Richard F. Kuisel
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691151816
- eISBN:
- 9781400839971
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691151816.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
There are over 1,000 McDonald's on French soil. Two Disney theme parks have opened near Paris in the last two decades. And American-inspired vocabulary such as “le weekend” has been absorbed into the ...
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There are over 1,000 McDonald's on French soil. Two Disney theme parks have opened near Paris in the last two decades. And American-inspired vocabulary such as “le weekend” has been absorbed into the French language. But as former French president Jacques Chirac put it: “The U.S. finds France unbearably pretentious. And we find the U.S. unbearably hegemonic.” Are the French fascinated or threatened by America? They Americanize yet are notorious for expressions of anti-Americanism. From McDonald's and Coca-Cola to free markets and foreign policy, this book looks closely at the conflicts and contradictions of France's relationship to American politics and culture. The book shows how the French have used America as both yardstick and foil to measure their own distinct national identity. France has charted its own path: it has welcomed America's products but rejected American policies; assailed Americ's “jungle capitalism” while liberalizing its own economy; attacked “Reaganomics” while defending French social security; and protected French cinema, television, food, and language even while ingesting American pop culture. The book examines France's role as an independent ally of the United States, but he also considers the country's failures in influencing the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations. Whether investigating France's successful information technology sector or its spurning of American expertise during the AIDS epidemic, the book asks if this insistence on a French way represents a growing distance between Europe and the United States or a reaction to American globalization. Exploring cultural trends, values, public opinion, and political reality, this book delves into the complex relationship between two modern nations.Less
There are over 1,000 McDonald's on French soil. Two Disney theme parks have opened near Paris in the last two decades. And American-inspired vocabulary such as “le weekend” has been absorbed into the French language. But as former French president Jacques Chirac put it: “The U.S. finds France unbearably pretentious. And we find the U.S. unbearably hegemonic.” Are the French fascinated or threatened by America? They Americanize yet are notorious for expressions of anti-Americanism. From McDonald's and Coca-Cola to free markets and foreign policy, this book looks closely at the conflicts and contradictions of France's relationship to American politics and culture. The book shows how the French have used America as both yardstick and foil to measure their own distinct national identity. France has charted its own path: it has welcomed America's products but rejected American policies; assailed Americ's “jungle capitalism” while liberalizing its own economy; attacked “Reaganomics” while defending French social security; and protected French cinema, television, food, and language even while ingesting American pop culture. The book examines France's role as an independent ally of the United States, but he also considers the country's failures in influencing the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations. Whether investigating France's successful information technology sector or its spurning of American expertise during the AIDS epidemic, the book asks if this insistence on a French way represents a growing distance between Europe and the United States or a reaction to American globalization. Exploring cultural trends, values, public opinion, and political reality, this book delves into the complex relationship between two modern nations.
Raymond Jonas
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520221369
- eISBN:
- 9780520924017
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520221369.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This book tells the little-known story of the Sacré-Coeur, or Sacred Heart. The highest point in Paris and a celebrated tourist destination, the white-domed basilica of Sacré-Coeur on Montmartre is a ...
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This book tells the little-known story of the Sacré-Coeur, or Sacred Heart. The highest point in Paris and a celebrated tourist destination, the white-domed basilica of Sacré-Coeur on Montmartre is a key monument both to French Catholicism and to French national identity. The book reconstructs the history of the devotion responsible for the basilica, beginning with the apparition of the Sacred Heart to Marguerite Marie Alacoque in the seventeenth century, through the French Revolution and its aftermath, to the construction of the monumental church that has loomed over Paris since the end of the nineteenth century. It focuses on key moments in the development of the cult: the founding apparition, its invocation during the plague of Marseilles, its adaptation as a royalist symbol during the French Revolution, and its elevation to a central position in Catholic devotional and political life in the crisis surrounding the Franco-Prussian War. The book draws on a wealth of archival sources to produce a narrative that encompasses a remarkable sweep of French politics, history, architecture, and art.Less
This book tells the little-known story of the Sacré-Coeur, or Sacred Heart. The highest point in Paris and a celebrated tourist destination, the white-domed basilica of Sacré-Coeur on Montmartre is a key monument both to French Catholicism and to French national identity. The book reconstructs the history of the devotion responsible for the basilica, beginning with the apparition of the Sacred Heart to Marguerite Marie Alacoque in the seventeenth century, through the French Revolution and its aftermath, to the construction of the monumental church that has loomed over Paris since the end of the nineteenth century. It focuses on key moments in the development of the cult: the founding apparition, its invocation during the plague of Marseilles, its adaptation as a royalist symbol during the French Revolution, and its elevation to a central position in Catholic devotional and political life in the crisis surrounding the Franco-Prussian War. The book draws on a wealth of archival sources to produce a narrative that encompasses a remarkable sweep of French politics, history, architecture, and art.
Katelyn E. Knox
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781781383094
- eISBN:
- 9781781384152
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781383094.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
Analyzing the 2010 court case brought against Devoir d’Insolence authors Bouamama and Zone d’Expression Populaire, the chapter reveals a paradox: the act of fighting discrimination in France is ...
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Analyzing the 2010 court case brought against Devoir d’Insolence authors Bouamama and Zone d’Expression Populaire, the chapter reveals a paradox: the act of fighting discrimination in France is itself increasingly labeled ‘discriminatory’. In fact, this case (and others like it) coincides with the rising currency of the term ‘anti-white racism’ in France. This chapter therefore proposes that ultimately meeting the larger goals of both the authors and artists examined in the book’s earlier chapters, as well as the many scholarly studies that have sought to contest such restrictive understandings of Frenchness requires a complementary approach: interrogating the latent association between whiteness and Frenchness. To this end, it reads Devoir d’Insolence alongside Salif Keïta’s rerelease of ‘Nou Pas Bouger’ featuring L’Skadrille (2007), revealing how these artists and authors destabilize not only images of Frenchness and foreignness, but also the institutionalized spectacularism that perpetuate them. Finally, this chapter also takes seriously the call emanating from the works themselves, which suggest that continuing to position racial and ethnic minorities as the object of inquiry while refusing to subject whiteness to the same scrutiny constitutes institutionalized spectacularism. This chapter therefore proposes that scholars must critically interrogate whiteness within the field of French cultural studies.Less
Analyzing the 2010 court case brought against Devoir d’Insolence authors Bouamama and Zone d’Expression Populaire, the chapter reveals a paradox: the act of fighting discrimination in France is itself increasingly labeled ‘discriminatory’. In fact, this case (and others like it) coincides with the rising currency of the term ‘anti-white racism’ in France. This chapter therefore proposes that ultimately meeting the larger goals of both the authors and artists examined in the book’s earlier chapters, as well as the many scholarly studies that have sought to contest such restrictive understandings of Frenchness requires a complementary approach: interrogating the latent association between whiteness and Frenchness. To this end, it reads Devoir d’Insolence alongside Salif Keïta’s rerelease of ‘Nou Pas Bouger’ featuring L’Skadrille (2007), revealing how these artists and authors destabilize not only images of Frenchness and foreignness, but also the institutionalized spectacularism that perpetuate them. Finally, this chapter also takes seriously the call emanating from the works themselves, which suggest that continuing to position racial and ethnic minorities as the object of inquiry while refusing to subject whiteness to the same scrutiny constitutes institutionalized spectacularism. This chapter therefore proposes that scholars must critically interrogate whiteness within the field of French cultural studies.
Christopher S. Thompson
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520256309
- eISBN:
- 9780520934863
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520256309.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter demonstrates how the ever-changing itinerary of la grande boucle has been exploited to generate diverse and often opposing views of French society, history, and identity. It evaluates ...
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This chapter demonstrates how the ever-changing itinerary of la grande boucle has been exploited to generate diverse and often opposing views of French society, history, and identity. It evaluates past bicycle races conducted in France and how they affected France's view towards the Tour de France. The chapter shows how the psychological impact of including the lost provinces in the Tour itinerary, from 1906 through 1910 L'Auto persuaded the German authorities to allow the race to pass through Alsace-Lorraine. It explains that L'Auto's use of the Tour's itinerary to honor the sacrifices of so many French soldiers reflected a broader commemorative movement.Less
This chapter demonstrates how the ever-changing itinerary of la grande boucle has been exploited to generate diverse and often opposing views of French society, history, and identity. It evaluates past bicycle races conducted in France and how they affected France's view towards the Tour de France. The chapter shows how the psychological impact of including the lost provinces in the Tour itinerary, from 1906 through 1910 L'Auto persuaded the German authorities to allow the race to pass through Alsace-Lorraine. It explains that L'Auto's use of the Tour's itinerary to honor the sacrifices of so many French soldiers reflected a broader commemorative movement.
Theodore Zeldin
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198221777
- eISBN:
- 9780191678493
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198221777.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This is the first volume of a two-volume reinterpretation of France's achievement as a nation and of the individual experience of the French. This book tries to explain French idiosyncrasies, ...
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This is the first volume of a two-volume reinterpretation of France's achievement as a nation and of the individual experience of the French. This book tries to explain French idiosyncrasies, enthusiasms, and prejudices. It investigates their attitudes and behaviour over a wide range of activities. Volume I scrutinizes the way of thinking and of talking adopted by the French, their powerful sense of national identity, and their ambivalent feelings about foreigners. It also shows what it meant to be a Breton or a Provencal, an Alsation or an Auvergnat.Less
This is the first volume of a two-volume reinterpretation of France's achievement as a nation and of the individual experience of the French. This book tries to explain French idiosyncrasies, enthusiasms, and prejudices. It investigates their attitudes and behaviour over a wide range of activities. Volume I scrutinizes the way of thinking and of talking adopted by the French, their powerful sense of national identity, and their ambivalent feelings about foreigners. It also shows what it meant to be a Breton or a Provencal, an Alsation or an Auvergnat.
Michael Gott
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781789620665
- eISBN:
- 9781789623666
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789620665.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
This essay argues for a broader conception of the ‘border’ in a contemporary, postcolonial context. French borders are increasingly diffuse geographically and conceptually. Multidirectional ...
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This essay argues for a broader conception of the ‘border’ in a contemporary, postcolonial context. French borders are increasingly diffuse geographically and conceptually. Multidirectional population flows, the effects of European border policies and the ideational borders that delineate between putative insiders and outsiders must all be taken into account. In strictly spatial terms, the contemporary borders of France and Europe are not simply physical lines (however fluid or permeable) where people cross or are compelled to stop, but zones, spaces of contact and back-and-forth, or a ‘borderland’, to use étienne Balibar’s concept. Drawing on historical studies of immigration and current border theory, the essay takes two primary approaches to borders: first as social and political concepts and then as physical spaces or zones. It then concludes examples of cinematic representations of border crossings and border experiences, taken from French, francophone and wider European film industries.Less
This essay argues for a broader conception of the ‘border’ in a contemporary, postcolonial context. French borders are increasingly diffuse geographically and conceptually. Multidirectional population flows, the effects of European border policies and the ideational borders that delineate between putative insiders and outsiders must all be taken into account. In strictly spatial terms, the contemporary borders of France and Europe are not simply physical lines (however fluid or permeable) where people cross or are compelled to stop, but zones, spaces of contact and back-and-forth, or a ‘borderland’, to use étienne Balibar’s concept. Drawing on historical studies of immigration and current border theory, the essay takes two primary approaches to borders: first as social and political concepts and then as physical spaces or zones. It then concludes examples of cinematic representations of border crossings and border experiences, taken from French, francophone and wider European film industries.
Katelyn E. Knox
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781781383094
- eISBN:
- 9781781384152
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781383094.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter continues the book’s inquiry into the way twenty-first century authors and artists interrogate institutionalized spectacularism both in their works’ content and form by analysing Léonora ...
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This chapter continues the book’s inquiry into the way twenty-first century authors and artists interrogate institutionalized spectacularism both in their works’ content and form by analysing Léonora Miano’s intermedial novel Blues pour Élise (2010). The novel probes the relationship between minorities’ literal (in)visibility within predominantly whitewashed mediascapes (Appadurai) and their figurative recognition. Far from simply pointing out how the relative absence of racial and ethnic minorities within France’s mediascape impacts its Afropean characters, however, the novel puts itself forth as an Afropean mediascape—its own remedy to the normative, whitewashed French mediascape. Juxtaposing two characters’ views on how to improve Afropeans’ literal and figurative visibility in France, the chapter also reveals underlying causes of this (in)visibility: the painful traumas of France’s colonial past. The novel, then, suggests that opening these painful histories can prove cathartic for all populations involved, and can lead to more inclusive visions of French national identity.Less
This chapter continues the book’s inquiry into the way twenty-first century authors and artists interrogate institutionalized spectacularism both in their works’ content and form by analysing Léonora Miano’s intermedial novel Blues pour Élise (2010). The novel probes the relationship between minorities’ literal (in)visibility within predominantly whitewashed mediascapes (Appadurai) and their figurative recognition. Far from simply pointing out how the relative absence of racial and ethnic minorities within France’s mediascape impacts its Afropean characters, however, the novel puts itself forth as an Afropean mediascape—its own remedy to the normative, whitewashed French mediascape. Juxtaposing two characters’ views on how to improve Afropeans’ literal and figurative visibility in France, the chapter also reveals underlying causes of this (in)visibility: the painful traumas of France’s colonial past. The novel, then, suggests that opening these painful histories can prove cathartic for all populations involved, and can lead to more inclusive visions of French national identity.
Kimberly A. Arkin
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780804786003
- eISBN:
- 9780804787901
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804786003.003.0004
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
This chapter explores how and why North African Jewish youth enrolled in government-funded Jewish day schools de-nationalized themselves, insisting that, despite their French citizenship, they were ...
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This chapter explores how and why North African Jewish youth enrolled in government-funded Jewish day schools de-nationalized themselves, insisting that, despite their French citizenship, they were not and could not be French. The French government’s decision to publicly finance and then ignore Jewish day schools allowed for the physical and social isolation of many day school students. This isolation alienated day schools and their students from the wider French contexts in which they were embedded, thus creating a privileged space for narrating ethno-religious difference as the foundation for primordialized moral communities.Less
This chapter explores how and why North African Jewish youth enrolled in government-funded Jewish day schools de-nationalized themselves, insisting that, despite their French citizenship, they were not and could not be French. The French government’s decision to publicly finance and then ignore Jewish day schools allowed for the physical and social isolation of many day school students. This isolation alienated day schools and their students from the wider French contexts in which they were embedded, thus creating a privileged space for narrating ethno-religious difference as the foundation for primordialized moral communities.
Jann Pasler
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520257405
- eISBN:
- 9780520943872
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520257405.003.0006
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition
This chapter demonstrates how music signaled the end of the Moral Order and the beginning of a new political era. It describes how the republicans believed that art could influence a person's ...
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This chapter demonstrates how music signaled the end of the Moral Order and the beginning of a new political era. It describes how the republicans believed that art could influence a person's perception of the world and shape his/her behavior. It shows that music helped the French reconceive their history and led to the rise of a specifically republican narrative of French identity. It notes the changes that occurred in schools and at the opéra, which were due to the new values imposed by the republicans. The chapter also presents a reevaluation of luxury and the question of opéra, and looks at how the republicans tried to encourage national solidarity and form a sense of musical history.Less
This chapter demonstrates how music signaled the end of the Moral Order and the beginning of a new political era. It describes how the republicans believed that art could influence a person's perception of the world and shape his/her behavior. It shows that music helped the French reconceive their history and led to the rise of a specifically republican narrative of French identity. It notes the changes that occurred in schools and at the opéra, which were due to the new values imposed by the republicans. The chapter also presents a reevaluation of luxury and the question of opéra, and looks at how the republicans tried to encourage national solidarity and form a sense of musical history.
Nigel Armstrong
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780719078163
- eISBN:
- 9781781705056
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719078163.003.0007
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This chapter examines the relevance of popular language for wider perceptions of what constitutes ‘popular culture’. It looks at a historical French centralism which, through policies that included ...
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This chapter examines the relevance of popular language for wider perceptions of what constitutes ‘popular culture’. It looks at a historical French centralism which, through policies that included education and military conscription, minimised regional variations in accent and vocabulary, and certainly separated these from linguistic markers of social class. The chapter also describes French Republicanism's powerful ideal of an inclusive, uplifting high-culture-for-all that resists any social levelling ‘down’ of language as of any other form of culture. It argues that linguistic standards come to be seen as a rule-system from which people deviate to the extent that they are not highly educated. Language production is central to the individual's presentation of her or his identity, and as such is intertwined, perhaps even more than choices of cultural consumption, with the complex, multiple weave of contemporary French identity.Less
This chapter examines the relevance of popular language for wider perceptions of what constitutes ‘popular culture’. It looks at a historical French centralism which, through policies that included education and military conscription, minimised regional variations in accent and vocabulary, and certainly separated these from linguistic markers of social class. The chapter also describes French Republicanism's powerful ideal of an inclusive, uplifting high-culture-for-all that resists any social levelling ‘down’ of language as of any other form of culture. It argues that linguistic standards come to be seen as a rule-system from which people deviate to the extent that they are not highly educated. Language production is central to the individual's presentation of her or his identity, and as such is intertwined, perhaps even more than choices of cultural consumption, with the complex, multiple weave of contemporary French identity.
Nadia Malinovich
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781904113409
- eISBN:
- 9781800342637
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781904113409.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This study of Jewish cultural innovation in early twentieth-century France highlights the complexity and ambivalence of Jewish identity and self-definition in the modern world. Following the Dreyfus ...
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This study of Jewish cultural innovation in early twentieth-century France highlights the complexity and ambivalence of Jewish identity and self-definition in the modern world. Following the Dreyfus affair, French Jews increasingly began to question how Jewishness should be defined in a society where Jews enjoyed full political equality. Writers began to explore biblical themes, traditional Jewish folklore, and issues of identity and assimilation. A plethora of new journals focusing on Jewish religion, history, and culture came into being, as did a multitude of associations that emphasized Jewish distinctiveness. This book explores this blossoming of Jewish cultural life in France. It shows that the interface between the various groups was as important as the differences between them: it was the process of debate and dialogue that infused new energy into French Jewish identity and culture. The book analyses the Jewish press and literature to develop a typology of themes, providing a panoramic view of how Jewish identity and culture were discussed and debated among Jews and non-Jews of varying ideological, cultural, and political orientations. The analysis also provides a vantage point from which to explore the complex ways in which French national identity was re-negotiated in the early twentieth-century. During this period, French Jews in effect reshaped the category of Frenchness itself, and in so doing created new possibilities for being both French and Jewish.Less
This study of Jewish cultural innovation in early twentieth-century France highlights the complexity and ambivalence of Jewish identity and self-definition in the modern world. Following the Dreyfus affair, French Jews increasingly began to question how Jewishness should be defined in a society where Jews enjoyed full political equality. Writers began to explore biblical themes, traditional Jewish folklore, and issues of identity and assimilation. A plethora of new journals focusing on Jewish religion, history, and culture came into being, as did a multitude of associations that emphasized Jewish distinctiveness. This book explores this blossoming of Jewish cultural life in France. It shows that the interface between the various groups was as important as the differences between them: it was the process of debate and dialogue that infused new energy into French Jewish identity and culture. The book analyses the Jewish press and literature to develop a typology of themes, providing a panoramic view of how Jewish identity and culture were discussed and debated among Jews and non-Jews of varying ideological, cultural, and political orientations. The analysis also provides a vantage point from which to explore the complex ways in which French national identity was re-negotiated in the early twentieth-century. During this period, French Jews in effect reshaped the category of Frenchness itself, and in so doing created new possibilities for being both French and Jewish.
Michael Gott
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780748698677
- eISBN:
- 9781474421966
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748698677.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines what is likely the increasingly prevalent ‘return to origins’ movie. A close look at the corpus of French-language road cinema of the past twenty years reveals a genre that ...
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This chapter examines what is likely the increasingly prevalent ‘return to origins’ movie. A close look at the corpus of French-language road cinema of the past twenty years reveals a genre that actively reformulates the limits of national and European identity by (often literally) redrawing the map. The popularity of ‘return’ voyages is reflective of a desire to remap French and other national identities within the parameters of an enlarged European Union, within which physical and administrative frontiers have fallen. Return films demonstrate that it is now conceivable to be French, Belgian or Swiss and retain, or rediscover, a connection to another identity, whether Polish, Czech, Armenian, Spanish, Italian, or Maghrebi. The chapter begins with a discussion of how mobile and layered outlooks on citizenship fit into conception of French republicanism and European identity frameworks before zooming in on case studies from France and Switzerland. Voyage en Arménie/Armenia (Robert Guédiguian, 2006, France), Ten’ja/Testament (Hassan Legzouli, 2004, France/Morocco) and Comme des voleurs (à l'est)/Stealth (Lionel Baier, 2005, Switzerland) furnish the examples.Less
This chapter examines what is likely the increasingly prevalent ‘return to origins’ movie. A close look at the corpus of French-language road cinema of the past twenty years reveals a genre that actively reformulates the limits of national and European identity by (often literally) redrawing the map. The popularity of ‘return’ voyages is reflective of a desire to remap French and other national identities within the parameters of an enlarged European Union, within which physical and administrative frontiers have fallen. Return films demonstrate that it is now conceivable to be French, Belgian or Swiss and retain, or rediscover, a connection to another identity, whether Polish, Czech, Armenian, Spanish, Italian, or Maghrebi. The chapter begins with a discussion of how mobile and layered outlooks on citizenship fit into conception of French republicanism and European identity frameworks before zooming in on case studies from France and Switzerland. Voyage en Arménie/Armenia (Robert Guédiguian, 2006, France), Ten’ja/Testament (Hassan Legzouli, 2004, France/Morocco) and Comme des voleurs (à l'est)/Stealth (Lionel Baier, 2005, Switzerland) furnish the examples.
Jack Lee Downey
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823265435
- eISBN:
- 9780823266906
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823265435.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter explores the narrative of Catholic history in Canada, and particularly Québec. It begins with an overview of Québecois Catholicism under British rule and its adoption of many ...
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This chapter explores the narrative of Catholic history in Canada, and particularly Québec. It begins with an overview of Québecois Catholicism under British rule and its adoption of many conventional stereotypes of American “ghetto Catholicism.” It then considers how, in the decades bookending World War I, French Canadians—les Canadiens—displayed a somewhat confounding self-identity in the face of Protestant British occupation. It also examines the impact of modernization, urbanization, ethnic diversity, and industrialization on French Canadian identity during the early twentieth century in Québec; how the francophone nativist rendering of history contributed to the construction of Québecois nationalism; and the perceived threat of Jews and Freemasons to the Canadien psyche. Finally, it discusses the shift in Québecois culture that paved the way for the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s.Less
This chapter explores the narrative of Catholic history in Canada, and particularly Québec. It begins with an overview of Québecois Catholicism under British rule and its adoption of many conventional stereotypes of American “ghetto Catholicism.” It then considers how, in the decades bookending World War I, French Canadians—les Canadiens—displayed a somewhat confounding self-identity in the face of Protestant British occupation. It also examines the impact of modernization, urbanization, ethnic diversity, and industrialization on French Canadian identity during the early twentieth century in Québec; how the francophone nativist rendering of history contributed to the construction of Québecois nationalism; and the perceived threat of Jews and Freemasons to the Canadien psyche. Finally, it discusses the shift in Québecois culture that paved the way for the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s.
Joseph McGonagle
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719079559
- eISBN:
- 9781526121103
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719079559.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The issue of ethnicity in France, and how ethnicities are represented there visually, remains one of the most important and polemical aspects of French post-colonial politics and society. This is the ...
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The issue of ethnicity in France, and how ethnicities are represented there visually, remains one of the most important and polemical aspects of French post-colonial politics and society. This is the first book to analyse how a range of different ethnicities have been represented across contemporary French visual culture. Via a wide series of case studies – from the worldwide hit film Amélie to France’s popular TV series Plus belle la vie – it probes how ethnicities have been represented across different media, including film, photography, television and the visual arts. Four chapters examine distinct areas of particular importance: national identity, people of Algerian heritage, Jewishness and France’s second city Marseille.Less
The issue of ethnicity in France, and how ethnicities are represented there visually, remains one of the most important and polemical aspects of French post-colonial politics and society. This is the first book to analyse how a range of different ethnicities have been represented across contemporary French visual culture. Via a wide series of case studies – from the worldwide hit film Amélie to France’s popular TV series Plus belle la vie – it probes how ethnicities have been represented across different media, including film, photography, television and the visual arts. Four chapters examine distinct areas of particular importance: national identity, people of Algerian heritage, Jewishness and France’s second city Marseille.
Jean-Luc Nancy
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823256105
- eISBN:
- 9780823261314
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823256105.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
In chapter 1, Nancy resituates this debate on identity by recalling the economic and social factors playing in the question of identity and national identity. H argues that the current questions on ...
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In chapter 1, Nancy resituates this debate on identity by recalling the economic and social factors playing in the question of identity and national identity. H argues that the current questions on identity are motivated by the socio-economic misery. In such a context, one is tempted to return to a micro-identity, itself the product of an exclusion from a national identity. Nancy makes the point that it is not the French identity that is threatened (as the Sarkozy government implied by that project of a debate on “national identity”); rather, one witnesses a disintegration of identity, a “de-identification of what is called ‘civilization’.” It is globalization that puts all identities into question, remixing them and recasting them. Traditional identities are thus exposed to a transformation, because they are caught in a global economic system that disrupts them.Less
In chapter 1, Nancy resituates this debate on identity by recalling the economic and social factors playing in the question of identity and national identity. H argues that the current questions on identity are motivated by the socio-economic misery. In such a context, one is tempted to return to a micro-identity, itself the product of an exclusion from a national identity. Nancy makes the point that it is not the French identity that is threatened (as the Sarkozy government implied by that project of a debate on “national identity”); rather, one witnesses a disintegration of identity, a “de-identification of what is called ‘civilization’.” It is globalization that puts all identities into question, remixing them and recasting them. Traditional identities are thus exposed to a transformation, because they are caught in a global economic system that disrupts them.
Erik H. Cohen
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781904113744
- eISBN:
- 9781800340770
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781904113744.003.0011
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter compares the background, attitudes, values, and practices of French Jewish families who send their children to Jewish day schools with those of other such families who send their ...
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This chapter compares the background, attitudes, values, and practices of French Jewish families who send their children to Jewish day schools with those of other such families who send their children to public (state) schools or non-Jewish private schools. Choice of school plays a pivotal role in the formation and expression of French Jewish identity. The issue of school choice and the struggle of French Jews to preserve their identity must be understood in the context of the long and rich history of the Jews in France. Throughout their many centuries in the country, the Jewish community waxed and waned as its members were subjected to periodic legal restrictions, punitive taxation, violent attacks, attempts at forced conversion, ‘blood libel’ trials, and expulsion orders. Despite all this, the Jewish communities in the region persevered; indeed, some of the most famous Torah scholars of all time came from France.Less
This chapter compares the background, attitudes, values, and practices of French Jewish families who send their children to Jewish day schools with those of other such families who send their children to public (state) schools or non-Jewish private schools. Choice of school plays a pivotal role in the formation and expression of French Jewish identity. The issue of school choice and the struggle of French Jews to preserve their identity must be understood in the context of the long and rich history of the Jews in France. Throughout their many centuries in the country, the Jewish community waxed and waned as its members were subjected to periodic legal restrictions, punitive taxation, violent attacks, attempts at forced conversion, ‘blood libel’ trials, and expulsion orders. Despite all this, the Jewish communities in the region persevered; indeed, some of the most famous Torah scholars of all time came from France.
William Burgwinkle
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846316555
- eISBN:
- 9781846316692
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846316692.013
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
This chapter addresses the question of where French Studies should go in the current era of financial constraints and cut-backs. It argues that twenty-first-century French Studies must foreground ...
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This chapter addresses the question of where French Studies should go in the current era of financial constraints and cut-backs. It argues that twenty-first-century French Studies must foreground their interdisciplinary nature and remain open to examining and questioning their own inclusiveness. One suggestion is for French departments to turn their attention back to the origins of French identity and the French state, and simultaneously look at how those definitions have both limited and expanded that sense of identity and inclusiveness. In other words, they should look at the evolution of the notion of ‘Frenchness’ and how it has developed over the past 1000 years before turning to the contemporary, postcolonial period in which notions of Frenchness sometimes depend more on language use than on nationalism and on places far beyond the reach of Paris and the French state.Less
This chapter addresses the question of where French Studies should go in the current era of financial constraints and cut-backs. It argues that twenty-first-century French Studies must foreground their interdisciplinary nature and remain open to examining and questioning their own inclusiveness. One suggestion is for French departments to turn their attention back to the origins of French identity and the French state, and simultaneously look at how those definitions have both limited and expanded that sense of identity and inclusiveness. In other words, they should look at the evolution of the notion of ‘Frenchness’ and how it has developed over the past 1000 years before turning to the contemporary, postcolonial period in which notions of Frenchness sometimes depend more on language use than on nationalism and on places far beyond the reach of Paris and the French state.
Leïla Ennaïli
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474414982
- eISBN:
- 9781474444736
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474414982.003.0011
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter discusses two recent, and very different, films about illegal immigration to and through France: Le Havre (2011) by Aki Kaurismäki and Samba (2014) by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano. ...
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This chapter discusses two recent, and very different, films about illegal immigration to and through France: Le Havre (2011) by Aki Kaurismäki and Samba (2014) by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano. This comparison between examples of alternative cinema (Le Havre) and mainstream cinema (Samba) is facilitated by the concept of cinéma-monde, which acts as a levelling field allowing all ‘accents’ as defined by Hamid Naficy – be they dominant or alternative – to be connected. Each of the two films selected for this analysis offer valuable mappings of France’s global situation. These mappings are revealed by an analysis of issues of language, accents, working practices, and mobility, and offer new ways of framing French identity.Less
This chapter discusses two recent, and very different, films about illegal immigration to and through France: Le Havre (2011) by Aki Kaurismäki and Samba (2014) by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano. This comparison between examples of alternative cinema (Le Havre) and mainstream cinema (Samba) is facilitated by the concept of cinéma-monde, which acts as a levelling field allowing all ‘accents’ as defined by Hamid Naficy – be they dominant or alternative – to be connected. Each of the two films selected for this analysis offer valuable mappings of France’s global situation. These mappings are revealed by an analysis of issues of language, accents, working practices, and mobility, and offer new ways of framing French identity.
Jonathyne Briggs
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199377060
- eISBN:
- 9780199377091
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199377060.003.0006
- Subject:
- Music, Popular, History, Western
This chapter returns to Paris at the end of the 1970s when punk arrived. French culture influenced the aesthetics of punk, and the French were a critical early audience for many punk groups. Despite ...
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This chapter returns to Paris at the end of the 1970s when punk arrived. French culture influenced the aesthetics of punk, and the French were a critical early audience for many punk groups. Despite Paris’s importance within the punk axis of New York–London–Paris, French punk never developed into a cohesive scene in comparison with the other cities. This was not due to the lack of groups that populated French clubs. Rather, for French punks, the notion of authenticity was rooted in the punk of Britain and the United States, and they could not agree on what defined the authentic, leading to a schism among them. This failure of French punk reveals how not only aesthetic forms but also conventions move through cultural globalization. This chapter chronicles that schism between 1975 and 1980 by examining fanzines, punk recordings, mainstream magazines, and cultural criticism written during the period.Less
This chapter returns to Paris at the end of the 1970s when punk arrived. French culture influenced the aesthetics of punk, and the French were a critical early audience for many punk groups. Despite Paris’s importance within the punk axis of New York–London–Paris, French punk never developed into a cohesive scene in comparison with the other cities. This was not due to the lack of groups that populated French clubs. Rather, for French punks, the notion of authenticity was rooted in the punk of Britain and the United States, and they could not agree on what defined the authentic, leading to a schism among them. This failure of French punk reveals how not only aesthetic forms but also conventions move through cultural globalization. This chapter chronicles that schism between 1975 and 1980 by examining fanzines, punk recordings, mainstream magazines, and cultural criticism written during the period.
Jonathyne Briggs
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199377060
- eISBN:
- 9780199377091
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199377060.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Popular, History, Western
This chapter investigates the paradoxical process of music critics’ and artists’ sanctioning of the chanson as a distinctly French musical phenomenon just as its aesthetics were changing due to the ...
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This chapter investigates the paradoxical process of music critics’ and artists’ sanctioning of the chanson as a distinctly French musical phenomenon just as its aesthetics were changing due to the influx of new foreign influences. The establishment of a canon of chansonniers, built upon the work of Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel, and Leo Ferré, occurred just as French rock and roll became a noisy cultural force in France. The meaning of the chanson was rearticulated in contrast to rock and roll, with critics focusing on its lyrical content and its supposedly unchanging traditional nature. But the musical content of chanson was changing, most strongly evident in the work of Serge Gainsbourg, whose omnivorous cultural tastes brought rock and roll, exotica, and art rock into chanson. This chapter surveys the changing definitions of chanson within musical criticism during the 1950s and 1960s.Less
This chapter investigates the paradoxical process of music critics’ and artists’ sanctioning of the chanson as a distinctly French musical phenomenon just as its aesthetics were changing due to the influx of new foreign influences. The establishment of a canon of chansonniers, built upon the work of Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel, and Leo Ferré, occurred just as French rock and roll became a noisy cultural force in France. The meaning of the chanson was rearticulated in contrast to rock and roll, with critics focusing on its lyrical content and its supposedly unchanging traditional nature. But the musical content of chanson was changing, most strongly evident in the work of Serge Gainsbourg, whose omnivorous cultural tastes brought rock and roll, exotica, and art rock into chanson. This chapter surveys the changing definitions of chanson within musical criticism during the 1950s and 1960s.