Encyclopedia of Contemporary French Culture

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CONTEMPORARY FRENCH CULTURE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CONTEMPORARY FRENCH CULTURE Edited by Alex Hughes and Keith Reader London and New York First published 1998 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003. © 1998 Routledge All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Encyclopedia of contemporary French culture/edited by Alex Hughes and Keith Reader p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. France—Civilization—1945–—Encyclopedias. 2. France—Popular culture—Encyclopedias. I. Hughes, Alex. II. Reader, Keith. DC33.7.E53 1998 97–31879 CIP 944.08’03–dc21 ISBN 0-203-00330-6 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-20475-1 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-13186-3 (Print Edition) Contents Editorial team vi List of contributors vii Preface x Introduction xi Acknowledgements xiii Classified contents list xiv Encyclopedia 1 Index 574 v Editorial team General editors Nicholas Hewitt Alex Hughes University of Nottingham, UK University of Birmingham, UK Brian Nelson Keith Reader Monash University, Australia University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Ian Pickup Consultant editors University of Birmingham, UK David Bradby Steve Ungar Royal Holloway, University of London, UK University of Iowa, USA Verena Ande rmatt Conley Jan Windebank Miami University, USA University of Sheffield, UK Susan Hayward Michael Worton University of Exeter, UK University College London, UK vi List of contributors Elza Adamowicz David Drake Queen Mary and Westfield College London Middlesex University Dennis Ager David Ellison Aston University University of Miami Robert Aldrich Elizabeth Ezra University of Sydney University of Stirling Laurence Bell Patrick ffrench University of Surrey University College London Jennifer Birkett Jill Forbes University of Birmingham University of Bristol Michael Bishop Cathy Fowler Dalhousie University Southampton Institute Craig Blunt Johnnie Gratton University of Birmingham University College Dublin Sophie Boyron Vérène Grieshaber University of Birmingham University College London William C.Calin Renate Günther University of Florida University of Sheffield Kay Chadwick Ron Hallmark University of Liverpool University of Birmingham Susan Collard Seán Hand University of Sussex Oxford Brookes University Tom Conley Linda Hantrais Harvard University Loughborough University Martyn Cornick Peter Hawkins University of Birmingham University of Bristol Béatrice Damamme-Gilbert Susan Hayward University of Birmingham University of Exeter Hugh Dauncey Owen Heathcote University of Newcastle upon Tyne University of Bradford Richard Derderian Nicholas Hewitt University of North Carolina University of Nottingham Philip Dine Lynn A.Higgins Loughborough University Dartmouth College (USA) vii viii List of contributors Gill Howie Bill Marshall Liverpool University University of Southampton Alex Hughes Ann Miller University of Birmingham Leicester University Simeon Hunter Pam Moores United Kingdom Aston University Laïla Ibnlfassi † Peter Morris London Guildhall University Aston University Kate Ince François Nectoux University of Birmingham Kingston University Brian Jenkins Patrick O’Donovan University of Portsmouth University College Cork Christopher Johnson George Paizis Keele University University College London Roger Kain Alan Pedley University of Exeter University of Exeter Debra Kelly Ian Pickup University of Westminster University of Birmingham Michael Kelly Gérard Poulet University of Southampton University of Exeter William Kidd Phil Powrie University of Stirling University of Newcastle upon Tyne Eleonore Kofman Keith Reader Nottingham Trent University University of Newcastle upon Tyne Raymond Kuhn † Jo Reed Queen Mary and Westfield College University of Birmingham David Looseley Mireille Rosello University of Leeds University of Nottingham Lucy McKeever Gerard Paul Sharpling Sunderland University University of Birmingham Mark McKinney Michael Sheringham Miami University Royal Holloway, University of London Jean Mainil Max Silverman University of Nottingham University of Leeds Margaret Majumdar Annie Sparks University of Glamorgan Royal Holloway, University of London John Marks Judith Still Loughborough University University of Nottingham List of contributors ix Walter A.Strauss Khursheed Wadia Case Western Reserve University University of Wolverhampton Anthony Sutcliffe Peter Wagstaff University of Leicester University of Bath Valerie Swales Fiona Warne University of Portsmouth University of Birmingham Joe Szarka Colville Wemyss University of Bath MA, University of St Andrews Carrie Tarr Steve Wharton Thames Valley University University of Bath Ursula Tidd Nicola White University of Salford Kingston University Chris Tinker Carol Wilcox University of Birmingham South Kent College D.A.Trotter James Williams University of Wales, Aberystwyth University of Kent at Canterbury Steven Ungar Jan Windebank University of Iowa University of Sheffield Joëlle Vitiello Michael Worton Macalester College, Saint Paul University College London Preface In an age when France has consolidated its position as the leading European destination for Englishspeaking holiday-makers, tourists and second-home-owners, retained its prestige as the international capital of gastronomy, wine production, chic and sex appeal, and bred film direc- tors to rival Hollywood and singer-songwriters without equal on the world stage, it has also become an object of profound suspicion for many non-French commentators on the intellectual life. French ideas are produced in a faddish and fashion-conscious climate, we are often told, prominent philosophers and social theorists are treated with absurd veneration and their obscure, portentous, jargon-infested diction threatens to run riot through the human sciences, undermining otherwise secure British and North American bastions of clarity, good sense and methodological rectitude. It could of course be that the prevailing enthusiasm for France as a source of pleasure is closely linked to this distrust of French ideas: while volupté and jouissance belong quite properly in the restaurant, the bedroom or the cinema, they have no place in the library or the lecture theatre. Could it be that French intellectuals enjoy themselves too much and too openly in the eyes of their Anglophone detractors, and that their writings are therefore easily seen by such critics as an attempt to seduce and corrupt our impressionable young? In order to begin answering questions of this kind we clearly need a new kind of reference work— one which talks about wine and psychoanalysis, movie-makers and maîtres-à-penser, Piaf and Piaget. The entire field of contemporary French culture is alive with myths and counter-myths about France and Frenchness. While some of these are produced at home and then exported, others originate abroad—in British tabloid newspapers, say, or on North American campuses— and are then imported into France. So much that is fascinating about contemporary France is transmitted by gossip, hearsay and the insider talk of various professional groups that it has until now been difficult for the would-be demythologizer to lay down a firm factual foundation for his or her enquiry. Things are even more problematic for the newcomer. Basic documents are often surprisingly difficult to find, and divisions between ‘high’ and ‘popular’ culture, or between the hexagon and the wider world of francophonie, have often meant that students and general readers have had to visit far-flung sections of their local reference library in order to begin assembling a comprehensive picture of France today. What Keith Reader, Alex Hughes and their team of contributors have produced in this splendid new Encyclopedia is a huge multi-dimensional snapshot of a culture that has reinvented itself with dizzying rapidity in the last half-century and shows no sign of slowing down. The range of their book is astonishing. With a single movement, the reader is able to travel from the world of screen goddesses (Aimée, Bardot, Deneuve) to the world of jet-setting intellectual demiurges (Baudrillard, Bourdieu, Derrida), from Elle to Eluard, from nuclear power to pornography, from agriculture to athlet- ics, from the structure of Pierre Reverdy’s verse to the labyrinthine and recursive structures of the new European legislation. All those who study modern French and Francophone cultures will be in debt to Hughes and Reader. Dangerous and delectable France has been mapped as never before between the covers of this cornucopian volume. Malcolm Bowie x Introduction Our Encyclopedia of Contemporary French Culture reflects the growing interest in French cultural studies that is a feature of the current academic and intellectual scene. Its existence echoes, in other words, the trend towards a broadening of the syllabus for further and higher education programmes in French, away from the once sacrosanct duo of language and canoni- cal literature, to incorporate such areas as cinema, political and social institutions, gender- based studies and critical

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