The French Inheritance

The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies, 2025

This is a critical bibliographical survey of academic studies published in 2023 in the area of Francophone and French Studies: Literature, 2000 to the Present Day.

Journal of French Language Studies, 2009

2011

French Studies in and for the 21st Century draws together a range of key scholars to examine the current state of French Studies in the UK, taking account of the variety of factors which have made the discipline what it is. The book looks ahead to the place of French Studies in a world that is increasingly interdisciplinary, and where student demands, new technologies and transnational education are changing the ways in which we learn, teach, research and assess. Required reading for all UK French Studies scholars, the book will also be an essential text for the French Studies community worldwide as it grapples with current demands and plans for the future.

French studies, at least in the Anglophone universities with which I am familiar, coheres around three interrelated disciplinary objects: language, literature, and culture. The primacy of each of these three objects has varied over time. In a previous era, language, or philology, demarcated the disciplinary territory of French studies. Literature subsequently displaced philology as the foremost disciplinary object, classifying the discipline of French as one among many (mostly European) national literatures and generating the spin-off discipline of comparative literature. This nationalistic disciplinary regime held sway until deconstruction, postcolonialism, and globalization called into question the concept of national literature, while the rise of cultural studies challenged the hegemony of literature. In French, this regime change manifested itself with the emergence of Francophone studies, French cultural studies, and the addition of cultural competence to the original four skills of language study (reading, writing, speaking, listening). 1 Not only does French studies today foreground the teaching of culture, but it also emphasizes the cultural component of literature and language studies. Meanwhile, French culture has undergone a redefinition even as it has come to prominence, and now includes Francophone and minority cultures in a happy multicultural mix. Embracing cultural hybridity has made French studies seem up-to-date, culturally sensitive, and ethical. However, in the wider intellectual landscape beyond our small field there are signs that the so-called cultural turn is over and that multiculturalism may be not only naïve but also surprisingly inegalitarian. The cultural turn has served French studies well in many respects, but no turn should go unexamined and no intellectual trend lasts forever. This article asks what the concept of culture does for French, for better and for worse.

Annual Review of Anthropology, 2013

This review unravels different facets of la Francophonie, both as an international institution dedicated to the defense of French and as a group of people who speak or are united by French. Having been highly ideological since its beginnings and its association with France's colonial history, the very idea of la Francophonie has aroused passionate debates both within and without. Although it was officially launched as a cultural community seeking to develop economic partnership, it has evolved into a political organization promoting human rights and democracy and defending cultural diversity against Anglo-American hegemony. From a linguistic point of view, la Francophonie is approached in light of the centuries-long ideology of French as a universal language whose vitality is threatened by other languages. This review also shows that the political discourse of the institutional Francophonie has not always been in tune with that of its main agents, the Francophones.

Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2011

This essay sketches the state of French studies from contemporary fiction rooted in eighteenth-century texts to born digital editions, looking at the changing shape of the literary canon, trends in publishing, the importance of anniversaries in galvanising research on specific authors or books, the part played by curricula, and the language in which French texts are taught to non-native-speakers. It observes an insufficient circulation of secondary literature and notes a gradual shift towards enhancing the role of eighteenth-century authors long considered secondary, drawing on interdisciplinary approaches and taking into account a less linear narrative of the period.

Comparative Literature Studies, 2005

French Politics, Culture and Society, 2000

Romanic Review, 2004

This review unravels different facets of la Francophonie, both as an international institution dedicated to the defense of French and as a group of people who speak or are united by French. Having been highly ideological since its beginnings and its association with France's colonial history, the very idea of la Francophonie has aroused passionate debates both within and without. Although it was officially launched as a cultural community seeking to develop economic partnership, it has evolved into a political organization promoting human rights and democracy and defending cultural diversity against Anglo-American hegemony. From a linguistic point of view, la Francophonie is approached in light of the centuries-long ideology of French as a universal language whose vitality is threatened by other languages. This review also shows that the political discourse of the institutional Francophonie has not always been in tune with that of its main agents, the Francophones.