Description
Book Synopsis
France’s Colonial Legacies contributes to the debates taking place in France about the place of empire in the contemporary life of the nation, debates that have been underway since the 1990s and now reach across public life and society, with manifestations in the French parliament, media, and universities. Fiona Barclay brings together distinguished scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including history, sociology, politics, literature, and film, to examine the extent to which the French colonial empire and its collapse have contributed to and shaped contemporary France.
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Postcolonial Nation Fiona Barclay Part One: Narrative Gaps 1. Amnesia about Anglophone Africa: France's Rhodesian mind-set, its manifestations and its legacies, 1947 - 58. Joanna Warson 2. From 'ecrivains coloniaux' to ecrivains de 'langue francaise': strata of un/acknowledged memories. Gabrielle Parker Part Two: The Algerian War, Fifty Years On 3. Conflicting memories: modernisation, colonialism and the Algerian war appeles in Cinq colonnes a la une. Iain Mossman 4. Derrida's virtual space of spectrality: cinematic haunting and the law in Mon Colonel (Herbiet, 2006). Fiona Barclay 5. 'Le devoir de memoire': the poetics and politics of cultural memory in Assia Djebar's Le Blanc de l'Algerie. Jennifer Mullen 6. (Un)packing the suitcases: postcolonial memory and iconography. William Kidd Part Three: The Transnational Family 7. Interrogating the transnational family: memory, identity and cultural bilingualism in Sous la clarte de la lune (Traore, 2004). Zelie Asava 8. Continuity and discontinuity in the family: looking beyond the post-colonial in Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (Claudel, 2008). Fiona Handyside Part Four: Contemporary Commemorations 9. Anti-racism, republicanism and the Sarkozy years: SOS Racisme and the Mouvement des Indigenes de la Republique. Thomas Martin 10. Playing out the postcolonial: football and commemoration. Cathal Kilcline 11. Crime and penitence in slavery commemoration: from political controversy to the politics of performance. Nicola Frith
