Description
Book SynopsisThe contributors to
Transnational French Studies situate this disciplinary subfield of Modern Languages in actively transnational frameworks. The key objective of the volume is to define the core set of skills and methodologies that constitute the study of French culture as a transnational, transcultural and translingual phenomenon. Written by leading scholars within the field, chapters demonstrate the type of inquiry that can be pursued into the transnational realities – both material and non-material – that are integral to what is referred to as French culture. The book considers the transnational dimensions of being human in the world by focussing on four key practices which constitute the object of study for students of French: language and multilingualism; the construction of transcultural places and the corresponding sense of space; the experience of time; and transnational subjectivities. The underlying premise of the volume is that the transnational is present (and has long been present) throughout what we define as French history and culture. Chapters address instances and phenomena associated with the transnational, from prehistory to the present, opening up the geopolitical map of French studies beyond France and including sites where communities identified as French have formed.
Trade Review"A major strength of this new work is that it encompasses both the spatial and the historical dimensions of transnationalism in France.”
Alec G. Hargreaves, Florida State University
"This book constitutes a remarkably powerful and necessary intervention which will find its place alongside other recent attempts at challenging narrow and stereotypical understandings of French culture. This critical intervention is a very welcome contribution to the efforts aimed at asserting France’s intrinsic diversity."
Etienne Achille, Villanova University
Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION
Charles Forsdick and Claire Launchbury
PART I: LANGUAGEIntroduction
Charles Forsdick
Chapter 1: Transnational French before the nation
Simon Gaunt
Chapter 2: Frenches on walls and online
Robert Blackwood
Chapter 3: Transnational French and Translingual Film
Gemma King
Chapter 4: Reading British Fiction in France: The Case of Jonathan Coe
Helena Chadderton
Chapter 5: Unbearable
yasser elhariry
PART II: SPACESIntroduction
Claire Launchbury
Chapter 6: The French Hexagon: Defining the Shape of the Nation
Douglas Smith
Chapter 7: Transnational
fraternitéClaire Launchbury
Chapter 8: Paris and London Calling: the restaurant as transnational site
Debra Kelly
Chapter 9: The ‘Real’ Capital of France: ‘Authentic’ ‘Colourful’ Marseille
Chong Bertillon
Chapter 10: French and Francophone Videogames in Transnational Perspective
Hugh Dauncey and Jonathan Ervine
PART III: TEMPORALITIESIntroduction
Charles Forsdick
Chapter 11: Imagined Communities of Prehistory
Bill Marshall
Chapter 12: Translating Revolutionary Language
Sanja Perovic
Chapter 13: Beyond a national memory of slavery and abolition
Charles Forsdick
Chapter 14: French Museums, Where the World Meets
Herman Lebovics
Chapter 15: Transnational Memory: Art, Ethics and Politics in
La Seine était rouge (Leila Sebbar, 1999) and
Je Veux voir (Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, 2008)
Max Silverman
Chapter 16: Transnational Utopianism in French Futuristic Fiction: From Mercier’s
L’An 2440 (1771) to Houellebecq’s
Soumission (2015)
Jacqueline Dutton
PART IV: SUBJECTIVITIESIntroduction
Claire Launchbury
Chapter 17: Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in Nineteenth-Century France
Richard Hibbitt
Chapter 18:
Laïcité and belonging: Transnational Perspectives
Melanie Adrian
Chapter 19: French Food and Wine as Moveable Feast
Kolleen M. Guy
Chapter 20: Transnational approaches to language and sexuality
Denis M. Provencher
Chapter 21:
Bande Dessinée: The Ninth Art of France that is not really French
Laurence Grove
Notes on Contributors
