Digital Commons Network^™

Planet Condé: Writing Our Times, Writing The Anthropocene, Dawn Fulton

French Studies: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Resisting The Image: Heidi, Sheep And Swiss Trash, Jonathan Gosnell

French Studies: Faculty Publications

The novel Swiss Trash, written by Dunia Miralles in 2000, interrogates stereotypes around immigration and nationhood in contemporary francophone Switzerland, with the intention of turning some notions on their head and letting others fester, uncomfortably. The French-language text underscores the divisions, the startling differences present within a seemingly perfect “Heidiland.” Its English title hints at complex and often equivocal cultural denotations extant within the Helvetic Confederation. A simultaneous reading of Swiss Trash and Heidi, of familiar Swiss citizens and intrusive immigrants, offers, this article contends, revealing visions of a dismal present/future and an idealized past. Read alongside works …

The (French) Creole Turn?, Jonathan Gosnell

French Studies: Faculty Publications

In what ways can study of cultural mixing or métissages, often linked to histories of empire, colonization, and assimilation, help to better understand complexities in contemporary French and francophone societies? How can theories of creolization explain ambiguous ethnic, racial, and national phenomena that have long existed but have remained obscure? This article critically examines hybrid cultures that have coalesced as a result of pervasive French presence in the world over the last several centuries. The publications of Histoire mondiale de la France and its English translation France in the World: A New Global History sparked debate both inside and outside …

La France D’Outre-Mer: Rêves Coloniaux D’Hier Et Réalités Postcoloniales D’Aujourd’Hui, Jonathan Gosnell

French Studies: Faculty Publications

Ce chapitre propose un survol de la France républicaine et coloniale, de la formation particulière des colonies à la française. Nous examinons l’engagement de la France dans plusieurs parties de la planète, phénomène curieux étant donné les contradictions, les hésitations, les lenteurs et les accélérations de cette histoire. Alors, aujourd’hui, plus d’un demi-siècle après la chute officielle de l’empire français dans les années 1960, peut-on parler d’une France postcoloniale et d’un pays qui s’arrête à ses frontières géographiques naturelles en Europe?

This chapter is a critical survey of colonial France, of the particular formation of colonies à la française. It …

Unknown Knowns: Michael Haneke's Caché And The Failure Of Allegory, Dawn Fulton

French Studies: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Le Base Ball, Assimilation, And Ethnic Identity: The National Pastime In Franco-America, Jonathan Gosnell

French Studies: Faculty Publications

This article explores the meaning of baseball in areas of New England where immigrants of French-Canadian descent settled permanently. It examines representations of the sport in the French-language press of Massachusetts, notably to demonstrate how the game both affirmed the assimilation of a working-class, Catholic, and culturally French-Canadian group, as well as helped to articulate its distinct Franco-American identity. One does not typically think of baseball being played in French or as an expression of French sporting prowess in the United States or in Canada. While people of French heritage in North America have struggled with the historical trauma of …

Speaking (Like The) French: The Success Of A Three-Week Domestic Immersion Program, Janie Vanpée, Christiane Métral

French Studies: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Philological Complement To Motets From The Chansonnier De Noailles (Bnf F. Fr. 12615), Music Edited By Gaël Saint-Cricq, With Texts And Translations Prepared By Eglal Doss-Quinby And Samuel N. Rosenberg (A-R Editions, 2017), Part 2: Textual Variants, Eglal Doss-Quinby, Samuel N. Rosenberg

French Studies: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Activité Pédagogique Sur La Visualisation De Données À Partir Du Projet Des Registres De La Comédie-Française (Cfrp), Hélène Bilis, Hélène Visentin

French Studies: Faculty Publications

Le présent document décrit étape par étape une activité pédagogique créée à partir du site du Projet des registres de la Comédie-Française (http://cfregisters.org/fr/), réalisée dans un cours de français de niveau avancé co-enseigné par Hélène Bilis (FRN 278, Wellesley College) et Hélène Visentin (FRN 340, Smith College) et dont voici le descriptif en anglais :

FRN 278: “Court, City, Salon: Early Modern France—A Digital Humanities Approach” FRN 340: “Social Networking in Early Modern France—A Digital Humanities Approach”

This course examines the social practices, spaces and networks that defined 17th- and 18th-century France, politically and culturally, from the height of the …

Ce Grand Bastiment Neuf Et Vieux’: The Louvre Towards Political, Social And Urban Transformations In The Grand Siècle, Hélène Visentin

French Studies: Faculty Publications

Special Issue: Building the Louvre: Architectures of Politics and Art. Eds Patrick Bray and Phillip John Usher

Untranslatable Desire: Inter-Ethnic Relationships In Franco-Arab Literature, Mehammed Mack

French Studies: Faculty Publications

This essay examines the sexualization of post-colonial relations at the level of literature, paying special attention to how post-colonial resentment is portrayed via the figure of the “Arab boy,” transplanted from an exploited status in colonial settings to an un-assimilated status in contemporary France. The difficulties of communication that occur, when certain French writers aim to depict this Arab figure, are then sourced to problems of cultural translation in a variety of instances. Gay-identified Moroccan authors like Rachid O. and Abdellah Taïa, who write in French from France, have responded to calls for sexual disclosure as "native informants," while simultaneously …

Sexualized Collaborations And The Politics Of Ghost-Writing In Franco-Arab Literature: From Paul Bowles To Tout Le Monde Aime Mohamed, Mehammed Mack

French Studies: Faculty Publications

In the last few decades, the landscape of Franco-Arab fiction has seen a great many authorship scandals, in which French non-Arab authors have impersonated Arabs and found publishing success. In this essay, I revisit these scandals while focusing on a recent “autobiographical” novel that raised suspicions of ghostwriting: 2011’s Tout le monde aime Mohamed (Everyone Loves Mohamed ) by Malik Kuzman. An impressionistic collage of homo-erotic encounters, its fleeting structure recalls that of Barthes’ Incidents, a series of social vignettes culled from the author’s time in Morocco. I explore the simultaneity of Barthes’ Death of the Author argument and the …

Urban Silhouettes: Mohand Mounsi's Creolized Paris, Dawn Fulton

French Studies: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Franco-American Cultures In A New World Perspective, Jonathan Gosnell

French Studies: Faculty Publications

This article explores cultural traditions from a little-known corner of the francophone world, what specialists call Franco-America. It represents a fertile site for reexamination of francophone postcolonial cultures. Beginning in the nineteenth century, French Canadians traveled to New England mill towns in search of work, established ethnic communities, and progressively became Franco-Americans. Today, endogamous Franco enclaves have all but disappeared, but French cultural expressions persist. Jack Kerouac is the most well known representative of this obscure French life. Franco-American written cultures, the focus of this essay, shed light on a distinct immigrant experience in the United States.

Global City, Megacity: Calixthe Beyala And The Limits Of The Urban Imaginary, Dawn Fulton

French Studies: Faculty Publications

Calixthe Beyala is well known for her ambivalent relationship with both France and Africa. Her novels, meanwhile, are often divided according to tone and geography, between the grim portrayal of West African settings and the relatively upbeat (and more popular) novels of migration to the French hexagon. This article compares two novels encompassing this apparent divide – Tu t'appelleras Tanga (1988) and Le petit prince de Belleville (1992) – with a focus on Beyala's vision of the urban landscape as an inscription of a bilateral history. These texts present contrasting portraits of urbanism that seem to confirm the dichotomies of …

Échanges Synchrones Transatlantiques: Le Project Cross-Cultural Connections, Christiane Métral, James Benenson, Candace Skorupa

French Studies: Faculty Publications

RÉSUMÉ. Cet article présente le projet « Cross-Cultural Connections », débuté en 2003, entre des étudiantes de Smith College, une université privée dans le Massachusetts, et des étudiants de Télécom ParisTech, une école d’ingénieurs française. Les étudiants inscrits dans ce projet se retrouvent pendant un semestre pour des conversations transatlantiques hebdomadaires en temps réel, en petits groupes grâce à des caméras web (webcams), et lors de visioconférences qui réunissent les deux classes entières. Leurs conversations synchrones sont nourries par toute une série d’activités asynchrones préalables (telles que les questionnaires Cultura du Massachusetts Institute of technology (MIT), des forums sur un …

The Disengaged Immigrant: Mapping The Francophone Caribbean Metropolis, Dawn Fulton

French Studies: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Cajou's Reason: Michèle Lacrosil And Post-War Intellectual Liberalism, Dawn Fulton

French Studies: Faculty Publications

Fulton talks about Cajou, the eponymous heroine of Michele Lacrosil's second novel, specifically highlighting Cajou's acquaintances and colleagues who label her discourse as neurotic because it exposes fundamental problems in their own discourse of social equality. She cites that Cajou's text, tragic and disturbing as it may be, remains nonetheless a lucid testament to the impossibility of living simultaneously a contemporary reality and an unknown past.