French Literature
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May '68 in French Fiction and Film: Rethinking Society, Rethinking Representation by
This is the first study of May 68 in fiction and in film. It looks at the ways the events themselves were represented in narrative, evaluates the impact these crucial times had on French cultural and intellectual history, and offers readings of texts which were shaped by it. The chosen textsconcentrate upon important features of May and its aftermath: the student rebellion, the workers strikes, the question of the intellectuals, sexuality, feminism, the political thriller, history, and textuality. Attention is paid to the context of the social and cultural history of the FifthRepublic, to Gaullism, and to the cultural politics of gauchisme. The book aims to show the importance of the interplay of real and imaginary in the text(s) of May, and the emphasis placed upon the problematic of writing and interpretation. It argues that re-reading the texts of May forces areconsideration of the existing accounts of postwar cultural history. The texts of May reflect on social order, on rationality, logic, and modes of representation, and are this highly relevant to contemporary debates on modernity.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2000
Unbecoming Language: Anti-Identitarian French Feminist Fictions by
In Unbecoming Language, Annabel L. Kim examines a corpus of French writing against difference. Inaugurated by Nathalie Sarraute and sustained in the work of Monique Wittig and Anne Garréta, this corpus highlights three generations of the twentieth and recent twenty-first centuries and the direct chain of influence between them. Kim considers these writers, and the story of literature's political potential, as a way of rereading and reinterpreting each writer's individual corpus--rearticulating the strain of anti-difference feminist thought that has been largely forgotten in our (Anglo-American) histories of French feminisms. Kim's close readings ultimately enliven the current conversation in French studies by serving as a provocation to return to reading literary texts deeply and closely, without subordinating literature to a pre-existing ideological framework--to let literature speak, to let it theorize. Tracking the influence of these writers on each other, Kim provides a new, original French feminist poetics and demonstrates that Sarraute, Wittig, and Garréta's work allows for a hollowing out of difference from within, allowing writers and readers to unbecome--to break free of identity and exist as subjectivities without subjecthood. In looking at these writers together, Kim provides a defense of literature as liberatory-- capable of effecting personal and political change--and gives readers an experience of literature's revolutionary possibilities.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2020
Re-Hybridizing Transnational Domesticity and Femininity by
Re-hybridizing Transnational Domesticity and Femininity examines the problems of voicing the personal when considering the role and place of women in the home. Analyzing a collection of first-person cinematic and literary narratives by Assia Djebar, Annie Ernaux, Simone de Beauvoir, Raja Amari, Coline Serreau, Lela Sebbar, and Yamina Benguigui, Webre-Feve explores the transnational processes of identity formation, gender performance, and construction of culture and society. Through a closer look at contemporary representations of French, Algerian, and Tunisian women on the page and on the screen, this book describes the ways in which homemaking nation, and gender are intricately bound to one another and situated in personal history.
Location: Mugar Stacks PQ149 .W38 2010Publication Date: 2010
Writing Postcolonial France: Haunting, Literature, and the Maghreb by
This book examines the way in which France has failed to come to terms with the end of its empire, and is now haunted by the legacy of its colonial relationship with North Africa. It examines the form assumed by the ghosts of the past in fiction from a range of genres (travel writing, detective fiction, life writing, historical fiction, women's writing) produced within metropolitan France, and assesses whether moments of haunting may in fact open up possibilities for a renewed relational structure of cultural memory. By viewing metropolitan France through the prism of its relationship with its former colonies in North Africa, the book maps the complexities of contemporary France, demonstrating an emerging postcoloniality within France itself.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2011
Une Troisième Vague Féministe et Littéraire : Les Femmes de Lettres de la Nouvelle Génération by
En France, les ann es 1990 constituent une p riode charni re pour la litt rature et le f minisme. Cette d cennie marque l' mergence d'une nouvelle g n ration d' crivaines ainsi que d'une nouvelle g n ration de militant.e.s f ministes. Une troisi me vague f ministe et litt raire de Mich le A. Schaal constitue une approche in dite car elle est la premi re tablir une connexion entre les deux mouvements. travers une analyse interdisciplinaire--f ministe, culturelle et litt raire--Schaal d montre comment ces deux mouvances ont abord de mani re similaire les questions identitaires et sexuelles qui mergent lors de cette d cennie, notamment via l'analyse de quatre romans: Truismes de Marie Darrieussecq (1996), Les Jolies Choses de Virginie Despentes (1998), Viande de Claire Legendre (1999) et Gar on manqu de Nina Bouraoui (2000). In France, the 1990s constituted a crucial era both for feminism and literature. This decade witnessed the emergence of a new generation of women writers, as well as of a new generation of feminist activists. Mich le A. Schaal's Une troisi me vague litt raire et f ministe is the first study of its kind to establish a connection between both. Through an interdisciplinary approach--feminist, cultural, and literary--Schaal demonstrates how these young feminists and writers approached, in similar manners, the identity and sexuality-related debates that occurred during this decade, namely via an analysis of four novels: Truismes by Marie Darrieussecq (1996), Les Jolies Choses by Virginie Despentes (1998), Viande by Claire Legendre (1999) and Gar on manqu by Nina Bouraoui (2000).
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2017
French Cinema
Studying French Cinema by
Taking a text-led approach, with the emphasis on more recent popular films, Studying French Cinema is directed at non-specialists such as students of French, Film Studies, and the general reader with an interest in post-war French cinema. Each of the chapters focuses on one or more key films from the ground-breaking films of the nouvelle vague (Les 400 coups, 1959) to contemporary documentary (Etre et avoir, 2002) and puts them into their relevant contexts. Depending on the individual film, these include explorations of childhood, adolescence and coming of age (Les 400 coups, L'Argent de poche); auteur ideology and individual style (the films of Jean-Luc Godard and Agnes Varda); the representation of recent French history (Lacombe Lucien and Au revoir les enfants); transnational production practices (Le Pacte des loups); and popular cinema, comedy and gender issues (e.g. Le Diner de cons). Each film is embedded in its cultural and political context. Together, the historical discussions provide an overview of post-war French history to the present. Useful suggestions are made as to studies of related films, both those discussed within the book and outside.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2013
A History of the French New Wave Cinema by
The French New Wave cinema is arguably the most fascinating of all film movements, famous for its exuberance, daring, and avant-garde techniques. A History of the French New Wave Cinema offers a fresh look at the social, economic, and aesthetic mechanisms that shaped French film in the 1950s, as well as detailed studies of the most important New Wave movies of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Richard Neupert first tracks the precursors to New Wave cinema, showing how they provided blueprints for those who would follow. He then demonstrates that it was a core group of critics-turned-directors from the magazine Cahiers du Cin#65533;ma--especially Fran#65533;ois Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, and Jean-Luc Godard--who really revealed that filmmaking was changing forever. Later, their cohorts Eric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, and Pierre Kast continued in their own unique ways to expand the range and depth of the New Wave. In an exciting new chapter, Neupert explores the subgroup of French film practice known as the Left Bank Group, which included directors such as Alain Resnais and Agn#65533;s Varda. With the addition of this new material and an updated conclusion, Neupert presents a comprehensive review of the stunning variety of movies to come out of this important era in filmmaking.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2007
The Cinema of Marguerite Duras: Multisensoriality and Female Subjectivity by
The writer Marguerite Duras was a key figure in post-war French cinema, pioneering innovations such as the disjunction of film and image, and the primacy given to voices, silence and music. Her multisensorial approach opened up new spaces for the female experience to be expressed. Although she worked with some of the best French visual technicians and musicians of her time, critiques have often neglected the visual and sonic aesthetics of her films, and their effects on spectators. Drawing on theories of embodiment and spectatorship, this book analyses the tactility and multisensoriality of Duras' films, and how they relate to her female-centred perspective.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2019
Agnes Varda Between Film, Photography, and Art by
Agnès Varda is a prolific film director, photographer, and artist whose cinematic career spans more than six decades. Today she is best known as the innovative "mother" of the French New Wave film movement of the 1950s and '60s and for her multimedia art exhibitions. Varying her use of different media, she is a figure who defies easy categorization. In this extensively researched book, Rebecca J. DeRoo demonstrates how Varda draws upon the histories of art, photography, and film to complicate the overt narratives in her works and to advance contemporary cultural politics. Based on interviews with Varda and unparalleled access to Varda's archives, this interdisciplinary study constructs new frameworks for understanding one of the most versatile talents in twentieth and twenty-first century culture.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2017
