Description
Book SynopsisThe French Revolution of 1789 altered the face of power and the institutions it inhabited in France, and the aftershocks of this seismic change rippled throughout the nineteenth century. With power changing hands between monarchy, empires and republics in quick succession, the nature of power, both personal and political, and institutions, both real and metaphorical, was constantly being redefined, argued over and fought for. This volume provides innovative analyses of nineteenth-century power relations in France across a series of interlinked spheres: artistic, literary, cultural, political, scientific and topographical. Its seventeen chapters trace the direct impact of politics and the shifting power of regimes on the creative arts, and explore power relations in a wide range of contexts including novels, sculpture, painting, education, religion, science, museums and exhibitions across a wide geographical area from Paris to the provinces, southern France and the colonies. The contributors, all experts in their fields, assess the evolving relationship between institutions and power in nineteenth-century France, exploring how the nation debates its past, negotiates its present and, as the foundation of the Third Republic ushers in a period of relative stability, sets about creating its common future.
Table of ContentsList of illustrations David Evans and Kate Griffiths: Introduction Political Power: Legacies and Myths Nicole Mozet: Balzac, Théoricien du pouvoir absolu et romancier du chaos post-révolutionnaire Damian Catani: The French Revolution: Historical Necessity or Historical Evil? Terror and Slavery in Hugo’s Quatrevingt-treize and Confiant’s L’Archet du colonel Jean-Marie Seillan: Institutions et pouvoirs occultes: Huysmans et l’imaginaire conspirationniste Janice Best: Les Hommes de bronze de la Troisième République: Commémoration ou oubli de l’histoire? Power and Space Elisabeth Gerwin: Power in the City: Balzac’s Flâneur in La Fille aux yeux d’or Claire I.R. O’Mahony: The Colony Within? Poets and the Politics of Particularism in Toulouse’s Capitole Anne-Emmanuelle Demartini: Le Pouvoir de la représentation: Écriture pittoresque et construction de la nation dans la série provinciale des Français peints par eux-mêmes Leonard R. Koos: Razzia in Stone: Building Colonial Algiers, 1830-1900 Institutions and Knowledge Francesco Manzini: Doctors, Priests, Magistrates: Stendhal, Cabanis and the Power of Medical Practitioners Rosemary Lloyd: The Crocodiles of Caen and the Molluscs of the Museum: Rhetoric, Science, and Power in Nineteenth-Century France Mary Orr: Education, Education, Education: The Space of the Muséum as Showcase for Thinking its Public Scott A. Gavorsky: L’État comme propriétaire? Schools as Property in Nineteenth-Century France Writing Art History: Institutions and Alternative Authorities Juliet Simpson: Whose History? Art, History and the Nation State in Early Third Republic France L. Cassandra Hamrick: Beyond Institutions: In Search of le souffle moderne in Gautier’s Salon de 1844 Gilles Bonnet: Le Contre-pouvoir critique: Huysmans, vers une fiction d’art Sonya Stephens: Auguste Rodin, or the Institutionalization of the Self as Artist Notes on contributors Index
