Matéo Maximoff's La Septième fille: A Roma Testimony of Internment and Assimilation

Set in the internment camp at Lannemezan where the author and his family spent two years, Matéo Maximoff's La Septième fille gives a voice to a minority group that has suffered from negative stereotypes since its arrival in France in the Middle Ages. In that work, Maximoff, the first authentic Roma novelist, blends folklore and oral tradition with historical fact, chronicling the conditions in the camp at Lannemezan even as he spins a supernatural tale worthy of the most gifted of conteurs. Informed by historical sources and ethnographic studies, this article suggests that La Septième fille may be read as a metaphor for the internment of the Roma by the Vichy regime and the policies aimed at ‘socialising’ and forcing them to become sedentary, policies that began during the Third Republic and that continued well into the twentieth century. La Septième fille is one of the rare literary works (along with Didier Daeninckx's La Route du Rom, 2003) to treat the little-known Vichy initiative of interning Roma—the majority of whom were French citizens—in 31 camps around France.     

The Querelle Between Alain Badiou and Éric Marty,Contrasted With Régis Debray's Lettre Ouverte to Élie Barnavi and Barnavi's Response

This article contrasts two major debates in book form on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, so central to French political discussion today—the ‘quarrel’ between Alain Badiou (with Cécile Winter, in Circonstances 3: Portées du mot ‘juif’) and Éric Marty (Une querelle avec Alain Badiou, philosophe), and the debate between Régis Debray and Élie Barnavi (À un ami israélien, by Debray with a response from Barnavi). The Badiou/Marty exchange is hostile and polarised, Badiou arguing strongly against the existence of a separate Israeli state and Marty vehemently in its favour, while À un ami israélien evidences what I describe as Debray's post-Zionism in dialogue with Barnavi's Left Zionism. What emerges from the two exchanges is, it is argued, a taxonomy of attitudes towards Israel substantially more complex than the traditional, and often misleading, polarity between ‘Zionist’ and ‘anti-Zionist’.     

Jules Sion,Alan Grant Ogilvie and the college des Ecossais in Montpellier: A network of geographers

The ‘new geography’ propounded by Vidal de La Blache in the early years of the 20th century was diffused by his protégés in France and abroad. Field classes played a significant role in the process, with the Collège des Ecossais, established by Patrick Geddes at Montpellier, providing an ideal base for British students to study the natural and cultural landscapes of the component pays of southern France. The careers of Jules Sion and Alan Grant Ogilvie are explored in this article, and practical links between French and British geographers are exemplified through experiences of fieldwork in the Languedoc before and after World War II. Networks of professional contact and friendship are vital in understanding how the practice of modern geography has been shaped.     

Ratzel, the French School and the birth of Alternative Geopolitics

Modern French political geography began as a response to Ratzel's Politische Geographie and then became an attempt to place ratzelian ideas into the context of French geographical thought. What then emerged was a political geography which was set firmly in opposition to German geopolitics. There were some geographers who felt that a more effective response could be made by developing an indigenous French geopolitics. This can be seen as being the origin of the alternative geopolitics which was favoured by some American geographers during and after World War II and which subsequently became an important underlying theme in the new geopolitics which arose in the 1970s. The concept of an alternative geopolitics has owed a great deal to the French school of geography and has it roots in the original response of Vidal de la Blache to Ratzel.     

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.     

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).     

Virtual Poaching and Altered Space: Reading Parkour in French Visual Culture

Parkour has emerged in the last decade as a significant cultural practice, both in France, where it originated, and internationally. The cultural resonance of parkour—a form of street gymnastics combining acrobatic agility with a creative approach to urban space—is emphasised through its presence on numerous internet sites, as well as representations in advertising media, the bande dessinée, and films. While the prevalence of parkour as a practice is widely known, these numerous manifestations within culture have not been widely theorised. This article focuses primarily on parkour's representations in visual culture, especially in cinema, and considers the associations made in two films between parkour and the banlieue. Analysing both the legitimacy and potential problems in making the banlieue a stage for parkour performance and big-screen entertainment enables us to reconsider the notion of the film banlieue, as well as the political possibilities of a ‘parkour film’. Lastly, reflecting on the circumstances of contemporary cinema and the role of the internet, the article considers philosophical aspects of the ‘parkour film’, as well as seeking parallels between parkour's spatial practices and the practices of cinematic and online production and distribution.

La dernière décennie a vu apparaître le parkour en tant que pratique culturelle significative, en France, où il a son origine, mais aussi au niveau international. L'impact culturel du parkour – une gymnastique de rue qui unit l'agilité acrobatique à une attitude créative envers l'espace urbain – est souligné par sa présence sur nombre de sites Web, dans la publicité, la bande dessinée, et dans certains films. Alors que la popularité du parkour comme pratique est reconnue, ces représentations culturelles ont suscité moins d'intérêt théorique. Cet article porte sur les représentations du parkour dans la culture visuelle – principalement dans le cinéma – et examine les rapports établis dans deux films entre le parkour et la banlieue. En se demandant s'il est ou légitime ou problématique de se servir de la banlieue comme scène pour la célébration du parkour ou pour les super-productions cinématiques, on peut réexaminer le concept du ‘film banlieue’, et considérer les possibilités politiques d'un ‘film parkour’. Finalement, en réfléchissant sur la situation contemporaine du cinéma et le rôle de l'Internet, l'article considère les aspects philosophiques du film parkour; en même temps, il cherche à établir des correspondances entre les pratiques spatiales du parkour et les pratiques de production et dissémination cinématiques et numériques.     

Indigènes after Indigènes: post-war France and its North African troops

This article focuses on North African soldiers who served in the French army of occupation in western Germany after its liberation in 1945. Taking as its starting point Rachid Bouchareb's 2006 film, Indigènes, the article contrasts claims the film made about the memorial exclusion of the colonial soldier with his surprising centrality to French accounts of their own military exploits. Using publications issued by the army for its internal readership and archival records of the military occupation's day-to-day activities, the author argues for a modified understanding of the French Republican notion of assimilation that is able to take account of the prolific representation of the North African soldier, and his accommodation, in Cold War Germany.     

In visibilities: the Groupe du 6 novembre and the production of liberal lesbian identity in contemporary France

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the little-known contributions of a Paris-based activist group of self-identified lesbians of colour, the Groupe du 6 novembre, which formed in 1999. Their self-published anthology, entitled Warriors/Guerrières, contests the racism of French feminist and LGBT community and culture and examines sexual minority visibility through an intersectional lens. This anthology was unfortunately contested and all but censored by organisations that purportedly sought to promote lesbian culture and self-expression. The Groupe du 6 novembre’s erasure is symptomatic of the ways in which the seemingly laudable aim of combating lesbian invisibility—within both scholarship and activism—can actually serve to marginalise racialised lesbians. Through close readings of the Groupe’s poetry and prose and documentation of their history, this article will argue that dominant conceptions of lesbian sexual identity are imbued with liberal racism and Republican universalism. At a time of increasing concern that certain forms of feminist and LGBT politics are being co-opted by the State to racist ends, the Groupe du 6 novembre constitutes an essential chapter in French feminist history and literature.     

Herbert Morrison's London Labour Party in the Interwar Years and the SPD: Problems of Transferring German Socialist Practices to Britain

Herbert Morrison's rebuilding of the London Labour Party (LLP) in the interwar years was consciously modelled on the organizational success of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), which Morrison knew and admired from several visits before and after the First World War. The article discusses what aspects of the SPD's organization Morrison tried to transfer to the British capital and why his considerable success in transforming the LLP German-style had its limits. Morrison not only aimed to build an efficient electoral machine, but he also wanted to copy the SPD's vast cultural and educational associations, which catered for Social Democrats ‘from cradle to grave’. However, as the article suggests, differences in political culture between Britain and Germany impacted significantly on Morrison's efforts. A more developed and more vibrant mass culture as well as the greater gulf between labour movement culture and working-class culture in Britain undermined the successful transfer of German party-political models. Other factors, such as the different organization of party funding, the different organization of civil society in Britain and Germany and the lack of a federal tradition in Britain also help to explain the limited success of this instance of political transfer.

Re´sume´:?La reconstruction par Herbert Morrison du London Labour Party (LLP) durant l'entre-deux-guerres se modela sur le succès du parti social démocrate allemand (SPD), que Morrison connaissait et admirait depuis ses visites avant et après la première guerre mondiale. Cet article se penche sur ce que Morrison voulut transférer du SPD et sur les limites de ce transfert pourtant plutôt réussi dans la transformation du LLP à l'allemande. Morrison souhaitait créer une machine électorale puissante mais il voulait aussi copier les organisations culturelles du SPD qui entouraient les démocrates sociaux du berceau à la tombe. Cependant, comme l'article le suggère les différences dans la culture politique impactèrent sur les efforts de Morrison. Une culture populaire plus développée ainsi qu'un plus grand écart entre la culture populaire et le parti travailliste en Grande Bretagne s'opposaient au transfert des modèles allemands. De plus une organisation différente du financement du parti ainsi que l'organisation différente de la culture civique et l'absence de culture fédérale jouèrent pour limiter cet exemple de transfert politique.     

Hats,Hotels, Mayhem and Marx: Film,Theatre and the Cinematic Collaborations of the Groupe Octobre, 1932–1936

The Groupe Octobre, an agit-prop theatre group formed in April 1932 and disbanded in summer 1936, holds a mythical place in French film history. Though the primary activities of this troupe were theatrical, it provided the formative ground for cinema actors, screen-writers, directors, set designers, and film musicians, reflecting the close relationship between film and theatre which had evolved throughout the silent period. However, the coming of sound in 1928–29 opened up new debates surrounding this relationship, notably with regard to the critically despised genre of ‘filmed theatre’. This article proposes to look at two cinematic collaborations of the Groupe Octobre, L'Affaire est dans le sac (P. Prévert, 1932) and L'Hôtel du libre échange (M. Allégret, 1934), to examine how the group's contribution—coming from the distinctly alternative tradition of revolutionary workers' theatre yet also performing in mainstream films—reflects a more fruitful and diverse relationship between theatre and film in the early 1930s than has generally been critically acknowledged hitherto.

Le groupe Octobre, une troupe théâtrale formée en avril 1932 et qui s'est dissoute pendant l'été 1936, occupe une place mythique dans l'histoire du cinéma français. La plupart des activités de la troupe se déroulaient sur scène; mais le groupe a néanmoins joué un rôle formateur pour de nombreux acteurs, scénaristes, réalisateurs, musiciens et décorateurs de cinéma, reflétant ainsi les liens étroits qui s'étaient formés entre le cinéma et le théâtre pendant la période du muet. L'arrivée du parlant en 1928-29 a été à l'origine de nouveaux débats autour de cette relation, notamment à l'égard du ‘théâtre filmé’ – genre qui suscitait le mépris de bien des critiques. Cet article analyse deux collaborations cinématographiques du groupe Octobre, L'Affaire est dans le sac (P. Prévert, 1932) et L'Hôtel du libre échange (M. Allégret, 1934), afin d'examiner comment la contribution du groupe – venant de la tradition non-conventionnelle du théâtre ouvrier et révolutionnaire mais en même temps participant dans des films traditionnels – indique une relation entre le théâtre et le cinéma du début des années trente plus fructueuse et diverse que celle que l'on a décrite jusqu'à présent.     

La Psychologie des Peuples et Ses Applications Durant L’Entre-Deux-Guerres

Résumé  La psychologie des peuples a connu un grand succès dans les années 1930 dans les milieux les plus divers: sur les bancs de l’Université, tant des facultés de lettres que de celles de médecine, comme dans le monde colonial. Elle demeure imprégnée des postulats raciologiques du siècle précédent: hérédité raciale, influence du milieu géographique et du climat dans la formation des caractères nationaux, représentation inégalitaire de la différence et ses usages politiques ont été manifestes dans le domaine de la politique coloniale. Les enseignements de la psychologie ethnique ont, en effet, eu des applications directes dans la politique scolaire à travers la mise en place d’un enseignement rudimentaire et à tendance ségrégationniste qui a réduit considérablement les ambitions de la mission civilisatrice. Carole Reynaud Paligot, née en 1966, est actuellement boursière de la Fondation pour la mémoire de la Shoah. Ses recherches portent sur l’histoire des pensées raciales et l’histoire des intellectuels aux xix ^e et xx ^e siècles. Elle a notamment publié Parcours politiques des surréalistes 1919–1969 (Paris, CNRS éditions, 1995), La République raciale 1860–1930. Paradigme racial et idéologie républicaine, préfacé par Christophe Charle (Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 2006) et Races, racisme et antiracisme dans les années 1930 (Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 2007).     

New departures: Re‐reading the Occupation in the 1990s

Morris, A., Collaboration and Resistance Reviewed: Writers and the Mode Rétro in Post‐Gaullist France (Berg French Studies Series, 1992), 200pp., £35.00, ISBN 2 08496 634 X

Muller, A., La Petite Fille du Vel d'Hiv (Denoël, 1991), 116pp., 75F., ISBN 2 207 23826 1

Ramond, M., L'Occupation (Editions des Femmes, 1991), 205pp., 92F., ISBN 2 7210 0400 X     

Narratives of resistance in Marc Bloch's L'E´trange De´faite

Marc Bloch's L'E´trange De´faite is a fundamental text of the French Resistance, a narrative about the will and means to resist in a society that seemed to have defeated itself. Bloch's belief that resistance began with a critique of French social and political culture made L'E´trange De´faite a therapeutic work for Bloch himself, as he wrote it in 1940, and for the French when it was first published in 1946. The core of the work is Bloch's effort to think as a historian about change in order to counter the paralysing effects of the traumatic memory of the First World War in France. It is a romantic text as well because the assertion of a new French identity, a goal shared by all internal French resistance movements, was an unrealised dream when Bloch wrote in 1940 and therefore could not yet be betrayed, as many of his Resister readers already thought was happening when L'E´trange De´faite appeared in 1946.     

Self-Government in a Republic of 325 Million: Distracting Anachronism or Worthy Aspiration?

What do modern Americans mean when they say they believe in self-government—or do they mean anything at all? This article attempts to offer a reasonable, realistic expectation of what self-government can be in an extended republic of 325 million citizens characterized by a highly developed division of labor and intense specialization. It argues that if self-government is taken too literally, it becomes an impossible ideal likely to promote cynicism. On the other hand, if self-government is dismissed as an anachronism, the resulting technocratic government is likely to become irresponsible and illegitimate. Representative government offers the best middle way, but our practice of it must be repaired and defended against critics.     

‘My Body was Aflame with His Memory’: War,Gender and Colonial Ghosts in Hiroshima mon amour (1959)

This article argues that historicising the iconic 1959 French film Hiroshima mon amour reveals a different set of meanings that most scholars have overlooked. As France found itself embroiled in the brutal and bloody Algerian War of Independence, many started reflecting on the meaning and aftereffects of the Second World War. Despite its anti‐colonial universalist humanism, Hiroshima remains haunted by colonial ghosts and fantasies of post‐war ‘Asia’ where Asian female bodies are passive and Asian male bodies only echo other European male bodies. Ultimately, sexual and racial differences organise the film's narrative of war and canonises a Eurocentric version of ‘history’. The film's melodramatic love story renders invisible the ways gender and sexuality shape understandings of violence, wars, and violated bodies. Against Marguerite Duras's and Alain Resnais's intentions, the love story allows the remembering and forgetting of a (French) national history that only the female character embodies. Only the French woman stands in for subjectivity, memory and trauma, rendering everything else secondary. Once read as a historical text, the film illustrates the limits and ambivalences of post‐war anti‐colonial humanist political imagination.     

Neurology and Literature, 1860–1920 by Anne Stiles (ed.)

Abstract

Research from many perspectives has been made on the work of the French neurologist, J.‐M. Charcot (1825–1893) with particular reference to his fame for his studies and “construction”; of hysteria. What has not been demonstrated so far is the extent to which Charcot's construction can be explained by the perceived relationship between hysteria and epilepsy and Charcot's access to epileptic patients at La Salpêtrière. From the confusion that reigned concerning hysteria and epilepsy, both separately and in relation to each other, Charcot claimed to have isolated hysteria as a distinctive and universal pathology. This claim was partly based on the “grande attaque”;, representing the most intense degree of hysteria. A comparison with Gowers, the contemporary English neurologist suggests that diagnosis was the function of the practitioners’ preferences; and a linguistic analysis pinpoints Charcot's problems in describing an isolated pathology in terms of its relation to its neighbour, epilepsy.     

BALANCED TRUTH: STEVEN SPIELBERG'S SCHINDLER'S LIST AMONG HISTORY,MEMORY, AND POPULAR CULTURE1

Looking at the public reaction to it, one might say that Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List is undoubtedly the most successful film about the Holocaust. The film's success in the U.S. and other Western countries can be traced back mainly to the fact that it creates the impression of telling a true, apparently authentic, story. This essay investigates how this impression of historical truth and authenticity emerges in a fiction film. For this purpose the essay reverts to a concept developed by Jörn Rüsen, which distinguishes among three dimensions of historical culture, namely political, aesthetic, and cognitive. In addition to the historical context that serves as a specific precondition for the film's success, the essay primarily investigates the strategies of authentication Spielberg applied at both the visual and narrative levels. The investigation concludes that the impression of evidence produced by the movie is significantly a result of the sophisticated balancing of the three dimensions mentioned above. The film utilizes artifacts of an existing and increasingly transnational (visual) memory for the benefit of a closed, archetypical narrative. It follows the aesthetic and artistic rules of popular narrative cinema, and largely recurs to conventions of representation that were common in film and television programs of the 1990s. Although these forms condense the historical course of events, the film manages to stay close to insights gained by historiography. The hybrid amalgamation of history and memory, and of the imaginary and the real, as well as the combination of dramaturgies of popular culture with an instinct for what can (not) be shown—all of these factors have helped Schindler's List to render a representation of the founding Holocaust myth in Western societies that can be sensually experienced while being emotionally impressive at the same time.     

The future of Poland, 1914–1917: France and Great Britain in the Triple Entente

Abstract

THE POLISH QUESTION — whether, and if so how and in what form, to recreate an independent Polish state — was one of the most vexing problems that faced European diplomats during the First World War. Believing that aroused Polish patriotism could be a powerful weapon against the Central Powers, yet fearing that support for Polish national aspirations would alienate their Russian ally and fracture the Triple Entente, British and French statesmen had to decide whether they could include the recreation of Poland among their war aims without jeopardizing the Entente, and hence the chances of victory. Given their different strategic priorities, the French and the British gave different answers.