The study of French culture has long ceased to be purely centred on literature. Undergraduate French courses now embrace all forms of cultural production and consumption, and students need to have a broad knowledge of everything from day-time TV and the latest detective novels to debates about national identity and immigration policies. This stimulating text is an introduction to the full range of contemporary French culture. Written by a group of leading academics both within and outside France, each chapter focuses on a topic from the French cultural scene today. Starting with an overview of resources for further information (both in print and online), the text discusses the varied forms of French cultural expression and looks critically at what 'Frenchness' itself means. The book also explores examples of cultural production ranging from sport, media and literature to theatre, cinema, festivals and music. An essential resource for students and scholars alike, this text provides detailed material and analysis, as well as a launch-pad for further study.
Offering an up-to-date, coherent approach to contemporary French cultural studies, this text explores French culture through the key themes of the past, culture and subcultures, cultural production and consumption, and the body.
French Cultural Studies: An Introduction challenges received theories about France and French culture. The book takes into account the major changes which have been taking place in the context of French Studies in both secondary and higher education, with the focus shifting to a broader rangeof cultural forms. French Cultural Studies adopts an interdisciplinary approach in its wide-ranging study of French culture and society since 1870, emphasizing recent and contemporary developments. It suggests new ways of looking at France and the French-speaking world through the ideas, images, and narratives ofmore than a century of turbulent history and political change. As well as looking at the literary, artistic, and intellectual culture for which France is renowned, the authors examine audio-visual media, popular culture, and cultural policy. They follow the stages of French history through periods of industrialization and war, reconstruction andmodernization, and the crises and revolutions of post-colonialism and postmodernity. Copiously illustrated, and with guidance for further reading, this fascinating and authoritative work will be essential reading for anyone interested in modern and contemporary French society and its culture. List of Contents: Acknowledgements, Notes on Contributors, List of Illustrations, Preface, Introduction; Part I: Industrialization and War (1870-1944): Chapter 1. Industrialization and its Discontents (1870-1914): From Symbolism to Modernism; Paris, the Capital of Art; Le Japonisme or the Challengeto Europe; Science, Technology, and the Growth of the Mass Market; Mallarme' - the Total Artist; The Birth of Impressionism; The Neurosis of the fin de sie'cle; Cubism and the Impact of Primitive Art; The Belle e'poque?; The Imposition of the New Moral Order; The Eroticization of the Public Domain;The Feminist Critique; Leisure, Consumption, and Popular Culture; Chapter 2. Wars and Class Wars (1914-1944): War and Revolution; Les anne'es folles; Crisis and Commitment; Les anne'es noires; Suggestions for further reading; Part II: Reconstruction and its ideologies (1945-1967): Chapter 3. Crisesof Reconstruction (1945-1967): Reconstruction of the French Nation; The French Ideologies; Existentialism and The Second Sex; Politics and Culture from the Cold War to Decolonization; African Literature and Film in French; Chapter 4. Modernization and Avant-Gardes (1945-1967): Modernization andPopular Culture; The New Theatre; The New Novel and New Criticism; The Cinema from Occupation to New Wave; Suggestions for further reading; Part III: Revolution and Postmodernity (1968-1995): Chapter 5. The Author, The Reader, and the Text after 1968: The Revolution in Writing; The Self and Others;Chapter 6: Popular Culture and Cultural Politics: The Rise of Audio-Visual Culture; The City as Signifying Practice; Cultural Politics and the Postmodern Condition; French in the World - from Imperialism to Diversity; Suggestions for further reading; Conclusion: Chronology; Index
More than 700 alphabetically organized entries by an international team of contributors provide a fascinating survey of French culture post 1945. Entries include: * advertising * Beur cinema * Coco Chanel * decolonization * écriture feminine * football * francophone press * gay activism * Seuil * youth culture Entries range from short factual/biographical pieces to longer overview articles. All are extensively cross-referenced and longer entries are 'facts-fronted' so important information is clear at a glance. It includes a thematic contents list, extensive index and suggestions for further reading. The Encyclopedia will provide hours of enjoyable browsing for all francophiles, and essential cultural context for students of French, Modern History, Comparative European Studies and Cultural Studies.
This groundbreaking book is about what ‘popular culture’ means in France, and how the term’s shifting meanings have been negotiated and contested. It represents the first theoretically informed study of the way that popular culture is lived, imagined, fought over and negotiated in modern and contemporary France. It covers a wide range of overarching concerns: the roles of state policy, the market, political ideologies, changing social contexts and new technologies in the construction of the popular. But it also provides a set of specific case studies showing how popular songs, stories, films, TV programmes and language styles have become indispensable elements of ‘culture’ in France. Deploying yet also rethinking a ‘Cultural Studies’ approach to the popular, the book therefore challenges dominant views of what French culture really means today.
French Cultural Studies for the Twenty-First Century brings together current scholarship on a diverse range of topics—from French postcards and Third Republic menus to Haitian literary magazines and representation of race in vaudeville theater—in order to provide methodological insight into the current practice of French cultural studies. The essays in the volume show how scholars of French studies can effectively analyze what we term “non-traditional sources” in their historical and geographical contexts. In doing so, the volume offers a compelling vision of the field today and maps out potential paradigms for future research. This bookbuilds upon previous scholarship that defined the stakes of using an interdisciplinary approach to analyze cultural objects from France and Francophone regions and aims to evaluate the current state of this complex and constantly evolving field and its current methodological practices.
An interdisciplinary collection of writings on various aspects of change in contemporary French-speaking society, spanning the broad fields of politics and society, arts and culture, the French language, and francophone literatures.
Margaret Mead collaborated with her long-time colleague Rhoda Métraux in this unique study of French culture. The Hoover Institute at Stanford University originally published this volume, which grew out of the Columbia University project on Research of Contemporary Cultures in 1954. It is one of the few works by American social scientists dealing with broad themes of French life. Mead and Métraux present a vivid picture of the French starting with the organization of the house and its architecture, and drawing original conclusions for the structure of French families and overall cultural values. This work, long out of print, is a fascinating and penetrating portrait of a contemporary European society.
