Description
Book SynopsisRevisioning 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.
Table of ContentsAndrew Sobanet,
IntroductionI. France in Perspective: The Hexagon, Francophonie, EuropePierre Nora,
The MetamorphosisMaurice Samuels,
Historicizing French Universalism: The Case of Jewish EmancipationFrançoise Lionnet,
Universalisms and FrancophoniesJulia Kristeva,
A European Culture ExistsII. Visions of the World Wars, or L’Histoire avec sa grande hachePeter Brooks,
Death Drives: Freud and ProustSusan Rubin Suleiman,
Foreigners and Strangers: Jews in French Society and Literature between the Two World WarsGerald Prince,
Bernard Frank and Patrick Modiano: Jewish WritersBarbara Will,
Beckett’s French ResistanceIII. Refractions and ReflectionsNelly Furman,
Between Acceptance and Betrayal: Sarah Kofman’s Rue Ordener, rue Labat
Roxana Verona,
In the Shadow of the Iron Curtain: The Photo Album and the Francophone (Dis)connectionHélène Cixous,
Osnabrück Station to JerusalemIV. French Literature, RevisionedR. Howard Bloch,
Mallarmé MédiévalStephen G. Nichols,
What’s in a Word?: Language, Philosophy and Satire in Troubadour PoetryPierre Saint-Amand,
Rousseau’s Late Botany: Living to the EndAlbert Sonnenfeld,
Mallarmé's Gardens of Culinary DelightsWarren Motte,
The Book, Inside and OutV. The Subject in FocusGeorges Vigarello,
Internal Senses and the History of the Western SubjectFrançois Noudelmann,
The Author's Afterlife: What is a Posthumous Truth?J. Hillis Miller,
What Happens When I ReadVI. Philosophical LensesSouleymane Bachir Diagne,
‘African Philosophy’: The History of an ExpressionFrançois Hartog,
Making History or Preventing the World from Destroying ItselfEtienne Balibar,
Philosophy and Contemporary Reality: Beyond the Event?Brian J. Reilly,
Jacques Derrida’s Pedagogical Imperative for the SciencesVII. CodaPierre Nora
Julia Kristeva
