2008-12-01,Charlotte Baker and Jennifer Jahn,Postcolonial Slavery: An Overview of Colonialism’s Legacy,Hardback,978-1-4438-0103-4,34.99,"This collection of eight essays by research students and academics from the UK, France, Germany and the USA examining different forms and manifestations of postcolonial slavery underlines the significance of the year 2007, marking the bicentennial anniversary of the passage of the British law banning the slave trade. Slavery and its legacies galvanized a diachronic series of ethnic crossings and transformations that engendered new and complex patterns of crosscultural contact. And the importance of communities of runaway slaves can scarcely be overstated as a symbol of an insistent black resistance and self-affirmation. But in bringing the material realities of slavery to the forefront of the imagination, this volume also highlights the marginalization of British and French colonial practices in institutionalized frameworks of historical knowledge. Actively contesting the related traumas of transplantation, the middle passage, and the fracturing of the collective memory, and drawing actively on a wide range of approaches and perspectives, this collection seeks to reinscribe a material historical consciousness of slavery and its legacies through a strategic interaction between history, subjectivity, and representation. —H. Adlai Murdoch, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-01-01,Isabelle Constant and Kahiudi C. Mabana,Negritude: Legacy and Present Relevance,Hardback,978-1-4438-0112-6,39.99,"Doit-on considérer la Négritude comme un mouvement ancré dans la fin de la période coloniale et sur lequel il n’y a plus lieu de revenir ? C’est une des questions que le colloque qui s’est tenu à l’Université des West Indies à la Barbade en l’honneur du centenaire de la naissance de Senghor s’efforce d’explorer. Lylian Kesteloot nous rappelle encore récemment dans son étude Césaire et Senghor un pont sur l’Atlantique l’importance de ce mouvement qui entre les années trente et soixante a participé à la naissance de la littérature africaine. La question du particularisme que le mot Négritude implique et de son opposé l’universel sera largement débattue dans les pages de cet ouvrage. Les articles de cet essai discutent les défauts essentialistes de la Négritude senghorienne, mais également le fait que dans les termes de Senghor « la Négritude est un mythe », donc une construction identitaire, l’expression d’une invention. Il envisageait par exemple l’avènement d’un socialisme africain, dans une interprétation unique du marxisme. En tant que mouvement poétique, philosophique, littéraire, ou en tant que réponse idéologique à une oppression, les auteurs africains et antillais étudiés ici et qui traitent de thèmes très contemporains, démontrent la vivacité d’une Négritude toujours d’actualité dans sa présentation des cultures. Il faut bien entendu dépasser la notion raciale contenue dans le terme et insister sur le culturel, le philosophique et l’esthétique, pour accepter que la Négritude ait une pertinence actuelle. Notamment nous verrons que la Négritude s’est métamorphosée aux Antilles où au Brésil en d’originaux projets idéologiques et esthétiques. Should Negritude be seen as a movement that originated at the end of the colonial era and merits no further study in this contemporary world? This is one of the questions explored in the Colloquium held at the University of the West Indies, Barbados, to mark the centenary of the birth of Léopold Sedar Senghor. In a recent study, Césaire et Senghor: Un pont sur l’Atlantique, Lylian Kesteloot reminds her readers of the importance of Negritude which contributed to the emergence of African literature between 1930 and 1960. The idea of essentialism which the word Negritude implies, as well as the opposite idea of universalism, will be widely discussed in the pages of this work. This collection of essays acknowledges the essential shortcomings of Senghor’s Negritude, but, at the same time, underlines the fact that in Senghor’s words, “Negritude is a myth” and therefore has to do with the construction of (an) identity and is the expression of an imaginary creation. It envisaged, for example, the creation of an African form of socialism within a unique interpretation of Marxism. In this volume, African and Caribbean writers who are concerned with contemporary issues, demonstrate the vitality of Negritude as a poetic, philosophical and literary movement and as an ideological response to oppression that is still relevant in its presentation of cultures. Clearly, it is necessary to go beyond the notion of race implied in the term and to focus on the cultural, philosophical and aesthetic elements in order to appreciate the relevance of Negritude today. Most notably in the Caribbean or Brazil, Negritude has been transformed into original ideological and aesthetic projects. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-02-01,Catherine Dousteyssier-Khoze and Edward Welch,"Naturalisme et excès visuels: pantomime, parodie, image, fête. Mélanges en l'honneur de David Baguley",Paperback,978-1-4438-0147-8,24.99,"Dans le sillage des travaux incontournables de David Baguley sur Zola et le Naturalisme, le recueil intitulé Naturalisme et excès visuels: pantomime, parodie, image, fête. Mélanges en l’honneur de David Baguley cherche à éclairer l’esthétique naturaliste d’une lumière nouvelle, à travers le concept d’excès. Un excès naturaliste qui devient synonyme, tout à tour ou simultanément, de théâtralisation, de surcodage, de débordement des cadres génériques et/ou littéraires. À l’intérieur comme à l’extérieur du mouvement littéraire naturaliste, il s’agit de mettre en évidence certaines énergies naturalistes à travers quatre grandes pistes ou articulations qui n’ont été que peu abordées ensemble par la recherche: celles de pantomime, de parodie, d’image et de fête. Chacune de ces facettes va, à sa façon, permettre d’affirmer ou de réaffirmer la prédominance de l’excès, du corporel, du visuel, inscrits au cœur d’une esthétique naturaliste foncièrement moderne. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-04-01,Eilene Hoft-March and Judith Holland Sarnecki,"Aimer et mourir: Love, Death and Women’s Lives in Texts of French Expression",Hardback,978-1-4438-0445-5,44.99,"Aimer et Mourir offers a wide-ranging selection of essays that collectively address how, from the Middle Ages to the present, the notions of love and death get inextricably associated with the narratives that are women’s lives. Some of the essays tackle male writers’ representations that link women and, in particular, women’s sexuality, with death, resulting in the figures of the femme fatale, the woman in parturition, and the desiring vampire. A number of essays reiterate that women’s hyper-sexualized bodies have been used as a social construct and a psychological screen upon which to project a fear of death. The challenges to this pat reduction of “woman’s” domain come from the mostly women writers represented here—and they span from Marguerite de Navarre to Amélie Nothomb. These women writers rework the old formulae, giving us instead death-defying memories of love, love regenerative of language (as of bodies), love forcing the frontiers of death, or love creatively redefined within the parameters of death. Nor are these new narratives imagined as belonging to women alone but rather as attesting to a richer, more varied, and greatly sensitized human experience. ","This collection should be of great interest to those researching and teaching French, Postcolonial and Comparative Literatures, Francophone and Women’s and Gender Studies… A highly engaging and multi-dimensional text that invites fertile comparisons and extensions and … a much-appreciated addition to literary scholarship that is increasingly interdisciplinary in scope and approach. —Cynthia Hahn, Professor of French at Lake Forest College in Illinois ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-06-01,Elisabetta Tarantino with the collaboration of Carlo Caruso,Nonsense and Other Senses: Regulated Absurdity in Literature,Hardback,978-1-4438-1006-7,49.99,"This book deals with a topic that is gaining increasing critical attention, the literature of nonsense and absurdity. The volume gathers together twenty-one essays on various aspects of literary nonsense, according to criteria that are deliberately inclusive and eclectic. Its purpose is to offer a gallery of “nonsense practices” in literature across periods and countries, in the conviction that important critical insights can be gained from these juxtapositions. Most of the cases presented here deal with linguistic nonsense, but in a few instances the nonsense operates at the higher level of the interpretation of reality on the part of the subject—or of the impossibility thereof. The contributors to the volume are established and younger scholars from various countries. Chronologically, the chapters range widely from Dante to Václav Havel, and offer a large span of national literatures (Czech, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese) and literary genres (poetry, prose, and drama), inviting the readers to trace their own pathway and draw their own lines of connection. One point that emerges with particular force is the notion that what distinguishes literary nonsense is its somehow “regulated” nature. Literary nonsense thus sounds like a deliberate, last-ditch attempt to snatch order from the jaws of chaos—the speech of the “Fool” as opposed to the tale told by an idiot. It is this kind of post-Derridean retrieval of choice as the defining element in semantic transactions which is perhaps the most significant insight bequeathed by the study of nonsense to the analysis of poetry and literature in general. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-09-01,Bert Cardullo,Committed Cinema: The Films of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne; Essays and Interviews,Hardback,978-1-4438-1260-3,39.99,"Jean-Pierre Dardenne trained as an actor and his younger brother, Luc, studied philosophy; but they have dedicated themselves to filmmaking since the 1970s. After earning a reputation in their native Belgium for directing socially and politically conscious documentaries, they directed their first fiction feature, Falsch, in 1986. They have also been active as producers and in 1975 founded Dérives, a company with more than sixty documentaries to its credit. A second company, Les Films du Fleuve, was formed in 1994. The brothers hail from Wallonia, the southern, French-speaking region of Belgium that provides the gritty, postindustrial landscape so omnipresent in their films. In the decade since their third fiction feature, La Promesse (1996), became an international success, the unassuming but highly determined Dardennes have ascended to the forefront of a newly revived socially-conscious European cinema. At a time when filmmaking in Europe, however distinguished, seemed largely unmoored from the social changes wrought by the end of the Soviet empire, La Promesse offered a modest but profound view of illegal immigration and worker exploitation, anchored in the moral complexities of the relationship between a Belgian contractor and his teenaged son. Two prizes at Cannes for Rosetta (1999)—which conveys the obsessive extent to which a teenaged girl demands a job, a home, and a normal life—consecrated the Dardenne brothers as leading international cinéastes. Rosetta was followed by three similarly socially realistic films that are at the same time intimate character portraits: The Son (2002), L’Enfant (2005), and The Silence of Lorna (2008). In each of their five feature films since 1996, the Dardennes’ rigorous, handheld camerawork and highly selective framing merge with physically intense acting to evoke a realistic tradition infused with philosophical and spiritual depth—one that hearkens back to both Rossellini’s Germany Year Zero (1948) and Bresson’s Pickpocket (1959). Committed Cinema: The Films of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne is the first book in English to treat the work of the Dardennes, and features the best essays and interviews (supplemented by a chronology, a filmography, film credits, and a bibliography) published to date on the two brothers’ memorable films. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-09-01,Antoine Capet,The Representation of Working People in Britain and France: New Perspectives,Hardback,978-1-4438-1240-5,34.99,"It is a truism that History is about “representation”: but then opinions will diverge–as it should be–between what is meant by “representation”. Most of the chapters in this volume were first presented in November 2008 at an International Conference co-organised by the Society for the Study of Labour History and the University of Rouen. The authors–of all generations–come from Britain, France, Germany and the United States, and cover the field from the Middle Ages to the most recent developments. The friendly confrontation of points of view and cross-fertilisation which result from such undertakings can only add to our perception of the diversity of that elusive notion in History, “representation”–of working people in Britain and France in this particular instance. Beyond the differences in periods, places and situations, the reader will not fail however to see the “bridges” which recurrently link the various elements in the collection. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-06-01,Natalie Edwards and Christopher Hogarth,"This ""Self"" Which Is Not One: Women’s Life Writing in French",Hardback,978-1-4438-2079-0,34.99,"The “Self” Which is Not One: Women’s Life-Writing in French, assembles articles on women’s life-writing from diverse areas of the Francophone world. It is comprised of nine chapters that discuss female writers from North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean and Europe, in addition to French writers. The idea of the self is currently attracting widespread interest in academia, most notably in the arts and humanities. The development of postmodernism supposes a fragmented “subject” formed from the network of available discourses, rather than a stable and coherent self. Jacques Derrida, for example, wrote that there is no longer any such things as a “full subject,” and Julia Kristeva now insists that the individual is a “subject in process.” The growing importance of psychoanalytic theory, particular in French studies, has also impacted upon this development. The basic tenet of psychoanalytic theory is that the individual is formed of a duality: the conscious and unconscious parts of the self which prevent the individual from ever fully knowing her/himself, and which thus insists upon a plural, incomplete self. Developments in the field of postcolonial studies have also made us aware of different ways of approaching the self in different parts of the world, and eroded the idea of a stable, conscious and complete self. As scholars examine these new ways of approaching the self, autobiography has been the subject of renewed interest. Several academic books have appeared in recent years that study the ways in which autobiographers represent the self as incomplete, evolving and elusive. In particular, a number of books have appeared on the subject of women’s autobiography and female subjectivity, such as works by Sidonie Smith, Julia Watson and Nancy Miller, and several volumes interrogate postcolonial women’s autobiography, such as texts by Françoise Lionnet, Gayatri Spivak, Carole Boyce Davies and Chandra Mohanty. Our volume unites these strands of criticism, by examining ways that female autobiographies write the self as a fragmented, plural construct across the Francophone world. This will be the first book-length study of this important development. This volume will be of interest primarily to students and scholars working in the areas of life-writing, French and Francophone studies, postcolonial studies and gender studies. The volume contributes to multiple areas that are currently garnering substantial interest in academe: postcolonial studies, Francophone studies, gender studies and women’s writing. By comparing works from across the Francophone world, our volume takes a global approach to the genre of autobiography and its inflections by women writers. The “Self” That is Not One in Women’s Autobiography in French therefore represents a timely intervention in several interlinking academic fields and will thus garner substantial interest. ","""This volume is a clearly focused contribution to the growing body of scholarly work on contemporary women's life writing...the volume provides a coherent and stimulating study of nine remarkable women writers who probe the limits of life writing, and whose innovative strategies explore the problem of negotiating and holding together a plural sense of self."" Shirley Jordan, Queen Mary University of London in Modern and Contemporary France Journal, 2011 ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-09-01,Desmond Hosford and Chong J. Wojtkowski,"French Orientalism: Culture, Politics, and the Imagined Other",Hardback,978-1-4438-2318-0,39.99,"In 1798, Napoléon I launched his Egyptian Campaign and opened what has become recognized as the canonic period of French Orientalism, which extends from the late eighteenth through the early twentieth century. As defined by Edward W. Said (Orientalism, 1978), Orientalism is intrinsically Eurocentric and places the Orient in opposition to the European West as the quintessentially foreign Other. In this sense, the Occident supposedly defines itself by gazing at the East as its inverse image and purportedly asserts a geopolitical dominance materially confirmed through imperialism and colonization. Although Europe may cast the Orient as the archetypal Other, this necessarily entails deep conflict since the Orient is also frequently posited as the source of Western civilization, which prohibits the articulation of a complete separation between Europe and the Orient. Nevertheless, according to French Orientalist discourse, the East had fallen into barbarism, inertia, and languished, awaiting the mission civilisatrice by which France undertook a heroic project of universal enlightenment. The canonic approach to Orientalism has drawn much criticism, which calls for re-examining the notion of French Orientalism, broadening the scope of enquiry, and exploring the history and ideological strategies behind French formulations of the Orient from the Middle Ages through the twenty-first century. Such an expanded field of investigation reveals that the canonic Orientalist paradigm is not universally applicable, particularly regarding material from before the late eighteenth century. New theoretical, literary, historical, philosophical, and cultural perspectives provide the opportunity to deploy, question, subvert, and resituate canonic Orientalist theories, revealing the continuing evolution and relevance of French Orientalism as a notion with global stakes and material consequences. Because of its broad scope and variety of theoretical approaches, this volume will interest scholars and students from a wide spectrum of disciplines, including literature, gender studies, history, theater, art history, music, cinema, and cultural studies. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-11-01,Kate Averis and Matthew Moran,Le mensonge: Multidisciplinary Perspectives in French Studies,Hardback,978-1-4438-2496-5,34.99,"This collection of essays considers the political, social, literary and artistic impact of the pervasive dichotomy of truth and lies in the context of French society and culture. A fundamental element of our social existance, the notion of le mensonge underpins how we participate in and respond to all aspects of society, from the political process to the capacity of art, literature and other aesthetic forms to fulfill a representative function. This book explores the ways in which French society and culture is regulated by the overriding oppositional structure of truth and lies, and the impact this has on both collective and individual existence. The theme brings together research from diverse disciplines of the Humanities, from political science to literature, film, music and visual arts, in a work that will be of great relevance to a wide range of students and researchers alike. As such, the theme serves as a means of gaining an insight into the range and scope of research currently being conducted in French studies. The book will be useful as a support text for a range of academic courses including those in the fields of cultural studies, literary studies, political studies and sociology. On a larger scale, it posits the theme’s potential to develop as an independent area of study, and offers a starting point for future academic study devoted to the idea of le mensonge. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-01-01,Scott M. Powers,Evil in Contemporary French and Francophone Literature,Hardback,978-1-4438-2587-0,39.99,"Evil remains a primary source of inquiry in contemporary literature of French expression, even among its most secular writers. In considering French-speaking authors from France, Belgium, the United States, the Maghreb, and Sub-Saharan Africa, this collection delineates a rich international perspective on some of the most disturbing events of our time. Each essay testifies to the urgency expressed in works of fiction to give an account of human catastrophes, from the Shoah and the Rwandan genocide to the terrorist attacks of September 11, and the ongoing oppression of women in Islamic nations. Themes underlying this volume include an investigation into the origins of evil, its representations in writing, and the ethical responsibilities of authors who write on human suffering. Contemporary fiction on evil confronts us with fundamental questions: Can evil be attributed to intentionality, is evil “subconscious,” or is it the result of impersonal forces? Which styles of writing are ethically appropriate or effective for depicting evil? Can we speak of a veritable “poetics of evil” shared by contemporary authors? When does a literary text on evil become “evil”? In providing informed and nuanced answers to these important questions, the scholars engage in crucial theories of psychoanalysis, post-structuralism, and post-modernism, address a number of issues raised by trauma and genocide studies, and draw from critical frameworks in literary theory on testimony, the limits of representing the extreme, and “transgressive” writing. ","“Scott M. Powers has brought together an original and brilliant collection of essays on the representation of evil in contemporary French literary texts by a range of international writers from diverse traditions inside and outside the French Hexagon. Contributors to Evil in Contemporary French and Francophone Literature explore the multi-faceted, complex and often paradoxical nature of this concept from psychological, linguistic and ethical perspectives. The success of the collection can be measured in the way each contributor has identified a different dimension to the concept of evil (evil as necessity, as recuperation of a right, as silence, as (mis)communication, as intentionality, including the tensions in the binary of good and evil) and mapped its respective significance within the literary production of a key novelist. This collection is a living testament to the relevance of evil as a meaningful source of inquiry at the centre of the French literary mindset in the twenty-first century.” —Dr Enda McCaffrey, Reader in French Studies, Nottingham Trent University, UK “Confronting the twentieth century of the Christian Era, a century of horrors and marvels, Scott Powers has assembled a diverse group of young scholars to explore literary representations of evil in the French language, beginning with Jean-Paul Sartre but global in its perspective. Works studied include French, Belgian, Algerian, and Guinean writers, ending with two major chapters on The Kindly Ones, the controversial prize-winning masterpiece of the Franco-American Jonathan Littell, the Holocaust being the prime test for the adequacy of verbal narrative. Urgently relevant for its moral scope, taking into account poststructuralist/postmodern theories, and quite readable, Evil in Contemporary French and Francophone Literature is a book of wisdom, courage, and lucid interpretation.” —Edward K. Kaplan, Brandeis University ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-03-01,Ruth Amar,L’écriture du bonheur dans le roman contemporain,Hardback,978-1-4438-2716-4,39.99,"Through the ages, the pursuit of Happiness has been at the heart of the needs and desires each individual would seek to fulfill, while as a concept, Happiness has always resonated strongly in poetic as well as philosophical, sociological and psychological contexts. But what about Happiness today, in a world dominated by technology, driven by productivity and dictated by efficiency? Does Happiness still feature in contemporary fiction in any significant way? Or has it perhaps gone underground, adopting different guises? Would we still call that “duty of happiness” that Pascal Bruckner saw as “present at the second half of the twentieth century” a relevant force today? Or has it waned perceptibly? The articles brought together in this volume seek to work out answers to these and similar questions, creatively addressing the imminent risks but also eagerly following up the intriguing possibilities one encounters when interrogating Happiness in the contemporary novel. Originally based on an international conference organized at the University of Haifa, Israel, in May 2010, the volume is structured around the axes we found useful as a basis for the various approaches towards Happiness in Europe and the historical and social events that influenced the writing of Happiness as they defined the 20th century and have impacted on the 21st: the Holocaust, the Soviet dystopia, consumerism, postmodernism, “everyday life,” the various as yet unarticulated new modes of life they have given rise to, and so on. A new writing of happiness then? At the very least this volume targets the contemporary novel without wanting to solidify works, instead taking into account the fluctuations Happiness has been subjected to, and the diversity and especially the paradoxes it has created, while we have been keen to preserve a “precise” reading of the texts and have felt compelled to respect and preserve the particular features that make the writings of the authors we focus on stand out. Thème philosophique aussi bien que poétique, sociologique et psychologique, le bonheur s’édifie à la mesure de chacun. « N’est-il pas vrai que, nous autres hommes, nous désirons tous être heureux ? » (Platon). Or dans notre monde actuel dominé par la technique, la recherche à outrance du productif et de l’efficacité, qu’en est-il du bonheur ? Est-il encore présent aux écritures romanesques contemporaines ? Sous quelles formes se présenterait sa recherche ? Ce « devoir de bonheur propre à la deuxième moitié du XXe siècle » dont parle Pascal Bruckner, continue-t-il toujours à être d’actualité ? S’est-il renforcé ou, au contraire, s’est-il affaibli? Le projet d’un questionnement du bonheur dans le roman contemporain comportait de gros risques, mais il offrait en même temps des possibilités stimulantes. A la suite du colloque international organisé à l’université de Haïfa en mai 2010, les textes réunis dans ce livre, cherchent à élaborer des éléments de réponse à ces questions. Le volume offre un état des lieux du bonheur dans le roman depuis 1980 et présente une large diversité d’approches, de définitions, d’interrogations sur l’écriture du bonheur sur trois décennies. Le recueil s’articule autour d’axes qui ont servi de base aux différentes approches du bonheur en Europe et d’événements historiques et sociaux qui ont pu influencer l’écriture du bonheur aux différentes périodes du XXe et XXe siècles, telles que l’Holocauste, la dystopie en Russie, le postmodernisme et le consumérisme, le quotidien, les différents paradoxes du bonheur, les nouveaux modes de vie. Nouvelle écriture du bonheur? Du moins, ce volume vise-t-il le contemporain sans figer les œuvres, tout en tenant compte des fluctuations du sujet, de sa diversité, de ses paradoxes surtout, tout en conservant la lecture précise des textes et en respectant la particularité de l’écriture des auteurs traités. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-05-01,Edith Biegler Vandervoort,Masculinities in Twentieth- and Twenty-first Century French and Francophone Literature,Hardback,978-1-4438-2889-5,44.99,"The study of masculinities and gender identity in contemporary literature is relatively new and, with each year of this millennium, gains momentum. Indeed, as the women’s movement becomes forceful in developing nations, the question of tolerance to gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transvestites undergoes a similar process. At a time when women refuse to be subjected to war crimes, when they begin entering the workforce and realize the need to support their families independently, and when they refuse to remain in abusive marriages or remain silent in countries, where governments ignore their needs, men and women are questioning the meaning of gender in their culture and often seek alternatives to established gender roles. In some countries, this entails organized demonstrations for additional civil rights, while in others, the expression of sexual freedom remains a question of remaining silent or risking public execution. Thanks to the scholarly commitment of its authors, this book examines the range of masculine expression on three continents: Europe, Africa, and the Americas. In this collection, they write about men’s past and present challenges, male friendships, and male immigrants and outcasts. Paralleling the independence movement of France’s former colonies, the goal of this collection is to continue the expression of freedom toward understanding and tolerance of all variances of sexuality. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-06-01,Erika Fülöp and Adrienne Angelo,Cherchez la femme: Women and Values in the Francophone World,Hardback,978-1-4438-2933-5,39.99,"Throughout history, the most fundamental values at the basis of societal organization and culture were determined and sanctified almost exclusively by men—including the values traditionally associated with women, such as corporeal beauty, purity, motherhood, or empathy. However, from ancient times, and increasingly toward the end of the second millennium, women have succeeded in finding ways to overcome such limits and have made their contributions to the revision of values and to the establishment of new ones. Cherchez la femme offers a selection of essays inquiring into the nature of aesthetic, linguistic, cultural, and social values created, informed, or reformed by women in the French-speaking world, as well as studies on how the discourse of (male) power used female figures to strengthen its own position. With topics ranging in time from Semiramis’s ancient legend to today, and in space from Québec to Haiti, metropolitan France, and New Caledonia, the volume shares the richness and fruitfulness of the female perspective in art, culture, theory, and political action. ","“Cherchez la femme . . . [makes] a considerable contribution to feminist literary and cultural studies of France and the French-speaking world. . . . What emerges from the volume is an impressively diverse and historicised understanding of women’s challenges to the accepted views of gender, value and behaviour that have confronted them.” —Margaret Atack, Professor of French, University of Leeds, UK “The book’s strength lies in the way that each of these tightly focused, lucidly argued case studies of women and values opens out onto broader questions . . . whilst providing a wealth of valuable critical work on . . . contemporary French women writers, postcolonial feminism, and significant women writers and fictional figures. . . . From a set of essays so wide-ranging in both theme and period, the editors have performed the valuable task of constructing a coherent, consistently illuminating totality.” —Diana Holmes, Professor of French, University of Leeds, UK “This polyphonic book describes with acute care the various values women embrace in the third wave of feminism in France and in the francophone world. . . . [It] fosters a multifaceted approach to today’s complex state of francophone women’s reconfiguration of the political spaces . . . from which they speak. A welcome set of essays, at once provocative and bearing witness to loss, recovery and women’s new values.” —Florence Martin, Professor of French and Francophone Literature and Film, Goucher College, USA “This comprehensive volume delivers that rarest of combinations, a study equally impressive in both breadth and depth as it explores complexly imbricated constructs of women, value, and the francophone. Both readable and searching, accessible and probing, Cherchez la femme—as its title implies—converts clichés about ‘women,’ ‘values’ and ‘the francophone world,’ even as it obliges us to renounce them, into exhilarating discoveries.” —Margaret E. Gray, Associate Professor of French, Indiana University ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-06-01,"Michaël Abecassis, Gudrun Ledegen and Karen Zouaoui",La francophonie ou l’éloge de la diversité,Hardback,978-1-4438-2934-2,39.99,"The first part of this volume, La Francophonie ou l'éloge de la diversité, is devoted to “Francophone cinema, between Bollywood and Hollywood.” What in particular does Francophone cinema have to offer compared with American or Indian cinema? What more does Francophone cinema have to offer? What genres does it prefer? For what audience? The second part deals with the promotion of diversity in Francophone countries, taking into consideration the cultural aspects of Francophonie in the 21st century, the linguistic description of systems in contact, tracing the historical stages which have led to the creation of this locus of cultural diversity, and focusing finally on university cooperation and Franco-British scientific research. This book brings together contributions by outstanding authors who gathered in Oxford in October 2010 at the Maison française, including: Louis-Jean Calvet: Professor at the University of Provence. In collaboration with the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, he works on language policy, particularly the struggle to maintain linguistic diversity. Bernard Cerquiglini: Rector of the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie. An eminent linguist and specialist on the French language, Bernard Cerquiglini is known as the “Professor” from TV5 Monde’s Merci Professeur! Philippe Lane is the Cultural Attaché at the French Embassy in London. Gudrun Ledegen: Sociolinguist, Lecturer in Linguistics at the Université de la Réunion. She specialises in contact between French and Creole in La Réunion. The discussion is complemented by contributions by Maryse Bray, Karine Chevalier, Anne-Caroline Fiévet, Hélène Gill, Amélie Hien, Gaëlle Planchenault and Alena Podhorná-Polická. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-07-01,Jean-Pierre Boulé and Benedict O’Donohoe,"Jean-Paul Sartre: Mind and Body, Word and Deed",Hardback,978-1-4438-2949-6,39.99,"Jean-Paul Sartre: Mind and Body, Word and Deed celebrates Sartre’s polyvalence with an examination of Sartrean philosophy, literature, and politics. In four distinct yet related sections, twelve scholars from three continents examine Sartre’s thought, writing and action over his long career. “Sartre and the Body” reappraises Sartre’s work in dialogue with other philosophers past and present, including Maine de Biran, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Didier Anzieu. “Sartre and Time” offers a first-hand account by Michel Contat of Sartre and Beauvoir working together, and a “philosophy in practice” analysis by François Noudelmann. “Ideology and Politics” uses Sartrean notions of commitment and engagement to address modern and contemporary politics, including insights into Castro, De Gaulle, Sarkozy and Obama. Finally, an important but neglected episode of Sartre’s life—the visit that he and Beauvoir made to Japan in 1966—is narrated with verve and humour by Professor Suzuki Michihiko, who first met Sartre during that visit and remained in touch subsequently. Taken together, these twelve chapters make a strong case for the continued relevance of Sartre today. ","“This is an impressive collection of essays by two of the UK’s most dedicated Sartre scholars. The questions of embodied consciousness and of words and/as actions are both timely and perennial; that is to say, urgent, in view of the rapid advances of neuroscience, and yet amongst the ‘universal’ issues that philosophy is constantly trying to come to terms with. This work represents a substantial contribution from Boulé and O’Donohoe.” —Christina Howells, Professor of French, Wadham College, Oxford ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-08-01,Melanie Hackney and Aaron Emmitte,"Sexuality, Eroticism, and Gender in French and Francophone Literature",Hardback,978-1-4438-3157-4,34.99,"This study explores the diverse representations of sexuality, eroticism, and gender as expressed in French and Francophone literary thought – both past and present. From Françoise de Graffigny’s epistolary “refusal” of eroticism – to the challenge of nineteenth-century notions of rape in the novels of Emile Zola, Victor Hugo, and Eugène Sue – to desire and eroticism as social taboo in the surrealist works of Georges Bataille and Luis Buñuel – its historical focus demonstrates that issues of sexuality, eroticism, and gender existed at the heart of France’s literary tradition long before they became a staple in its universities. Taking a more contemporary view, it examines the notion of écriture féminine in such authors as Monique Wittig, Anne F. Garréta, Nina Bouraoui, Assia Djebar, and Luce Iragaray, and also challenges accusations of misogyny in the works of Michel Houellebecq. While glimpsing the evolution of, challenges to, and conceptions regarding sexuality, eroticism, and gender, each chapter’s author focuses on language as both the obstacle and catalyst for change. For example, feminist strategies to avoid linguistic gender markers that subvert the phallogocentric paradigm, literary portrayals of rape as a means to affect French penal code, and use of the female body as language demonstrate that these notions are not only shaped by language but that language represents the key to deconstructing and redefining them. Whether picking this up to read about familiar authors such as Hugo and Djebar or discovering Graffigny and Houellebecq for the first time, each chapter promises to shed new light on its subject matter in regards to sexuality, eroticism, and/or gender. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-08-01,Eric Martone,The Black Musketeer: Reevaluating Alexandre Dumas within the Francophone World,Hardback,978-1-4438-2997-7,39.99,"Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Man in the Iron Mask, is the most famous French writer of the nineteenth century. In 2002, his remains were transferred to the Panthéon, a mausoleum reserved for the greatest French citizens, amidst much national hype during his bicentennial. Contemporary France, struggling with the legacies of colonialism and growing diversity, has transformed Dumas, grandson of a slave from St. Domingue (now Haiti), into a symbol of the colonies and the larger francophone world in an attempt to integrate its immigrants and migrants from its former Caribbean, African, and Asian colonies to improve race relations and to promote French globality. Such a reconception of Dumas has made him a major figure in debates on French identity and colonial history. Ten tears after Dumas’s interment in the Panthéon, the time is ripe to re-evaluate Dumas within this context of being a representative of la Francophonie. The French re-evaluation of Dumas, therefore, invites a reassessment of his life, works, legacy, and previous scholarship. This interdisciplinary collection is the first major work to take up this task. It is unique for being the first scholarly work to bring Dumas into the center of debates about French identity and France’s relations with its former colonies. For the purposes of this collection, to analyze Dumas in a “francophone” context means to explore Dumas as a symbol of a “French” culture shaped by, and inclusive of, its (former) colonies and current overseas departments. The seven entries in this collection, which focus on providing new ways of interpreting The Three Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask, The Count of Monte Cristo, and Georges, are categorized into two broad groups. The first group focuses on Dumas’s relationship with the francophone colonial world during his lifetime, which was characterized by the slave trade, and provides a postcolonial re-examination of his work, which was impacted profoundly by his status as an individual of black colonial descent in metropolitan France. The second part of this collection, which is centered broadly around Dumas’s francophone legacy, examines the way he has been remembered in the larger French-speaking (postcolonial) world, which includes metropolitan France, in the past century to explore questions about French identity in an emerging global age. ","“Although Alexandre Dumas remains one of the most popular nineteenth-century authors in the world, surprisingly little serious attention has been given to his works. This collection of essays, the first of its kind in English, offers new critical perspectives on Dumas as a ‘man of color’ and the relevance of his work to an increasingly multicultural society. These essays also focus deserved attention on his lesser-known novel Georges, whose biracial hero combated prejudices still with us today.” – Mary Anne Garnett, Professor of French, University of Arkansas at Little Rock “It is about time that academic scholarship has begun to catch up with Dumas. When one considers the impact of his plays on his contemporaries and the numerous adaptations of his novels to stage and screen over the last century – not only in France but in several other cultures – and the fecundity and range of his imagination, the silence that has greeted his work is both shameful and astounding. At a time when writing about popular culture is in vogue, to omit one of its greatest forces is very puzzling. A hundred and fifty years after Dumas’s death, d’Artagnan and Monte Cristo are still very much alive, but receive less critical attention than Superman and Sherlock Holmes.” – Frank J. Morlock, accomplished translator and 2006 North American Jules Verne Society award recipient ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2012-04-01,Melissa Barchi Panek,The Postmodern Mythology of Michel Tournier,Hardback,978-1-4438-3737-8,34.99,"Michel Tournier defines the supreme mission of a writer to be the creation of a mythology which allows for interaction with his readers, who seem to be losing their critical faculties in our contemporary, postmodern world dominated by consumption and dizzying technological advances. Our contemporary society has changed due to the end of the modern era with its reigning ideologies. Collapsing after the atrocities of the Second World War, Modernity and the artistic and literary reactions referred to as modernism, have likewise been transformed. Myth continues to represent the collectivity of human existence, yet, in the short stories and novels of Michel Tournier, myth represents the collapse of the all-encompassing ideologies inherent to the Modern era. The grand narratives of Modernity such as Christianity and Man’s reason have been deconstructed in the postmodern era. The mythology of Michel Tournier expresses these trends towards the dissolution of Modernity and creates individual, mini narratives which emphasize the particularity of individual existence. Tournier takes established mythical models rooted in Christianity, fables and legends of Western Civilization and re-contextualizes them. Through a semiotic reworking of core binary pairs of a myth, Tournier creates a third-order level of representation which modifies the mythical model. The works of le Roi des Aulnes, Gilles et Jeanne, and Vendredi are illustrious of this third-order level of signification. According to Ferdinand de Saussure, Roland Barthes and Claude Lévi-Strauss, the structural make-up of myth transforms established meanings according to the dominant cultural code. Barthes’ semiological study of myth reveals the levels of representation through which myth creates meaning. Myth builds upon the denotative first-order level of language and through a connotative process, creates a second-order level. This connotative process does not end on this second-order, for in the writings of Tournier, this semiological process is continued to a third-order which re-contextualizes the myth again. Tournier adapts myth to the unique traits of the postmodern era including deconstruction and playfulness by allowing the reader to provide the context of the story. As such we, the reader, take the place as author of our own individual mythology. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2012-07-01,Alix Mazuet,Imaginary Spaces of Power in Sub-Saharan Literatures and Films,Hardback,978-1-4438-3896-2,34.99,"This collection of essays is unlike others in the field of African studies, for it is based on three very precisely delineated focal points: a particular geographical region, the sub-Sahara; specific modes of cultural production, literature and cinema; a concentration on works of French expression. This three-fold approach to exploring the relationships between power and culture in a non-Western environment greatly contributes to making this book unique from a variety of perspectives: African, Francophone and postcolonial studies, just as much as cross-disciplinary, cultural, transnational and diasporic studies. Moreover, the book offers deft and innovative analyses that move beyond the rhetoric of crises on the African continent we so very much and so very often hear of, so as to present a critical reflection on the subject at hand that is specific to the sub-Sahara and at the same time intimately linked to global culture, economy and politics. Our three-fold approach also presupposes that disciplinary compartmentalization increases power conflicts in academia. If only in part, compartmentalization is the result of antagonistic and competitive relations between specialization and multidisciplinary education. To this day, scholars worldwide have not been able to overcome these conflicts. This book is thus a modest attempt at presenting an alternative to excessively fixed and homogeneous academic frontiers while considering that disciplinary expertise remains a must. Keeping in mind that an increasing number of scholars in Anglophone Postcolonial studies and Francophone African studies have been attempting for quite some time now to open interstices and build crossroads that can better connect them to each others, keeping in mind that these scholars work at revealing mechanisms by which any antagonistic discourses can mix, influence, act upon or react to one another, this book seeks to take a constructive step in establishing enduring grounds for multidisciplinary, cross-disciplinary and transnational academic research and collaboration. Finally, if we consider that African studies’ disciplinary boundaries are far from immutable and firmly drawn, this book addresses a glaring lack in popular and scholarly research and analyses of Africa. Indeed, Imaginary Spaces of Power in Sub-Saharan Literatures and Films has the great advantage of addressing in a single publication matters that are geographically and linguistically specific yet matters that have become sources of great concern for a large number of people throughout the world. In this sense, the book will appeal just as much to literary and film critics, anthropologists and ethnographers, political sciences and cultural studies specialists, postcolonial, neocolonial and transnational theorists, as it will to anyone who wants to stay informed about current debates on relationships between power and culture. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing