The French Exception

The French Exception

Author: Emmanuel Godin

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 9781571816849

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The notion of French exceptionalism is deeply embedded in the nation's self-image and in a range of political and academic discourses. Recently, the debate about whether France really is "exceptional" has acquired a critical edge. Against the background of introspection about the nature of "national identity," some proclaim "normalisation" and the end of French exceptionalism, while others point out to the continuing evidence that France remains distinctive at a number of levels, from popular culture to public policy. This book explores the notion of French exceptionalism, places it in its European context, examines its history and evaluate its continuing relevance in a range of fields from politics and public policy to popular culture and sport.


A Divided Republic

A Divided Republic

Author: Emile Chabal

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-04-02

Total Pages: 315

ISBN-13: 131629921X

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This book is an original and sophisticated historical interpretation of contemporary French political culture. Until now, there have been few attempts to understand the political consequences of the profound geopolitical, intellectual and economic changes that France has undergone since the 1970s. However, Emile Chabal's detailed study shows how passionate debates over citizenship, immigration, colonial memory, the reform of the state and the historiography of modern France have galvanised the French elite and created new spaces for discussion and disagreement. Many of these debates have coalesced around two political languages - republicanism and liberalism - both of which structure the historical imagination and the symbolic vocabulary of French political actors. The tension between these two political languages has become the central battleground of contemporary French politics. It is around these two poles that politicians, intellectuals and members of France's vast civil society have tried to negotiate the formidable challenges of ideological uncertainty and a renewed sense of global insecurity.


American Exceptionalism, the French Exception, and Digital Media Law

American Exceptionalism, the French Exception, and Digital Media Law

Author: Lyombe S. Eko

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2013-07-10

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 0739181130

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This volume explores the sameness and difference between the United States and France in the matters of freedom of expression on the Internet. The United States and France are liberal democracies that are part of the Western family of nations. However, despite their many similarities, they have a number of cultural and ideological differences. The United States is generally France’s ally in time of war and its cultural nemesis in time of peace. One of the reasons for this unusual relationship is that the United States and France are self-described “exceptional” countries. The United States and France are therefore two Western countries separated by different exceptionalist logics. Lyombe Eko uses this concept of exceptionalism as a theoretical framework for the analysis of American and French resolution of problems of human rights and freedom of expression in the traditional media and on the Internet. This book therefore analyzes how each county applies rules and regulations designed to manage a number of issues of media communication in real space, to the realities and specificities of cyberspace, within the framework of their respective exceptionalist logics. The fundamental question addressed concerns what happens when rules and regulations designed to regulate the media in clearly defined, national and regional geographic spaces, are suddenly confronted with the new realities and multi-communication platforms of the interconnected virtual sphere of cyberspace.


French Cultural Policy Debates

French Cultural Policy Debates

Author: Jeremy Ahearne

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-10-24

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1136474226

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Since the foundation in 1959 of the Ministry of Culture, cultural policy in France has enjoyed a profile unparalleled in any other country. French Cultural Policy Debates: A Reader makes available the key contributions to a debate which has not only focused on the precise modes of political intervention in cultural production, but has also provided a forum for the discussion of much wider social and political issues.


Contemporary French Cultural Studies

Contemporary French Cultural Studies

Author: William Kidd

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-05-01

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 1134659407

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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.


Exception Taken

Exception Taken

Author: Jonathan Buchsbaum

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2017-01-10

Total Pages: 429

ISBN-13: 0231543077

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In Exception Taken, Jonathan Buchsbaum examines the movements that have emerged in opposition to the homogenizing force of Hollywood in global filmmaking. While European cinema was entering a steady decline in the 1980s, France sought to strengthen support for its film industry under the new Mitterrand government. Over the following decades, the country lobbied partners in the European Economic Community to design strategies to protect the audiovisual industries and to resist cultural free-trade pressures in international trade agreements. These struggles to preserve the autonomy of national artistic prerogatives emboldened many countries to question the benefits of accelerated globalization. Led by the energetic minister of culture Jack Lang, France initiated a series of measures to support all sectors of the film industry. Lang introduced laws mandating that state and private television invest in the film industry, effectively replacing the revenue lost from a shrinking theatrical audience for French films. With the formation of the European Union in 1992, Europe passed a new treaty (Maastricht) that extended its legal purview to culture for the first time, setting up the dramatic confrontation over the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) in 1993. Pushed by France, the EU fought the United States over the idea that countries should preserve their right to regulate cultural activity as they saw fit. France and Canada then initiated a campaign to protect cultural diversity within UNESCO that led to the passage of the Convention on Cultural Diversity in 2005. As France pursued these efforts to protect cultural diversity beyond its borders, it also articulated "a certain idea of cinema" that did not simply defend a narrow vision of national cinema. France promoted both commercial cinema and art cinema, disproving announcements of the death of cinema.


De Gaulle’s Legacy

De Gaulle’s Legacy

Author: W. Nester

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2014-12-16

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 1137483946

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This book explores the following: What is the art of power? What is the art of French power? How did Charles de Gaulle understand and assert power, establishing the Fifth Republic and breaking centuries of political instability? How well or poorly have his successors wielded the art of French power to define, defend, or enhance French interests?


The Charlie Hebdo Affair and Comparative Journalistic Cultures

The Charlie Hebdo Affair and Comparative Journalistic Cultures

Author: Lyombe Eko

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2019-11-14

Total Pages: 452

ISBN-13: 3030180794

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The Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack of January 7, 2015 shook French journalism to the core and reverberated around the world, triggering a cascade of responses from journalists, media outlets, cartoonists and caricaturists from diverse geographies of freedom of expression and journalistic cultures. This book is a multifaceted case study that describes and explains sameness and difference in diverse journalistic conceptualizations of the Charlie Hebdo affair from a comparative, international perspective. It explores how different journalistic traditions, cultures, worldviews and styles conceptualized and reacted to the clash between freedom of expression and respect for religious sentiments in the context of terrorism, where those sentiments are imposed on the media and secular societies through intimidation, coercion and violence. The book analyzes the political and cultural clashes between the core human right of freedom of expression, and rite of respect for religious sentiments, which is situated on the outer periphery of the human right of freedom of religion. It also examines how media outlets, editors, and cartoonists from different politico-cultural contexts and journalistic cultures in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America, addressed the delicate issue of Mohammed cartoons in general, and the problem of (re)publication of the controversial Charlie Hebdo Je Suis Charlie Mohammed cartoon, in particular.


Stagestruck

Stagestruck

Author: Lauren R. Clay

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2013-01-11

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0801468213

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Stagestruck traces the making of a vibrant French theater industry between the reign of Louis XIV and the French Revolution. During this era more than eighty provincial and colonial cities celebrated the inauguration of their first public playhouses. These theaters emerged as the most prominent urban cultural institutions in prerevolutionary France, becoming key sites for the articulation and contestation of social, political, and racial relationships. Combining rich description with nuanced analysis based on extensive archival evidence, Lauren R. Clay illuminates the wide-ranging consequences of theater's spectacular growth for performers, spectators, and authorities in cities throughout France as well as in the empire's most important Atlantic colony, Saint-Domingue. Clay argues that outside Paris the expansion of theater came about through local initiative, civic engagement, and entrepreneurial investment, rather than through actions or policies undertaken by the royal government and its agents. Reconstructing the business of theatrical production, she brings to light the efforts of a wide array of investors, entrepreneurs, directors, and actors-including women and people of color-who seized the opportunities offered by commercial theater to become important agents of cultural change. Portraying a vital and increasingly consumer-oriented public sphere beyond the capital, Stagestruck overturns the long-held notion that cultural change flowed from Paris and the royal court to the provinces and colonies. This deeply researched book will appeal to historians of Europe and the Atlantic world, particularly those interested in the social and political impact of the consumer revolution and the forging of national and imperial cultural networks. In addition to theater and literary scholars, it will attract the attention of historians and sociologists who study business, labor history, and the emergence of the modern French state.