French and Francophone Literature Commons^™

Post-Pastoral And The Nonmodern: Jean Giono’S Engagement With Nature, Gina Stamm

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Dismissal of the pastoral as naïve and hostile to progress echoes the critiques which Bruno Latour, in We Have Never Been Modern, makes of what he calls the “antimodern” sensibility. Rather than advocating for an abandonment of the past, however, Latour puts forth a position he calls “nonmodern,” one that allows for recognition of the value of the past and of the natural without idolizing it, that does not demand the forward motion of the modern impulse. While eschewing the “modern” label, he seeks a way to resolve contemporary dichotomies of man vs. nature, human vs. technological, etc., which …

Dorothy Moser Medlin Papers - Accession 1049, Dorothy Moser Medlin

Manuscript Collection

(The Dorothy Moser Medlin Papers are currently in processing.)

This collection contains most of the records of Dorothy Medlin’s work and correspondence and also includes reference materials, notes, microfilm, photographic negatives related both to her professional and personal life. Additions include a FLES Handbook, co-authored by Dorothy Medlin and a decorative mirror belonging to Dorothy Medlin.

Major series in this collection include: some original 18th century writings and ephemera and primary source material of André Morellet, extensive collection of secondary material on André Morellet's writings and translations, Winthrop related files, literary manuscripts and notes by Dorothy Medlin (1966-2011), copies …

God, Nature, And Man In Justine, Kayley R. Roberson

Georgia College Student Research Events

In the French Enlightenment writer the Marquis de Sade’s best-known novel, Justine, issues surrounding God, nature, and humankind pose significant problems for the protagonist of the story. Sade’s materialist philosophical work affirms his belief that nature is the most influential factor in the lives of humans and that God does not exist. Sade states that violence, immorality, and vice derive from nature and exist as the basic instincts of man. He argues that these temptations must be praised rather than forbidden. While Justine, the virtuous title character, faces corruption at every turn, she refuses to concede victory to the depravities …

In Appreciation Of Birago I. Diop: A Subtle Advocate Of Négritude, Winston E. Langley

Winston E. Langley

The closing weeks of the last decade brought with them the death of three distinguished world figures: Samuel Beckett, the Irish-French playwright, novelist, and poet; Andrei D. Sakharov, the Soviet nuclear physicist, human rights advocate, and leader in the international disarmament movement; and Birago I. Diop, the Senegalese poet, storyteller, and statesman. In the case of the former two, leading U.S. newspapers and other media paid merited tribute in the amplest of proportions; in case of the last, however, it was as if he had either never lived or had gained no standing of importance worthy of much attention. Diop …

European Hospitality Without A Home , Mireille Rosello

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

How do European governments conceptualize what they call "hospitality" when they draft immigration laws and when they allow the concepts of asylum, of illegal immigrants, to change according to a constantly evolving political context? What consequences…

Combas & Co. Or The Figure And The Great Divide, Monique Yaari

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

The young painter, Robert Combas, leader of the 1980s "figuration libre" 'free figuration' movement, is seen here both as representative of stylistic and thematic trends in contemporary French art, and as illustrative, through the unfolding of his career, of the object "painting" and its sociology in contemporary France. Examined are: first, the "Postmodern convergence" of figurative, indeed narrative art, with the collapse of the "great divide" between elite and popular art forms; and second, traits such as hypertrophic verbal paratext, high erotic content, and political stand. Similar threads are followed in the work of a number of other artists, old …

Some Wheat And Some Chaff: Jean Paulhan And The Postwar Literary Purge In France, Michael Syrotinski

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

A somewhat overlooked figure of French literary history, Jean Paulhan has resurfaced in the polemic surrounding the wartime activities of many respected intellectuals, most prominently Blanchot, Heidegger and de Man. Commentators on Paulhan's role in the intellectual history of the period have tended to avoid reading his texts closely. Paulhan—one of the "heroes" of the literary Resistance in France during the Second World War—took the extremely unpopular and controversial stance after the Liberation of criticizing the National Committee of Writers' proposed purge of suspected collaborationist writers. This essay demonstrates the rigorous consistency of Paulhan's position in the context of his …

Introduction, Claire L. Dehon

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Introduction to the special issue on Africa: Literature and Politics

In Appreciation Of Birago I. Diop: A Subtle Advocate Of Négritude, Winston E. Langley

Trotter Review

The closing weeks of the last decade brought with them the death of three distinguished world figures: Samuel Beckett, the Irish-French playwright, novelist, and poet; Andrei D. Sakharov, the Soviet nuclear physicist, human rights advocate, and leader in the international disarmament movement; and Birago I. Diop, the Senegalese poet, storyteller, and statesman. In the case of the former two, leading U.S. newspapers and other media paid merited tribute in the amplest of proportions; in case of the last, however, it was as if he had either never lived or had gained no standing of importance worthy of much attention. Diop …

Truer Liberty: Simone Weil And Marxism, Lawrence Blum, Victor Seidler

Lawrence Blum

Shows how Simone Weil developed a penetrating critique of Marxism and a powerful political philosophy which serves as an alternative to liberalism and Marxism.

The Order Of Bourgeois Protest, Geoffey Waite

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Relatively little theoretical work is currently being produced by Western "Leftists" on committed protest culture. Simultaneously and not by chance, Western Marxism has drifted increasingly away from solidarity with the concept and practice of the vanguard party and toward a more or less easy compact with the problematic of poststructuralism and postmodernity. This relative paucity of discussion of commitment and protest stands in significant relationship to two critical moments: first, a powerful, overtheorized tradition of Western Marxist debate about commitment and protest (Benjamin, Sartre, Barthes, Marcuse, Adorno, among others); second, a wide-spread, undertheorized work-a-day practice of "traditional" liberal …

Paulhan Before Blanchot: From Terror To Letters Between The Wars, Steven Ungar

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Readers of Blanchot's writings make up at least three generations which, in turn, point to the relevance of locating his practices of modernity in relation to literary and social history. An initial inquiry sets Blanchot's early writings against those of Jean Paulhan in the 1936 period of the Popular Front, rather than in the early part of the Second World War, as is commonly supposed. By pushing the early writings back to the period between the wars, we can better understand the place of political concerns in Blanchot's subsequent narratives and essays.

Literary Aftershocks Of The Revolution: Recent Developments In Algerian Literature, Eric Sellin

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Most Algerian Francophone literature has been written since 1950, and thus the development of that literature has been intimately linked to the political events which forged the Algerian nation. Especially influential was the 1954-62 war of independence which for many years was a major contextual element in the literature. With the passage of time, the Revolution has begun to be less and less cognitive in the lives and works of the young writers. For some, Revolution lives on in the oneiric evocations of horrors glimpsed, for others it is something relegated to history, whereas for yet others it has become …