Keith Reader
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781789621044
- eISBN:
- 9781800341241
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789621044.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This book explores the history and the vicissitudes of one of Paris’s most extraordinary areas, the Marais. Centrally located on the Right Bank, this neighbourhood was from the Middle Ages through to ...
More
This book explores the history and the vicissitudes of one of Paris’s most extraordinary areas, the Marais. Centrally located on the Right Bank, this neighbourhood was from the Middle Ages through to the eighteenth century the most fashionable in the city, headquarters of the nobility who endowed it with resplendent architecture. The Court’s move to Versailles and the Revolution of 1789 led to the quartier’s decline, so that in the nineteenth century and the earlier part of the twentieth it was in parlous shape, its fine buildings run down and often severely overcrowded. It escaped wholesale destruction in the post-War frenzy of modernization largely thanks to André Malraux, who as Culture Minister fostered the restoration of the area. Malraux’s efforts were, however, not immune from criticism, sometimes seen as a form of socio-economic cleansing with concomitant fossilization, and thus emblematic of the problems faced by a city which has always been torn between the preservation of its past and the need to adapt to social and historical change. The book focuses particularly on literary, cinematic and other artistic reproductions of the quartier, of which it attempts to provide a comprehensive overview, and foregrounds particularly its importance as home to and base of two highly significant minorities – the Jewish and the gay communities.Less
This book explores the history and the vicissitudes of one of Paris’s most extraordinary areas, the Marais. Centrally located on the Right Bank, this neighbourhood was from the Middle Ages through to the eighteenth century the most fashionable in the city, headquarters of the nobility who endowed it with resplendent architecture. The Court’s move to Versailles and the Revolution of 1789 led to the quartier’s decline, so that in the nineteenth century and the earlier part of the twentieth it was in parlous shape, its fine buildings run down and often severely overcrowded. It escaped wholesale destruction in the post-War frenzy of modernization largely thanks to André Malraux, who as Culture Minister fostered the restoration of the area. Malraux’s efforts were, however, not immune from criticism, sometimes seen as a form of socio-economic cleansing with concomitant fossilization, and thus emblematic of the problems faced by a city which has always been torn between the preservation of its past and the need to adapt to social and historical change. The book focuses particularly on literary, cinematic and other artistic reproductions of the quartier, of which it attempts to provide a comprehensive overview, and foregrounds particularly its importance as home to and base of two highly significant minorities – the Jewish and the gay communities.
Adrian May
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781786940438
- eISBN:
- 9781789629118
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781786940438.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter takes a more critical stance towards the review to examine its cultural conservatism and reticence towards identity politics. The review’s literary tastes, largely shaped by the legacies ...
More
This chapter takes a more critical stance towards the review to examine its cultural conservatism and reticence towards identity politics. The review’s literary tastes, largely shaped by the legacies of Georges Bataille and Maurice Blanchot, are shown to harbour a sense of artistic exceptionalism which often precludes representations of the everyday, and therefore also limits political solidarity with those usually defended by Lignes. Despite the racial or gendered exclusions it can produce, literary elitism or conservatism is in itself not necessarily criticised, but the hostility to mass culture inculcated by some aesthetic Marxist approaches is seen to be politically unhelpful in the present moment and other approaches to cultural politics in Lignes are sought. After Alain Badiou’s Circonstances 3 caused a row over anti-Semitism and the critique of Israel, it is suggested that the strategic essentialism of Judith Butler provides a more appropriate stance compared to Badiou’s strategic universalism. Lastly, Lignes’ virtual silence on gender and sexuality issues (a stance softening in recent issues) is contrasted to the Parti Socialiste’s progressive measures on parity, PACs and gay marriage.Less
This chapter takes a more critical stance towards the review to examine its cultural conservatism and reticence towards identity politics. The review’s literary tastes, largely shaped by the legacies of Georges Bataille and Maurice Blanchot, are shown to harbour a sense of artistic exceptionalism which often precludes representations of the everyday, and therefore also limits political solidarity with those usually defended by Lignes. Despite the racial or gendered exclusions it can produce, literary elitism or conservatism is in itself not necessarily criticised, but the hostility to mass culture inculcated by some aesthetic Marxist approaches is seen to be politically unhelpful in the present moment and other approaches to cultural politics in Lignes are sought. After Alain Badiou’s Circonstances 3 caused a row over anti-Semitism and the critique of Israel, it is suggested that the strategic essentialism of Judith Butler provides a more appropriate stance compared to Badiou’s strategic universalism. Lastly, Lignes’ virtual silence on gender and sexuality issues (a stance softening in recent issues) is contrasted to the Parti Socialiste’s progressive measures on parity, PACs and gay marriage.
