essay
Module 5
The French State: Language, Culture and Education
Section 5: French Culture or Cultures?
Overview
The following section has no specific reference to any chapter in N-B. It is a review of those areas of French culture that the government has nurtured, regulated, subsidized, or in some way controlled through policy and legislation: sports, music, theatre, and film.
Key terms and concepts: French cultures vs French culture, "black, blanc, beur", French New Wave cinema, high culture or belles-lettres, folk cultures, popular culture, IRCAM in the Pompidou Center in Paris, raï, zouk, zydeco, rap, French cultural exception
Table of Contents:
· Sports
· Music
· Theatre
· Film
· Notes
· Sources
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After completing the following readings, see if you are able to do these things: |
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· Why is it more accurate to speak of French cultures rather than French culture today? · Describe two instances in which the French government successfully intervened to assist, guide, or nurture cultural development at a critical moment. · What is the meaning of "black, blanc, et beur" and where did it come from? · Name one French celebrity who has lived up to the philanthropic ideal that one who attains great wealth has the responsibility to help those in need. · Name three types of international or "world" music popular in France today. Describe the origins of one of these types of music and name one interpreter of it. · Describe briefly why theatre is a highly respected art form in France. Name the three ways in which its importance is manifested in French society. · What kinds of films were the French developing between the two world wars that made them different from American films of that era? · What did the "New Wave" directors share about their art that was to have a profound effect on the way they were subsequently to be viewed by the public? · Name three French actors who have gained international reputations and name one film each has starred in. |
In an article entitled "The French contribution to French contemporary cultural analysis," Jeremy F. Lane states: "It was traditionally assumed that to study French language and literature, in school or at university, was to learn about something called 'French culture', in the singular. That singular 'French culture' was, in turn, held to have achieved its highest realization in the works of France's novelists, philosophers, poets, playwrights, whose mastery of their own language enabled them to express 'le génie français', something quintessential about the national French psyche and identity." (Kidd and Reynolds, eds. Contemporary French Cultural Studies, p. 287) By studying French culture, one could become "cultured" or refined, and in doing so learn something about the French identity.
There is no doubt that the core of what has been recognized as French identity is made up of this body of work, and that these works are still studied in schools as part of the educational curriculum. However, as Lane asserts, when describing France today it is more appropriate to refer to French cultures in the plural. The traditional idea is really "...an expression of one historically dominant identity, that of the educated, (mostly) male middle classes, which was given special status over and above many diverse and sometimes conflicting French identities." (Kidd and Reynolds, eds. Contemporary French Cultural Studies, p. 287). This culture is generally referred to as "high culture" or belles-lettres (great literary works) and is too limiting to encompass the many different identities that make up multiethnic France. It is therefore more inclusive to use the world "culture" in its broader, anthropological sense, to indicate "the entire set of beliefs, customs, and values shared by any social group, whether that group is defined in terms of nationality, ethnicity, class, sexuality, or gender." (Kidd and Reynolds, eds. Contemporary French Cultural Studies, p. 288) In this sense, French has many cultures within its society.
These are the cultures belonging to the pays and associated with minority language groups. They hearken back to the rural way of life that has been largely eclipsed in the last 30 years by urbanization and the dissemination of mass culture. However, regional cuisine, tourism, and the tendency among traditional French artists and artisans who have bought or retain family property in small towns and villages where they reside, vacation and retire, have created a leisure class that has breathed new life into local cultures. Once again, the intervention of the French state has been an important factor in this enterprise. Socialist President François Mitterrand's two-term Minister of Culture Jack Lang (1981-1986,1988-1993) was a pioneer in the area of creating large government subsidies that were meant to renew French culture from its historical roots. One important innovation he put in place was the creation of country-wide festivals featuring artists from all areas of popular and folk expression.
In implementing the Left's plan for revitalizing culture through the arts, Lang was acting out of a tradition that goes back to the monarchy. As we have seen, heavy state sponsorship of the arts is about more than money. It is a way of keeping debates about language, citizenship, and "Frenchness" at the forefront of the national agenda since all of these are fundamental to the projection of a sense of national identity, image building and the reflection of France's role as a disseminator of cultural heritage to the world.
The cultural activities that engage French people today as participants and spectators are similar to those shared by what are known as the postmodern (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. western industrialized nations of the world: sports, music, theatre, and film. The Ministry of Culture and Communication (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. plays a very active part in the French cultural mission, both in its internal mission of consolidation of its citizenry and in the exporting of its artistic production to all parts of the world, including the US (See Frenchculture.org (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.). What follows is a profile of what's happening in France today in each of these areas, with emphasis on understanding how the French state's interventionist strategies have guided the development historically and continue to shape the future.
When the French national soccer team (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. won the World Cup on July 12, 1998 on their home turf, defeating highly favored Brazil, in the newly-built Stade de France (stadium of France) in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, there was a celebration of historic proportions that elevated the egalitarian principles of the Republic to a new level of appreciation for the multicultural diversity of Les Bleus (The Blues), as the French call their national team. The blue, white and red of the French tricolor flag (le bleu, blanc et rouge) morphed into the slogan : "black, blanc et beur "(black, white, and French-born Magrebi, or North African) which the fans used to cheer the players. Most notable among them was Zinédine Zidane (Zizou) (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site., a Beur from Marseille, whose parents emigrated from Algeria, and who guided the team to victory, then scored two of the three goals that ensured them the championship. They applauded les Blancs et les Blacks as well -- Breton and Basque fishermen from the Hexagon who worked with players whose family roots lay in Armenia, Guadeloupe, New Caledonia, and other places around the globe to bring glory to France. The success of the Blues was read as a victory for social inclusion and integration in a country where high unemployment, recession, and racial and social issues had undermined the traditional approaches used by the State to promote assimilation of all peoples into the one, undivided Republic.
More recently, during the 2006 World Cup, the French team (largely composed of the great players of the 1998 team) surprised fans by advancing to the final match against Italy, only to lose in a heartbreaking sudden death shoot-out. Deprived of inspirational team captain Zinédine Zidane, who was red-carded for head-butting Italian player Materazzi in the chest for allegedly insulting Zidane's sister, les Bleus lost the match. Though France went down in defeat, fans stood by their team and hailed them as heros of theRépublique.
Of course the new France would not be built in a day, but in fact the French government's moral and material investment in sports had begun many years earlier. Traditionally, the French were inclined to pursue sporting activities such as hunting, shooting and fishing, and many continue enjoy these pastimes today. Le Tour de France (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site., an annual bicycle race around the French countryside is, of course, a French creation, but soccer, like rugby and other athletics played through chartered associations, were imported fromBritain in the late 19th century, and did not capture the imagination of the French spectator until much later. (Note 1) It was actually under the Vichy government that the state began to make a moral and material investment in sports. This pattern was already in place when de Gaulle overhauled the entire administration during the 1950s and 1960s, creating the national sports infrastructure and its management.
In an article entitled Sport and identity in the new France, Philip Dine notes that De Gaulle, who promoted La France qui gagne (triumphant France) in all sectors, had an eye to restore French grandeur and influence in all domains, not the least of which was in sports. The dismal French performance at the 1960 Olympics in Rome was a call to arms for state-managed programs for both mass-participatory activities and highly-trained, elite sports. He launched a program of building, coaching, and teaching that was intended to turn France into a world force in competitive sports. This has been borne out by the number of medals taken home by French athletes in recent games--37 medals in Atlanta (15 gold) in 1996 and 5th place overall. (Kidd and Reynolds, eds. Contemporary French Cultural Studies, p.169) In the Summer 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, France won 33 medals (11 gold) and finished 7th overall. And in the 2016 summer Games in Brazil France won a total of 42 medals (10 gold), ranking no. 7.
France's sporting culture has produced superstars who, like their counterparts throughout the world provide a model to the young and exceptional who might follow this path to wealth and fame that gives access to the sort of privilege once reserved for aristocrats and the well-educated. If in fact the Republic has done its job in educating them, they will not forget that this "nobility" obliges them to help others who are less fortunate, and they will become agents for change in the world. Zinédine Zidane was one who took on this challenge when he was appointed UN Goodwill Ambassador (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. for the fight against poverty under the Development Program in March 2001. I
Historically speaking, musical life in France remained extremely conservative and resistant to innovation well into the 20th century. In an article entitled "Music in the second half of the twentieth century," Mary Breatnach and Eric Sterenfeld speculate that one of the reasons for this stagnation is the fact that the French Revolution ended the monarchy and court patronage of musicians. After 1789, church music no longer had an official role to play since Church and State were now separate. Successive governments looked upon music as less important than the other arts and were reluctant to invest in musical education for children. (Kidd and Reynolds, eds.Contemporary French Cultural Studies, p. 246-247)
When President Charles de Gaulle called upon Minister of Culture André Malraux to improve France's performance in the area of music, he began in 1962 by setting up a committee chaired by composer Marcel Landowski to study the organization of music in France. From this study a 10-year plan was developed that became known as the Plan Landowski , (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. which would involve the decentralization and democratization of music. Strained financial resources delayed the implementation of this plan until the presidency of Georges Pompidou, who increased considerably the proportion of the national budget dedicated to music. By 1978, state expenditure on musical education had increased twelve-fold, more conservatories were built, France had a national orchestra (L'ORTF) and 32 permanently employed orchestras of which 9 are in Paris. (Kidd and Reynolds, eds. Contemporary French Cultural Studies, p. 247-248)
Malraux had made one inappropriate move, however, in alienating one of France's brightest and innovative composers, Pierre Boulez, student of the great Olivier Messiaen and the composer who embraced and introduced a system of musical composition known as serialism (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. to France. Boulez did not go along with the Landowski Plan, which he though perpetuated outdated methods on a grander scale, having become disillusioned with the music scene in France and left for Germany where he had been living since 1966. In 1970, Pompidou summoned Boulez back from Germany and offered him a powerful incentive to stay and serve his native country. Pompidou would set up a sophisticated research institute funded by the state called the Institut (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. de recherches et de coordination acoustique/musique, (IRCAM) (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.to be housed with other avant-garde art projects in the Pompidou Center (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. in Beaubourg in the heart of Paris and Boulez would be its director. At this institute composers would be provided with the means to develop their working methods using the most advanced technology available. (Kidd and Reynolds, eds. Contemporary French Cultural Studies, p. 248-249)
Despite its plebeian location, IRCAM tends to be viewed by the general public as an elitist organization. Boulez more recently has overseen the construction of a more people-oriented center in the north-east corner of Paris at Villette called La Cité de la Musique, which opened in 1995.This is a hands-on museum like other museums in the park where children of all ages are encouraged to experience a wide variety of music and engage in musical activities of all different kinds. (Kidd and Reynolds, eds. Contemporary French Cultural Studies, p. 249)
The general public is treated to a lot of free music in France since there are many open-air concerts in the parks and other gathering spots in small towns. Churches offer weekend performances for the public, and for a small donation you can listen to a variety of composers. By far, the most popular type of classical music among Parisians is baroque. The capital is famous for its jazz clubs as well
Below is a timeline of musical styles and a sampling of artists in each era.
Post 1945: Chanson française (originated in the music hall): Maurice Chevalier, Édith Piaf, Charles Trenet. Later: Julette Greco, Charles Aznaour, Gilbert Bécaud, Yves Montand. Poet-composer-singers: Jacques Brel, Georges Brassens, Bobby Lapointe, Lée Ferré, Serge Gainsbourg,
Early 1960s Rock: Sylvie Vartan, Johnny Hallyday, Jack Dutronc, Eddy Mitchell, Françoise Hardy, Claude François
Late 1960s-1970s: Invasion of British and American music that left he French music scene fragmented
1980s-1990s: Mitterand /Jack Lang government subsidies to re-energize French music, including the creation of two new private radio stations Radio Montmartre for old-fashioned songs and NRJ for international mix, etc. In 1993, a government policy of quotas was introduced, retracted, then re-enacted in 1996, requiring that 40% of the material broadcast had to be of French origin. (Kidd and Reynolds, eds. Contemporary French Cultural Studies, p. 251. Link to Radio NRJ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site..
Late 1990s to Today: Alternative rock bands are breaking new ground and establishing their own identity independent of the Anglo-American music complex. Some examples are Lucrate Milk (arty punk), Les Endimanchés (industrial java), Ludwig Von 88 (rock), Ausweis (reggae dub rock), Berrurier noir (clown rock), Achwgha nei wodei (experimental Dada), Washington Dead Cats (rock), VRP, Babylon Fighter and others. (Kidd and Reynolds, eds. Contemporary French Cultural Studies, p. 252)
Paris is a center for international music where each June 21, at the summer solstice, everyone descends on the street to celebrate music. Anyone who plays an instrument joins in the festivities, which go on all night long. French taste in music is highly eclectic. Beyond the borders of the Hexagon, different types of international music enjoy immense popularity. Many are the styles of music originating from former French colonies. Among these are: raï from the Mahgreb sung by Chebs or Chebas, zouk from the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique in the French Antilles, zydeco from the Creole-speaking people of Louisiana, and French rap, popularized by the African-born rapper MC Solaar. Click on links below to watch popular videos by MC Solaar (Le Nouveau Western), Oxmo Puccino (L'enfant seul), and Khaled (C'est la vie).
MC Solaar (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
Oxmo Puccino (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
Khaled (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
Theatre has traditionally been part of the canon of French culture and is included in the curriculum of the schools. Children are often taken in groups to see professional productions of plays studied in class, and for those aged 12 and older classical plays are always included in the repertoire. As N-B noted on p. 62, the art of rhetoric is highly regarded by the French, and this coupled with their preference for institutionalized activities makes theater a fundamental part of the culture and therefore one which the state strongly subsidizes.
Under the Ministry of Culture and Communication there is a special department called La Direction de la musiqique, de la danse, du théâtre, et des spectacles (DMDTS) which includes a sizeable national budget to subsidize theatre. In an article entitled "A Night at the theatre," Christophe Campos has divided theater into three distinct sets of cultural practices:
· Metropolitan Entertainment -- playhouses and opera houses in large urban centers, especially Paris. The period of history known as La Belle Époque (1860-1910) was the high point of theatre and opera in this atmosphere, since this is where one went not only to see but to be seen. Even the design of these houses, known as the Italianate -- with balconies facing each other and providing observation points for the stalls--supported this purpose. Today Parisians still love to attend the opera and theatre, but the flavor is international. The operatic repertoire is more German and Italian than French and there are two opera houses: the main house or Opéra-Garnier and the new Opéra-Bastille, opened in 1989. There are also several opera houses outside Paris, in Lyon, Strasbourg, and other large urban centers, that welcome the international circuit. The number of theatres in Paris has decreased since La Belle Époque from 52 to 15, and these are strung along the boulevards between the Opéra Garnier and La Place de la République. These playhouses (a lot like the Hollywood Pantages), which became known for playing the popular bourgeois 19th-century repertoire of comédies de boulevard are now the venues for French versions of plays on the international circuit by authors like Alan Ayckbourn, Harold Pinter, or Edward Albee. (Kidd and Reynolds, eds. Contemporary French Cultural Studies, pp.193-95)
· Theater as Public Service -- a conception put in place during the years following World War II. It was started by actor-director-manager Jean Vilar, who in 1951 was entrusted with a very large auditorium under the Palais de Chaillot (across the Seine River from the Eiffel Tower in Paris) and who revived the Third Republic's idea of a national popular theatre: Le TNP (Théâtre National Populaire). During the first years of the Fifth Republic under Charles de Gaulle's first Minister of Culture, André Malraux (1959-1965), a policy that came to be known as la décentralisation théâtrale was set established that allowed for the revival or building of state-sponsored theatres under the direction of regional authorities. These became known as Maisons de la Culture, and while they are spread around Paris and the suburbs, their distribution around France is uneven, with most playhouses in the North-East, Rhone-Alpes and Languedoc-Roussillon areas and most sparse in the Aquitaine. (Note 2) The repertoire of these theatres relies heavily on what will play in the schools and the décentralisation network is closely related to the Paris establishment playhouses.
· Theatre as An Alternative Society -- stemming from the student revolution of 1968, this is a type pf grass-roots theatre where companies are formed and go on tour, much like the American Living Theatre. The most famous of these French companies is Le Théâtre du Soleil, a company started in 1965 by Ariane Mnouchkine (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site., who produced a collective creation about the French Revolution called 1789. The people who make up these companies sometimes live communally, recruit new actors and produce their own plays. They perform at art festivals around France and internationally and compete at the annual Theatre Festival held each summer in Avignon (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. One of the important changes these new theatre companies have introduced is the opportunity for people to enter the acting field without passing through the Conservatoire national, whose graduates have the best chance of finding work but which admits only one out of every 80 who apply.
As pioneers in the late nineteenth-century film technologies with the first public screening by the Lumière Brothers, the French are protective of their industry, as evidenced in the 1993 GATT talks when French politicians gained recognition for the status of their cinema products as l'exception culturelle, a cultural exception to the laws of free-market trade.
In an article entitled "Cinema in a nation of filmgoers," Susan Harris observed that historically the French film industry began as an offshoot of the literary tradition, adapting stage plays for screen and relying on professionally trained actors from the theater during the years before World War I. (Kidd and Reynolds, eds. Contemporary French Cultural Studies, p. 210) Many of the films produced were avant-garde and experimental in the 1920s, when Paris was a haven for artistic innovators and iconoclasts like the surrealists. During the years between the wars, when Hollywood was making musicals and large-scale visual films, the French were developing agenre called "poetic realism," which laid the groundwork for the type of art film in which mood and atmosphere are more important than plot and action, as seen in the films of Marcel Carne and most celebrated film Les enfants du paradis (1945). While it can be said that film directors worked for sophisticated, international audiences, comic films that appealed to the music hall crowd were also popular. As Harris notes, "the comique troupier film, or bawdy 'military comedy', was a particular favorite on home ground, with Ignace(1937) starring Fernandel outselling Jean Renoir's (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. La Grande Illusion at the French box office to emerge as the most popular French film of 1937" (Kidd and Reynolds, eds. Contemporary French Cultural Studies, p. 210). (Note 3)
The German Occupation dealt a blow to the film industry in France. Many artists left the country or went into hiding and American and British movies were banned by the Vichy government and replaced by German and Italian films. The good thing to come out of this was the rebirth of a sense of pictorial beauty in cinematography, but the film industry remained relatively dormant during these years since it was essentially cut off from international competition. (Kidd and Reynolds, eds. Contemporary French Cultural Studies, p. 211)
After the Liberation in 1945, restrictions were lifted and American films flooded the French market, reducing the screen time of French films from 100 % to 30%. The newly-formed Centre National de Cinématographie made the effort to turn this situation around by subsidizing "quality projects" with French stars. The French film industry began to rebound and by the 1950s had started to win back its place in the international as well as national marketplace.
As Harris observes, the founding of the Cahiers du cinéma (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.by a group of director-writers interested in the relationship between esthetics and representation started a "New Wave" (see below) in filmmaking in reaction to what they referred to "le cinéma de papa (daddy's films). (Kidd and Reynolds, eds. Contemporary French Cultural Studies, p. 212) They drew upon their own resources, but also reworked the American film noir, revolutionizing the traditional forms of film construction and turning them into something new such as the polar (detective or crime thriller). Their writings brought about the "...fresh reappraisal of well-known but critically underestimated Hollywood directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, and Howard Hawks." (Kidd and Reynolds, eds.Contemporary French Cultural Studies, p. 212. The work of Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, Éric Rohmer, François Truffaut though very individualistic, offered an opportunity for intellectual debate over the theory that the director (auteur) is a creative force in film construction. For the French, film was established as an art form -- le septième art (the Seventh Art) -- and therefore an intellectual domain. As Harris writes," French New Wave cinema appealed to the more cosmopolitan and well educated sectors of international audiences, and inevitably gained the label of 'alternative' or 'art house' cinema. This is the categorization which still prevails today." (Kidd and Reynolds, eds. Contemporary French Cultural Studies, p. 212)
Below is a summary of the development and trends in French cinema since 1960:
· 1960s: French "New Wave" cinema presented themes close to real life -- famous directors include: (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. Claude Chabrol (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site., Jean-Luc Godard (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site., Jacques Rivette (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site., Éric Rohmer (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site., and François Truffaut. (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
· 1970s- mid-1980s: After the death of Charles de Gaulle, censorship laws were relaxed; in 1974, even more liberal laws ushered in an an era of pornographic and sexually explicit films. About 50% of all French films made between 1975 and 1979 were in this vein. For example, the Emmanuelle series by Just Jaekin, Jean-Jacques Beineix, Bertrand Tavernier and Bertrand Blier. This was also a time when French film makers became interested in social commentary and during which socially marginalized groups found expression in the works of women such as Diane Kurys, Coline Serreau, and Agnès Varda, all of whom are still active in the profession. Many French actors began to work internationally as well. Gérard Depardieu (Jean de Florette, Green Card, etc.), Isabelle Adjani (Ishtar, La Reine Margot), Catherine Deneuve (Belle de Jour, Indochine), Isabelle Huppert (Une affaire de femmes, Madame Bovary), and Juliette Binoche (Chocolat), Audrey Tautou (Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain), among others
· mid-1980-1990s Competition from television increased, causing the government to intervene. TV channels such as CanalPlus were deregulated and investors were encouraged to support the film industry financially and have some input into the films they would distribute on the screen. From these initiatives came a production of historico-cultural and literary films such as Yves Robert's La Gloire de mon père and Le château de ma mère based on the memoirs of Marcel Pagnol; Jean-Paul Rappenau'sCyrano de Bergerac; Louis Malle's Au revoir, les enfants (Goodbye, Children); Claude Berri's Lucie Aubrac; Bruno Nuytten'sCamille Claudel; Régis Wargnier's Indochine; and Patrice Chéreau's La Reine Margot.
· Late 1990s-Today Women film makers have flourished in the last 25 years. Much of their work has been showcased at international film festivals. Although a woman has yet to be awarded the César (like the American Oscar) award for Best Director, one has been named for a Best Film: Coline Serreau ,Trois Hommes et un Couffin (1986) which was later made into the popular American film starring Tom Selleck, Three Men and a Baby (1987). Other award-winning, internationally recognized female directors from France include Tonie Marshall, (Pentimento), Claire Denis (Chocolat), and Catherine Corsini.
The industry has also spawned beur film makers such as Mehdi Charef and Malik Chibane, whose films portray the working-class immigrant or second-generation immigrant living in the inner city facing problems of integration and cultural deprivation. This important theme was addressed by French film maker Mathieu Kassowitz in a blockbuster film entitled La Haine (Hate) (1995), which won the César for Best Film in 1996 after an outpouring of critical and public acclaim for its portrayal of social exclusion in France. In March 2005, the César award for Best Director went to beur Abdellatif Kechiche for his romantic comedy L'esquive (The dodge, as in to give someone the slip) (2003) for a delightful romp in which classical playwright Marivaux's comedy is woven into the school play as boy tries to get girl without losing face with his inner city macho friends.
Small venues (cinémas d'art et d'essai) continue to be popular in France and are not overtly threatened by the growing number of cineplexes being built throughout the Hexagon in recent years to accommodate the French passion for movies. While American films make the rounds, the French still prefer watching films in their own language, especially home-grown comedies. (Kidd and Reynolds, eds. Contemporary French Cultural Studies, p. 219.
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Amélie. Dir: Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001.
1Soccer, with along with athletics and association or rugby football, was imported from Britain in the late19th century.
2These were the areas controlled by the German- or Italian-occupied or Vichy-controlled government during World War II (1940-1944), since it was at their initiative that many playhouses were built and regional theater was encouraged in an effort to revitalize France from its provincial roots, as opposed to taking its lead from the "cosmopolitan" (fascist for "Jewish") centers like Paris. ( Campos, p. 198)
3As cited in Vincendeau, Ginette. Companion to French Cinema. London: BFI/Cassell, 1996, p. 58
Sources: Kidd, William and Siân Reynolds, eds. Contemporary French Cultural Studies. Arnold/Oxford University Press, 2000