as well and its denunciation of post-industrial subjectivations.","PeriodicalId":53563,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary French Civilization","volume":"45 1","pages":"211-227"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45841229","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A dance performance for D-Day celebrations: reflections on the aesthetic of war commemorations in France","authors":"P. Bauer","doi":"10.3828/cfc.2020.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/cfc.2020.10","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53563,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary French Civilization","volume":"45 1","pages":"165-187"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42252405","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}