Culture or politics

Furet, F., and Ozouf, M., eds., Terminer la révolution; Mounier et Barnave dans la révolution française (Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, 1990), 181pp., 98F., ISBN 7 06 10391 4

Furet, F., Ozouf, M., eds., The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture: Vol. 3. The Transformation of Political Culture 1789–1848 (Pergamon Press, 1989), 693pp., £80, ISBN 0 080 324260 4     

Recent publications

Bilan économique et sociale de la France La Documentation française, 1997, 156pp., 75F., ISBN 2 11 00 3901 9

CROZET Y. et al., Les grandes questions de l'économie française, Nathan, 1997, 352pp., 125 F., ISBN 2 09 190367 1

DELBO, C., Convoy to Auschwitz: Women of the French Resistance, Northwestern University Press, 1997, 220pp., £23.50, ISBN 1 55553 313 2

DOLAMORE, S. M., French Autobiographical Writing 1900–1950, Grant and Cutler, 1997, 425pp., £32.50, ISBN 0 7293 0396 9

FRAISSE, R. et FOUCAULD, J.‐B., de (eds), La France en prospectives, Odile Jacob, 1996 402pp., 140F., ISBN 2 7381 0426 6

HAALAND MATLARY, J., Energy Policy in the European Union, Macmillan, 1997, 174pp., £12.99 pbk, ISBN 0 333 64349 6

MINISTÈRE DES AFFAIRES ETRANGÈRES, Cent ans de cinéma français. Brève histoire du cinéma français 1960–1990, Ministère des Affaires étrangères, 1996 207pp., 55F., ISBN 2 9111 2735 8

POMIER, N. (ed.), French Correspondence, Oxford University Press, 1997, 158pp., £4.99, ISBN 0 19 860010 0

ROBERTS, J. M., The French Revolution, Oxford University Press, 1997, 180pp., £8.99, ISBN 0 19 289292 4

SCHOR, R., La France dans la Première Guerre mondiale, Nathan, 1997, Collection 128 128pp., 49FF., ISBN 2 09 190381 7

Tableaux de l'Économie Française 1997–1998, INSEE, 1997, 200pp., 79 F.     

The vague nouvelle and the Nouvelle Vague: The Critical Construction of le jeune cinéma français

One of the commonplaces in critical writing on the 1990s movement known as le jeune cinéma français is the idea that it constituted a new ‘New Wave’. At the same time, the critical reception of the 1990s and 1960s ‘new waves’ could not be more different, with le jeune cinéma français being seen invariably as aesthetically inferior to its 1960s ‘antecedent’. This article examines the two key discursive mechanisms used to link le jeune cinéma français to the Nouvelle Vague, those of political commitment and ‘auteur’ cinema. It is argued that the mechanisms used to construct le jeune cinéma français as a distinct cinematic category become increasingly divorced from the kinds of films actually being made and that it is this discursive disjuncture which is, in part, responsible for its negative critical reception.     

L'écologisme français entre présent évanescent et avenir incertain

This article reviews the factors determining whether the ecology movement in France has been a success or a failure. Broadly speaking the French ecology move ment - l'écologisme français - came into existence to fulfil a dual ambition. First, through its incursion into the political arena - an incursion initially thought of as temporary - its purpose was to force other political parties and public bodies to pay greater attention to environmental issues. Second, in the swirl of ideas following May 1968, its ambition was to become a 'politics of the future': among other things, it would strive to displace the other parties and undermine or redefine the traditional divide between the Left and Right. These and other concerns are analysed in order to assess what role 'ecologism' plays in France today. This article is based on the author's latest book, L'introuvable écologisme français (PUF, 2000).     

Spirituality,Politics, and the Maistrian Moment: Reflections on Themes from The French Idea of History

The French Idea of History: Joseph de Maistre and His Heirs, 1794–1854 (Cornell, 2011) is a monograph by Carolina Armenteros describing the historical thought of Joseph de Maistre (1753–1821) and recounting its posterity among French traditionalist, socialist and positivist thinkers. This article presents Armenteros's reflections on some of her book's themes and on the place they occupy in current scholarly debates. She notes that commentators today tend to assume politics' primacy over spirituality as a human motivator. A product of the de-spiritualisation of human experience in late modernity, this view is associated with the polarisation of the concepts of tradition and Enlightenment, and with ideas of liberty and reason ill-adapted to interpreting Maistre's thought. Armenteros shows how her portrait of an anti-absolutist, empiricist and reasonable Maistre disappointed with kings and bent on resolving the problem of violence through spiritual means is the necessary consequence of investigating his historical and political thought in context.     

Only Muslim: Embodying Islam in Twentieth-Century France

Apollinaire, G., Alcools, trans. Donald Revell (University Press of New England, 1995), 171pp., £20.50 hbk., ISBN 0 8195 2224 4, £10.75 pbk, ISBN 0 8195 1228 1

Bredin, J.‐D., L'Affaire (Fayard/Julliard, 1993), 856pp., 198F.

Burac, R., Charles Péguy. La révolution et lagrâce (Laffont, 1994), 347pp., 139F.

Freeman, E.T., Rostand: Cyrano de Bergerac (Glasgow Introductory Guides 34, 1995 76pp., £3.95, ISBN 0 85261 467 5

French Pocket Dictionary, English‐French, French‐English (Harrap, 1995), 712pp., £6.99, ISBN 0 245 60575 4

INSEE, L'Economie française (Librairie générale française, 1995), 282pp., ISBN 2 253 90520 8

Lloyd, H., Bonjour Tristesse (Glasgow Introductory Guides to French Literature 35, 1995), 60pp., £3.95, ISBN 0 85261 469 1

Raymond, J., Eluard (Seuil, 1995), 220pp., ISBN 2 02 023561 7

School French Dictionary (Larousse, 1994), 480pp., £5.50, ISBN 2 03 401761 7

Soulez‐Larivière, D., L'Avocature (Seuil, 1995), 350pp., 140F., ISBN 2 02 023510 2     

Secularism Meets Coloniality: Mariategui's Andean Political Theology

This article seeks to clarify the link between Mariategui's political theology and his critique of modern-secular-coloniality. I argue that understanding the place and the significance of Mariategui's critique of secularism/colonialism helps us grasp the fuller extent of Mariategui's thought, a pioneering critic of modernity in the early twentieth century who keenly understood the limits of modern-liberal framework for analyzing the political problems of Latin America. Mariategui's reading of Marx and revolution raises important challenges to various forms of twenty-first-century political theologies that tackle modernity from within Western liberal modernity (postmodern theories and philosophies). Mariategui offers important insights not only for critics of the secular and modernity who fail to attest to the important question of coloniality from which secularism/modernity must be disentangled, but also for critics of colonialism/coloniality who fail to view religion as the key fabric of coloniality.     

The Newer New Life: A.S. Byatt,E. Nesbit and Socialist Subculture

This article considers the political implications of Victorian language-study for Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution (1837) (reprinted and edited by K.J. Fielding and David Sorensen (Oxford: Oxford World's Classics, 1989)). I investigate how Carlyle responded to the scientific study of language with what he termed a ‘bodied word’, a reading of language based in the word-become-flesh or the doctrine of the Incarnation. I show how this bodied word reflects wider changes in modern conceptions of the polity in the wake of the French Revolution, in the shift from a hereditary body politic towards what critics have termed a ‘social body’ or a more broadly inclusive model that incorporates the working classes. I then offer a reading of The French Revolution to show how Carlyle's French history was crucial to the linguistic and conceptual production of this liberal notion of the social body, even as he worked both to acknowledge and contain its political agency.     

Balancing the Constitution: Bicameralism in Post-revolutionary France, 1814–31

After the defeat of Napoleon, representative institutions were introduced in many European states. In France, as in other countries, this new institution was modelled on the English example: a bicameral legislature with an elective and a hereditary chamber. However, the Chamber of Peers failed to live up to its model: it soon became clear that it did not behave as an independent, aristocratic chamber capable of holding the balance between the king and the popular Chamber. Restoration liberals concluded on the basis of this failure that the English political model was simply unsuitable for a levelled society such as that in post-revolutionary France. In 1831, the hereditary Chamber of Peers was abolished. The experience of the French with the Chamber of Peers therefore seems to confirm the idea of a French ‘Sonderweg’ developed by historians such as François Furet and Pierre Rosanvallon. However, it should be noted that even after 1831 the idea of a balance as such did not disappear from French political culture. French publicists suggested that the balanced constitution of the English could be imitated in France in different ways, without necessitating the creation of an aristocratic institution. Thus, the example of the French Chamber of Peers shows that institutional transfers had an important impact on French political culture.

résumé: Après la défaite de Napoléon, des institutions représentatives furent introduites dans beaucoup d'états européens. En France comme dans d'autres pays, la nouvelle institution fut modelée sur le modèle britannique du bicaméralisme avec une chambre élue et une chambre héréditaire. Cependant la chambre des pairs ne réussit pas à imiter son modèle. Il devint rapidement évident qu'elle ne représentait pas une aristocratie indépendante capable de servir de lien entre la chambre et le roi. Les libéraux de la restauration conclurent de cet échec que le modèle britannique ne correspondait pas à une société nivelée comme la France post-révolutionnaire. En 1831 la chambre des pairs hereditaire fut abolie. Cette expérience de la chambre des pairs semble confirmer l'idée d'une exception française telle que François Furet et Pierre Rosanvallon la décrive. Cependant l'idée ne disparut pas et cette notion d'équilibre resta dans le discours politique français. Les publicistes Français suggérèrent qu'une constitution équilibrée puisse être imitée sans une institution aristocratique. Cet exemple montre à quel point les transferts institutionnels eurent un impact dans la culture politique française.     

The grotesque in the plays of Enda Walsh

This article attempts to outline the aesthetic of Enda Walsh's dramatic oeuvre, viewing it as fundamentally grotesque. Plays such as The New Electric Ballroom, The Walworth Farce, and Penelope have generally enjoyed a most enthusiastic reception; however, reviewers and critics have remained largely baffled as to where exactly these intoxicating pieces have left them. A plausible way of addressing the distinctive combination of citationality, the intermingling of genres, linguistic brilliance, circuitous structure, pathological interaction between characters, and the darkest humour, may consist in juxtaposing Walsh's technique with concepts of the grotesque as outlined, alternately, by Mikhail Bakhtin and Wolfgang Kayser. The consequent observations on the grotesque in Walsh's plays are followed by a query as regards the moral dimension of Walsh's aesthetic, focusing on their position in relation to Bakhtin's assertion of the liberating potential of the grotesque as opposed to Kayser's insistence on the grotesque coming across as essentially bleak and hopeless.     

L'éternel retour de la transcendance

This article reflects on the feminist potential of a contemporary form of French female cinema stardom that John Orr (2004) names ‘free-fall’. According to Orr, free-fall is a genre of female stardom that has come to prominence in French cinema at the end of the twentieth century and the start of the twenty-first. The free-fall star embarks on a journey of ‘ontological descent’, self-destruction and Kristevan abjection, but we cannot know her reasons for such actions. This article considers the gendered implications of the free-fall star with reference to her portrayal and modification of past French literary heroines in the genre of heritage cinema. It considers her presence in two film adaptations of Gustave Flaubert's literary ?uvre: Madame Bovary (Chabrol, 1991) with Isabelle Huppert, and Un C?ur simple (Laine, 2008) with Sandrine Bonnaire. The mystique of the free-fall star-text potentially challenges a modernist construction of femininity as the lowbrow Other of highbrow pioneering, but its feminist credentials cannot simply be taken for granted.     

The Political Transfer of English Parliamentary Rules in the French Assemblies (1789–1848)

France has often been perceived as the most resilient country to political transfers from abroad. This view does not withstand close scrutiny and political realities tell a different story. This article argues for a reinterpretation of the role of political transfers in modern French political life (since 1789). Through the study of the introduction of rules inspired by the British parliamentary system, this article seeks to show that transfers did take place and gave rise to controversy. The July Monarchy represents the best example. There was an effective transfer but the resistance to this transfer was also very effective. This resistance shows the structural specificity of the French parliamentary system. Political transfers are thus double edged: it is simultaneously an import into a system and a way of reorganizing the system that modifies the nature of the transfer (in this instance the ‘recipes’ of the British parliament).

Résumé La France a souvent été vue comme le pays du refus de toute importation politique venue de l'étranger. Mais, une telle idée appartient plus au monde des représentations (que les Français ont abondamment nourri) qu'au domaine de la réalité politique. Cet article plaide pour une réévaluation du rôle tenu par les transferts politiques dans la vie politique française moderne (à partir de 1789). A travers l'étude de l'introduction de règles inspirées du modèle parlementaire britannique, l'article tente de démontrer que les transferts ont été à la fois effectifs et sujets à de très fortes controverses. La période de la monarchie de Juillet, de ce point de vue, offre un exemple remarquable. Le transfert eut bien lieu (la publicité des votes principalement) mais la résistance opposée à ce transfert fut elle aussi très efficace. Cette résistance est un révélateur des spécificités structurelles du parlementarisme français. Un transfert politique se révèle donc ici ambivalent: il est à la fois un phénomène d'importation à l'intérieur d'un système d'accueil (ici, la monarchie de Juillet) et une forme de recomposition de ce système qui vient modifier à son tour la nature initiale du transfert (ici, les ‘recettes’ du parlementarisme britannique).     

New countryside,old peasants? Politics,tradition and modernity in rural France

Since the publication of the volume Rural Studies in Britain and France (1990) by P. Lowe and M. Bodiguel, ‘la ruralitéfrançaise’ has become the object of intense scrutiny and has emerged as a political field where questions of national and collective identity, traditions, history, landscapes, the past and future of French society have all been debated. In the introduction to that volume, the editors declared: ‘The countryside and rural society, their past, present and future, are major preoccupations in Britain and in France. The urbanisation of the two nations has in no way diminished this interest; if anything, it has sharpened it. With the bulk of economic and social activity concentrated in towns and cities, the countryside has come to embody largely a cultural interest in both countries’, something that has been borne out by recent events. This special issue devoted to ‘Politics, tradition and modernity in rural France’ is the first issue of Modern & Contemporary France to be dedicated to a discussion of topics surrounding la question agricole. The recent publication of a short dossier on French agriculture in the journal French Politics, Society and Culture pointed the way to a number of the debates examined in the following articles about the past and the future of rural France, especially in the context of a more globalised and Europeanised economy.     

Celebrating Literature to Shape Citizenship: France's 2007 ‘Lire en fête’

Each year since 1989, France has celebrated Lire en fête, a literary festival initiated by then Minister of Culture Jack Lang. Like other national festivals created during the 1980s, such as La Fête de la musique and La Fête du cinéma, Lire en fête provides entertainment, but also directly relates to government democratisation efforts. This article analyses the 2007 version of Lire en fête, focusing on primary documents such as the Dossier de presse and the official website, and suggests that the French government uses this festival to increase public engagement in French society and to encourage responsible citizenship, in part by fostering the development of a literate public sphere.

Chaque année depuis 1989 la France célèbre Lire en fête, une fête littéraire lancée par Jack Lang qui à l'époque était Ministre de la Culture. Comme tant d'autres fêtes nationales créées pendant les années 80, telles que la Fête de la musique et la Fête du cinéma, Lire en fête est un divertissement, mais est aussi liée directement aux efforts du gouvernement de démocratiser la culture. Cet article analyse l'édition 2007 du festival, en se concentrant sur des sources comme le Dossier de presse et le site Internet officiel, et suggère que le gouvernement français utilise cette fête pour augmenter l'engagement public de la société française ainsi que pour encourager les citoyens à être des citoyens responsables, en partie en favorisant le développement d'une sphère publique instruite et cultivée.     

Illusions of revolution: François Furet's critique of Marx

In this article it will be argued that François Furet's attempt in Interpreting the French Revolution to provide a conceptual history of the French Revolution through a synthesis of Tocqueville and Cochin's historical and sociological accounts fails methodologically. It does so in two ways: Firstly, in its aim to distinguish between conceptual, explanatory history and empirical, narrative history, and secondly, in its distinction between revolution as process and revolution as act. Drawing on Claude Lefort and Paul Ricoeur's interventions in the historiographical debate, I demonstrate that these seemingly methodological concerns, conceal a deeper historical and political question concerning the nature of the ‘event’ of revolution. In response to Furet's oblique turn to Hegel in his later work, this article traces the nature of the ‘conceptual inversion’ Furet claims to find in Hegel and Marx's accounts of the French Revolution. In relation to Marx, it is argued that Furet's critique fails to capture the allegorical nature of the political in Marx's thought, and underplays the significance of revolution as the basis for both the separation of the social and the political and their attempted unity. The article ends with some remarks on the importance of language and culture in rethinking the relationship between Hegel and Marx.     

Book Reviews and Short Notices

De Villiers, P., La Chienne qui miaule (Albin Michel, 1990), 219 pp., 85F., ISBN 2 226 04131 1

De Villiers, P., Notre Europe sans Maastricht (Albin Michel, 1992), 156 pp., 80F., ISBN 2 226 06135 5

De Villiers, P., Avant qu'il ne soit trop tard (Albin Michel, 1993), 244pp., 89F., ISBN 2 226 06159 2

De Villiers, P., La Société de connivence ou comment faire avaler des serpents à sonnette (Albin Michel, 1994), 181 pp., 89F., ISBN 2 226 06918 6

De Villiers, P., Dictionnaire du politiquement correct à la française (Albin Michel, 1996), 201 pp., 89F., ISBN 2 226 08555 6     

Reviews/Comptes rendus

Book reviewed in this article: City Politics in Canada, edited by Warren Magnusson and Andrew Sancton City People: The Rise of Modern City Culture in Nineteenth-Century America, by Gunther Barth Newfoundland Discovered: English Attempts at Colonisation 1610–1630, edited by Gillian T. Cell Integration and Division: Geographical Perspectives on the Northern Ireland Problem, edited by Frederick W. Boal and J. Neville H. Douglas National Separatism, edited by Colin H. Williams Computer-Assisted Cartography: Principles and Prospects, by Mark S. Monmonier The Computer in Contemporary Cartography (Progress in Contemporary Cartography, Volume 1), edited by D.R. Fraser Taylor Cartographic Drawing with Computers (special issue, Computer Applications, volume 8), by P. Yoeli , Department of Geography, University of Nottingham Innovation Diffusion: A New Perspective, by Lawrence A. Brown Du Continent perdu à i archipel retrouvé: le Québec et I'Amérique française, publié sous la direction de Dean R. Louder et Eric Waddell     

The everyday poetics of gender-inclusive French: strategies for navigating the linguistic landscape

ABSTRACT

In recent years, the heightened debate surrounding gender inclusivity in the French language has been shaped, on the one hand, by the publication of guidebooks on inclusive writing and communication and, on the other hand, by the Académie française’s scathing critique of écriture inclusive in October 2017. This article provides an overview of this debate and the variety of gender-inclusive linguistic strategies currently in use. It gives particular attention to the expression of non-binary gender identities in French, notably through the growing usage of the third-person subject pronoun iel. Given the need for practical solutions, especially for educators working to support non-binary individuals learning French as a second language, the author argues for sustained engagement with everyday poetics. This approach draws on neologisms like iel (which stretch the boundaries of French grammar) and circumlocutions (structures that avoid gendering people while still remaining within the constraints of standard French). The author analyses Anne Garréta’s 1986 novel Sphinx alongside the 2015 English translation to reveal the possibilities as well as the limitations of circumlocution for the genderless/non-binary protagonists, while highlighting literature’s potential to activate language users to participate in alternative linguistic networks that contribute to a more just world.     

‘The Scars of War’. Displacement,Dislocation and the Aircrew of the Forces aériennes françaises libres 1940–44: Towards a Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis

This article examines the processes of displacement and dislocation for the aircrew that came together in 1940–42 to form the Forces aériennes françaises libres (FAFL). It uses quantitative and qualitative methodologies to examine the background and motivations of the men of the FAFL. It also seeks to utilise current understandings about the French right in examining the political impulses of Free French pilots. The article concludes with some suggestions about the long term significance on French life of the displacements and dislocations of 1940–42.     

Jean Renoir,The Rules of the Game,Reputation, and Revisionism

Jean Renoir's film La Règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game) was first shown in Paris, in 1939, and is now generally regarded as one of his masterpieces. But there is a strange side to the film. What most critics and reference books say concerning it—and they tend to say much the same thing—does not, to put it bluntly, square with the facts. What they say is that La Règle du jeu is about an aristocratic house-party that is a microcosm of the corruptness and exhaustion of French society on the eve of World War II. Far from perceiving in La Règle du jeu evidence of the “corruption” and “exhaustion” in French society that led to the country's defeat and occupation by the Germans during World War II, however, the author of this essay attempts to see the film for what it is—not for what historicist critics want it to be.