This collection engages with questions of influence, a vexed and problematic concept whose intellectual history is both ancient and vast. It examines a range of texts written in French, sometimes in dialogue with visual/musical works, drawn mainly from the eighteenth century onwards. Connections are made with related work in a range of disciplines.
An accessible and authoritative new history of French literature, written by a highly distinguished transatlantic group of scholars This book provides an engaging, accessible, and exciting new history of French literature from the Renaissance through the twentieth century, from Rabelais and Marguerite de Navarre to Samuel Beckett and Assia Djebar. Christopher Prendergast, one of today's most distinguished authorities on French literature, has gathered a transatlantic group of more than thirty leading scholars who provide original essays on carefully selected writers, works, and topics that open a window onto key chapters of French literary history. The book begins in the sixteenth century with the formation of a modern national literary consciousness, and ends in the late twentieth century with the idea of the "national" coming increasingly into question as inherited meanings of "French" and "Frenchness" expand beyond the geographical limits of mainland France. Provides an exciting new account of French literary history from the Renaissance to the end of the twentieth century Features more than thirty original essays on key writers, works, and topics, written by a distinguished transatlantic group of scholars Includes an introduction and index The contributors include Etienne Beaulieu, Christopher Braider, Peter Brooks, Mary Ann Caws, David Coward, Nicholas Cronk, Edwin M. Duval, Mary Gallagher, Raymond Geuss, Timothy Hampton, Nicholas Harrison, Katherine Ibbett, Michael Lucey, Susan Maslan, Eric Méchoulan, Hassan Melehy, Larry F. Norman, Nicholas Paige, Roger Pearson, Christopher Prendergast, Jean-Michel Rabaté, Timothy J. Reiss, Sarah Rocheville, Pierre Saint-Amand, Clive Scott, Catriona Seth, Judith Sribnai, Joanna Stalnaker, Aleksandar Stević, Kate E. Tunstall, Steven Ungar, and Wes Williams.
Although the great French novelists of the last two centuries are widely read in America, there is a widespread notion that little of importance has happened in French literature since the heyday of Sartre, Camus, and the nouveau roman. Curious American readers seeking new, up-to-date information and analyses will find in Paths to Contemporary French Literature a stimulating and much-needed guide to the major currents of one of the worldas great literatures. This critical panorama of contemporary French literature introduces English-language readers to over fifty important writers and poets. Emphasizing authors who are admired by their peers (as opposed to those with overnight reputations), John Taylor offers a compelling insideras view.
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.
A Thematic Approach to French Cultural Studies: Love, Sex and Desire in French Literature and Cinema introduces a selection of major literary texts and film adaptations to students at the intermediate college and university level. The goal of this book is to provide a theme-based approach for teaching French Cultural Studies by enabling undergraduate students to contextualise and to think conceptually about French culture and its place in the Western culture and tradition. One of the most noteworthy aspects of this book is that it includes a collection of effective hands-on activities, multimedia resources and teaching suggestions which will stimulate students to develop their cultural and literary competency. The text-based method is designed to encourage close reading of three representative novels in English translation and foster an independent approach to formulating problems and arguments related to specific cultural norms and patterns.
Some of the language we come across, in reading other peoples' works or listening to others speak, moves us profoundly. It requires a response from us; it occupies and involves us. Writers, always readers and listeners as well, are fascinated by this phenomenon, which became the subject of the classical treatise On the Sublime , traditionally attributed to Longinus. Emma Gilby looks at this compelling and complex text in relation to the work of three major seventeenth-century authors: Pierre Corneille, Blaise Pascal and Nicolas Boileau. She offers, in each case, intimate critical readings which spin out into broad interrogations about knowledge and experience in early modern French literature.
Problems and Perspectives- Studies in the Modern French Language looks at a number of interesting or problematic areas in the phonology, morphology, syntax and lexis of the French language and encourages the reader to think critically about different ways of approaching, describing and explaining these issues or data. The book is divided into two parts- the first section is a preliminary to, and contextualises, the discussion of the more specialised topics of the second part. Part two presents problematic and controversial areas in the description and analysis of the contemporary language. Where appropriate historical and sociolinguistic issues are also integrated into the discussion of modern French. Aimed primarily at advanced students and researchers in French linguistics, the introductory sections of part one also make this book accessible to undergraduates beginning their study of French linguistics, and to less specialised readers.
In The World Upside Down in 16th Century French Literature and Visual Culture Vincent Robert-Nicoud offers an interdisciplinary account of the topos of the world upside down in early modern France. To call something ‘topsy-turvy’ in the sixteenth century is to label it as abnormal. The topos of the world upside down evokes a world in which everything is inside-out and out of bounds: fish live in trees, children rule over their parents, and rivers flow back to their source. The world upside down proves to be key in understanding how the social, political, and religious turmoil of sixteenth-century France was represented and conceptualised, and allows us to explore the dark side of the Renaissance by unpacking one of its most prevalent metaphors.
