THE 20TH-CENTURY REVOLUTION IN TEXTILE MACHINES AND PROCESSES. PART 2: TEXTURED YARNS AND OTHER TECHNOLOGIES

Abstract

This is the second of a two-part study on the archaeology and technological development of the machine textile industry in the 20th century. The previous paper, Part 1 (IAR, 35·2), described the changes in two long-established textile technologies: the production of yarns from short fibres such as cotton and wool; and the weaving of fabrics. The main part of this paper describes completely new technologies that resulted from the manufacture of new continuous filament yarns. Other technologies are also mentioned.     

La Parité en débat au-delà de Versailles

Referring mainly to texts published after the passage of the constitutional bill on gender parity in politics, this article asks theoretical questions about how French intellectuals understand the issue of 'women and politics'. It raises questions about 'differentialism' and 'discrimination', two notions that keep recurring in critiques of parity. By continuously emphasising the differentialism of parity advocates, 'republican feminists' may end up reinforcing and popularising this notion. Furthermore, parity critics' constant references to 'discrimination' may (intentionally or not) encourage the view that women are just another 'minority'. Do these two mutally reinforcing developments point to a 'socialisation of politics'? Is such a trend unavoidable when thinking about the links between 'women' and 'politics'?     

‘What say you to free trade in literature?’ The Thief and the Politics of Piracy in the 1830s

Between 1832 and 1834, Henry Mayhew and Gilbert Abbot à Beckett produced a weekly twopenny paper called The Thief. As its title suggested, this publication consisted of articles, stories and illustrations extracted, condensed and brazenly stolen from other periodicals, magazines, newspapers and books. Modelled on the format of Le Voleur, an early paper of Émile de Girardin, the great innovator of French popular journalism, scholars of Mayhew have generally treated The Thief as inconsequential hack work, if they even mention it at all. This essay, the first analysis of the paper itself, argues that The Thief is less ‘throwaway’ than it first appears. In satirical fashion, the paper used the methods of the radical press to critique the ‘liberal values’ of useful knowledge and free trade. Mayhew's involvement with The Thief connected him with a vibrant radical underground print culture. Moreover, in its suspicion of middle-class liberalism and of the rhetoric of free trade, The Thief set the thematic tone for much of Mayhew's later work.     

Make-believe: fashion and Cinelandia in Rizzoli's Lei (1933–38)

Amidst the wide array of women's magazines published in Italy in the 1930s, Lei. Rivista di vita femminile presents a compelling case study of the make-believe effect achieved through fashion and the allure of the silver screen. Published by Angelo Rizzoli between 1933 and 1938, Lei stands out for a cosmopolitan, American-looking lifestyle that champions an Italian ‘new woman’, aware of her own new image and enmeshed in a fantastic world of romantic novels and movie stars. This essay studies the paradoxes and complexities of an Italian illustrated periodical promoting the image of a fashionable woman in the midst of growing imperialism and autarchy, and publishing the work of Leica photographers, Lucio Ridenti and Paul Wolff in particular. Lei reflects the fundamental ambivalence of this time, promoting Italian fashion through Hollywood as a way to counteract the French fashion industry, and inviting women to role-play through the allure of their image.     

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.     

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     

Performing gender in lay saints' Lives

Abstract

Taking as its point of departure Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity, this article shows how femininity and masculinity are performed in three lay saints' Lives from the middle Byzantine period: the Life of Philaretos the Merciful (820), the Life of Thomaïs of Lesbos (mid-tenth century) and the Life of Mary the Younger (eleventh century). The approach of these texts through gender performativity shows in the most graphic way the difference between male and female constructions of sanctity on the one hand, and the important role that gender plays in the construction of lay sanctity, on the other.     

Clothing Economy and Clothing Culture: The Farm Wardrobe from a Gendered Perspective in Nineteenth-Century Sweden

This article examines the clothing of landowning farmers in inland Swedish from a gendered perspective during industrialisation in the nineteenth century. It considers clothes as possessions and goods within a European framework of trade and influence. In particular, it shows how clothing was a means of expression that changed during the course of industrialisation and how gender became an important factor in the supply and making of clothes. In the region examined, clothing changed from being a local fashion, characterised by similarities in material and workmanship between men's and women's clothes, to become a part of fashion in general with its emphasis on differences between men's and women's wardrobes. In the early nineteenth century, the female wardrobe accounted for a higher value as it included a greater share of garments made of manufactured fabrics. In late nineteenth century, when industrial forestry had replaced livestock farming as the main source of income in the area, men's wardrobes grew in value due to increased demand for tailor-made garments and purchased fabrics. By contrast, women's garments were often made of simpler fabrics and sewn by seamstresses. These changes responded to the growing breadwinner–homemaker ideal and to national-romantic ideas about folk costume – two tendencies that emphasised female domesticity and home-woven fabrics.     

The politics of disenchantment: Marcel Gauchet and the French struggle with secularization

ABSTRACT

This article looks at Marcel Gauchet’s major metahistorical statement, The Disenchantment of the World: A Political History of Religion (1985), and uses it to advance a series of claims about the place of secularization in debates within and about French politics, especially in relation to modern French history. The argument is put forward that Gauchet’s work is best understood as offering an alternative philosophy of history to Marxism that could serve to support a broadly republican realignment of French politics in the 1980s. Revisionist historiography concerning the French Revolution likewise played a role in this development, and served as a prerequisite of sorts to Gauchet’s broader historical project. The article also considers Gauchet’s work in light of postmodern skepticism of the utility of historical metanarratives.     

Parties,Gender Quotas and Candidate Selection in France

Almanach des Français, 2 vols (Encyclopaedia Universalis, 1994), 319pp. and 316pp., 544F.

Charmasson T., Lelorrain, A.‐M. and Sonnet, M., Chronologie de l'histoire de France (PUF, 1994), 876pp., 179F., ISBN 2 13 046139 5

Conseil national de la vie associative, Les Associations à l'épreuve de la décen‐ . tralisation: Bilan 1991–1992 (La Documentation Française, 1993), 245pp., 145F., ISBN 2 11 002974 9

Council of Europe, Population: French‐English glossary (Strasbourg, 1994), 500pp., 224F., ISBN 92 871 2506 6

Delporte, C., Histoire du journalisme et des journalistes en France (PUF, 1995), 127pp., 40F., pbk, ‘Que sais‐je?’

Deutschland‐Frankreich. Internationale Beziehungen und gegenseitige Verflechtung. Bine Bibliographie 1983–1990 ‐ France‐Allemagne. Relations internationales et interdépendances bilatérales. Une bibliographie 1983–1990 (Saur, München, 1994), 422pp., 148 DM.

Durant, S., Palais des Machines (Phaidon, 1995), 60pp., £19.95

Forrest, A., The French Revolution (Blackwell, 1995), 191pp., £6.99 pbk, and £25 hbk, ISBN 0 631 18351 5; 0 631 18107 5

Girault, R., and Bossuat, G., eds., Europe brisée, Europe retrouvée (Publications de la Sorbonne, 1994), 431pp., 180F., ISBN 2 85944 255 3

Greenfeld, L., Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Harvard University Press, 1992), 581pp., ISBN 0 674 60318 4

Hall, P., Hayward, J. and Machin, H., eds., Developments in French Politics (Macmillan, 1994), 340pp., £12.99, ISBN 0 333 61563 8

Hemtnings, F., The Theatre Industry in Nineteenth‐Century France (Cambridge University Press, 1993), xiv + 319pp., £35, ISBN 0 521 44142 0

Jordi, J.‐J., De l'exode à l'exil: Rapatriés et Pieds‐Noirs en France (L'Harmattan, 1993), 253pp., 140F., ISBN 2 7384 2305 1

Lamoureux, C., La Grande Parade du catch (Presses Universitaires de Mirail, 1993), 368pp., 175F., ISBN 2 85816 207 7

Makward, C., and Miller, J., eds., Plays by French and Francophone Women: A Critical Anthology (University of Michigan Press, 1995), 345pp., £15.20, ISBN 0 472 08258 2

Rebérioux, M., Jaurès, la parole et l'acte (Gallimard, 1994), 160pp., pbk

Schifres, A., Les Hexagons (Laffont, 1994), 494pp., 149F.

Tandem: Franco‐British arts review (Institut français du Royaume‐Uni), to be published three times a year (first issue: January‐August 1995)

Wieviorka, O., and Prochasson, C., eds., La France du XX^e siècle. Documents d'histoire (Seuil, 1994), 745pp., pbk, ISBN 2 02 013224 9     

Still a long way to go: gender and feminist geographies in France

Abstract

After recalling some specific elements of the French gender debate, such as French feminism, which threatens the war of the sexes and the fear of indifference, this article distinguishes three moments in the geography of gender in France. The first moment forgotten is the emergence of research on women’s work and urban mobility from a Marxist and feminist materialist perspective. The second, at odds with the first, is distinguished by an approach that is more cultural than social, an inspiration that borrows from the linguistic shift and postmodernism, and that may have its references among the English-speaking authors of radical geography and feminist geography. The last is a moment of consolidation and diversification of themes (masculinities, sexualities, the body) and approaches (queer geography, black feminism, intersectionality). The article then highlights two challenges. The first is to sustain gender by consolidating achievements, developing gender education and promoting gender mainstreaming in all aspects of research. The second is to create common ground and develop solidarity in a context of profound transformations in higher education and research.     

Introduction

In November 2004, France carried out one of the biggest evacuation operations of its expatriates since the Algerian War of 1954–1962. Within a couple of days, more than 8000 French citizens were forced to leave Côte d'Ivoire because of violent anti-French protests by the supporters of the Ivorian regime. This article examines the dispute between French repatriates from Côte d'Ivoire and the French government by analysing the arguments put forward by both sides in legal texts and semi-structured interviews conducted in France and Côte d'Ivoire. It is argued that the dispute cannot be explained satisfactorily as a mere instrumentalisation of the current debates in France about Françafrique. On the contrary, the article shows that Françafrique should be understood primarily as an ideological discourse that organises Franco-African relations and makes them resilient to change.     

Review articles

Colette is not generally included in recent narratives of twentieth-century French neoclassicism. However, her contemporaries of various political and aesthetic persuasions considered Colette to be a classique of the first order. This article explores classification as classique by critics sympathetic to Charles Maurras and the aesthetics of the Action française as well as left-leaning critics associated with André Gide and the group surrounding the Nouvelle Revue française. The article shows that it is Colette's strong association with a particular type of femininity that allows her to be thought of as classique by critics of such different political and aesthetic commitments. The article also examines examples of resistance to Colette's categorisation as classique, and attempts to assert the modernity of her work, coining the term classique moderne as a way of bringing together diverse attempts to explain the harmony between classicism and modernity in Colette's work. The article suggests that Colette's incorporation in the canon of the classique is part of a larger solidifying of the role of femininity in French identity at that moment.     

The history of econometric ideas. Historical perspectives in modern economics

This article presents a comparative analysis of the concepts of totalitarian democracy and positive liberty in the work of Jacob Leib Talmon and Isaiah Berlin. Its main purpose is to show that a combined analysis of Talmon and Berlin's biographical relationship and their individual texts demonstrates that Talmon's idea of totalitarian democracy may have had a greater influence on Berlin's notion of positive liberty than Berlin seems to have ever acknowledged. The article first summarises the intellectual and biographical relationships that tied these two authors together in a personal friendship and an intellectual fellowship that lasted for more than three decades. In the second part, the insights drawn from the investigation of the authors' intellectual and biographical relationships are linked to an analysis of their texts, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy and Two Concepts of Liberty. Finally, in the third part of the article, three crucial aspects of Talmon's definition of totalitarian democracy are considered: the interpretation of the Enlightenment and Rousseau's thought, the view of the French revolution, and the possible impact each of these has on subsequent Marxist and socialist reflection, to see how they are addressed in Berlin's idea of positive liberty.     

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.     

Catholic resistance theory: William Barclay versus Jean Boucher

ABSTRACT

This article examines William Barclay's response to Jean Boucher's De Justa Abdicatione Henrici Tertii (1589) in view of the complexities of Catholic political thought in this post-Tridentine period. It argues that Barclay's famous category of ‘monarchomach’ is problematic for its avoidance of the issue of confessional difference, and that on questions of the relationship between the respublica and the ecclesia Barclay struggled to find an adequate response to Boucher in his De Regno et Regali Potestate (1600). His De Potestate Papae (1609) is treated as the intellectual extension of his battle with Boucher, and more broadly his confrontation with the position of the Catholic League and Jesuits on indirect papal power. By considering Barclay's works in the context of French Gallicanism and the Catholic League in the French Wars of Religion, this discussion aims to reposition Barclay in relation to other Catholic political theorists and thereby re-evaluate the category of Catholic resistance theory.     

Fabric for Seventeenth-Century Children and Adolescents' Clothes

Abstract

This article attempts to describe the information on clothing which can be taken from the relatively newly exploited source of the probate account (as opposed to the probate inventory). The accounts only itemize the costs of clothing children up to apprenticeship, or to marriage, not the fully adult. Fortunately for this author's interests, the bulk of the accounts cover the children of parents with moveable goods worth under £100, under yeoman status. This particular article focuses on the range of prices that can be gleaned from the accounts on the prices of fabrics, and demonstrates that the same fabrics in the seventeenth century came in a very large range of prices and qualities. It differs from Professor Shammas' conclusions. The costs of clothing minors rose in the seventeenth century. It examines the prices of boys' and girls' clothes that can be gathered from the accounts, and also the types of fabric that were used to make each type of garment for them, taking into account the economic status of each child. It concludes that although the finer, more expensive, fabrics more commonly made up clothes for better-off children, this did not always follow : nor did the poor always wear the cheapest fabrics. There was no clear social stratification, although there was a rough one.