Revisioning French Culture (Studies in Modern and Contemporary France, 4)

Revisioning French Culture brings together a remarkable group of leading intellectuals and scholars to explore new avenues of research in French and Francophone Studies. Covering the medieval period through the twenty-first century, this volume presents investigations into a vast array of subjects. Revisioning French Culture grapples with topics vital to the contemporary cultural landscape, including universalism, globalization, the idea of Francophonie, and religious and secular identity. This essay collection furthermore transcends and illuminates the contemporary by delving into matters that have long resonated in the humanities and letters, such as death, war, trauma, power and politics, notions of the truth, conceptions of the self, and modes of reading and writing. With contributions by a number of figures known across the humanities and the social sciences, Revisioning French Culture provides cultural, political, and historical context for the crisis facing democracy and liberalism around the world today. These essays were assembled in honor of Lawrence D. Kritzman, whose writing and editorial work in French studies inspired the wide-ranging themes examined here. Revisioning French Culture brings together a striking group of leading intellectuals and scholars to explore new avenues of research in French and Francophone Studies. Covering the medieval period through the twenty-first century, this volume presents investigations into a vast array of subjects, with global Francophonie as its primary focal point Cover Contents Introduction I. France in Perspective: The Hexagon, Francophonie, Europe 1. The Metamorphosis 2.Historicizing French Universalism: The Case of Jewish Emancipation 3. Universalisms and Francophonies 4. A European Culture Exists II. Visions of the World Wars, or L'Histoire avec sa grande hache 5. Death Drives: Freud and Proust 6. Foreigners and Strangers: Jews in French Society and Literature between the Two World Wars 7. Bernard Frank and Patrick Modiano: Jewish Writers 8. Beckett’s French Resistance III. Refractions and Reflections 9. Between Acceptance and Betrayal: Sarah Kofman’s Rue Ordener, rue Labat 10. In the Shadow of the Iron Curtain: The Photo Album and the Francophone (Dis)connection 11. Osnabrück Station to Jerusalem IV. French Literature, Revisioned 12. Mallarmé Médiéval 13. What’s in a Word? Language, Philosophy, and Satire in Troubadour Poetry 14. Rousseau’s Late Botany: Living to the End 15. Mallarmé’s Gardens of Culinary Delights 16. The Book, Inside and Out V. The Subject in Focus 17. Internal Senses and the History of the Western Subject 18. The Author’s Afterlife: What is a Posthumous Truth? 19. What Happens When I Read VI. Philosophical Lenses 20. ‘African philosophy’: The History of an Expression 21. Making History or Preventing the World from Unraveling 22. Philosophy and Contemporary Reality 23. Jacques Derrida’s Pedagogical Imperative for the Sciences VII. Coda 24. For Lawrence Kritzman 25. To Larry Kritzman Contributors Acknowledgments Index Revisioning French Culture brings together a remarkable group of leading intellectuals and scholars to explore new avenues of research in French and Francophone Studies. Covering the medieval period through the twenty-first century, this volume presents investigations into a vast array of subjects. Revisioning French Culture grapples with topics vital to the contemporary cultural landscape, including universalism, globalization, the idea of Francophonie, and religious and secular identity. This essay collection furthermore transcends and illuminates the contemporary by delving into matters that have long resonated in the humanities and letters, such as death, war, trauma, power and politics, notions of the truth, conceptions of the self, and modes of reading and writing. With contributions by a number of figures known across the humanities and the social sciences, Revisioning French Culture provides cultural, political, and historical context for the crisis facing democracy and liberalism around the world today. These essays were assembled in honor of Lawrence D. Kritzman, whose writing and editorial work in French studies inspired the wide-ranging themes examined here. -- Provided by publisher