Mobilising French Studies

Abstract

Preface (2014) by Charles ForsdickWhen Mobilising French Studies was published in 2011, it constituted attempt reflect on what might happen when we privilege a potent keyword - in this case mobility, and its verb form to mobilize - across a specific disciplinary field. I was particularly interested in the ways in which the harnessing of the polysemy of might resonate through French studies, federating existing activity, catalysing fresh work and approaches, enhancing or encouraging cross-disciplinary dialogues, and offering a possible platform on which we might continue build the essential of what Mary Louise Pratt helpfully dubbed a new public idea about language. One of the main triggers for the article was Stephen Greenblatt's Cultural Mobility: A Manifesto, intervention that crystallized pithily a number of ideas - developed most notably over the past two decades in the work of scholars such as James Clifford, Timothy Cresswell, Mimi Sheller and John Urry - around the place of travel, translation and transfer as phenomena constitutive of cultures in their historical emergence and contemporary reality. Greenblatt's provocation has perhaps not attracted the attention it merits, although his Cardenio continues demonstrate the potential of such approach literature, culture and performance.1 Also, specifically within French studies, a number of researchers have linked this more general reflection on mobility emerging phenomena such as litterature-monde, have deployed Greenblatt's manifesto investigate complex regions such as the Indian Ocean, and have factored his work in this field into consideration of emerging areas such as the dynamics of translation;2 in addition, initiatives such as the ULIP-based journal Francospheres (also published by Liverpool University Press) have sought - in the spirit of the manifesto - define and question the presence of French and culture across frontiers and borders;3 and the historicization of contact and mobility has been subject more generally close scrutiny in a number of ongoing projects.4I still remain convinced that can operate as enabling term for work in French studies as the field continues face a series of challenges likely prove definitive. Not only, as I suggest in the article, does a creative response the challenges of Greenblatt's manifesto allow complement language and interculturality in identification of those phenomena with which all students and scholars in French studies could/should associate themselves, no matter on which cultural artefact, historical period or geographical zone of the Francosphere they may focus; but also, such a manoeuvre provides a clear indication as why French studies - and Modern Languages more generally - should develop and underline its key role in the transformation of teaching and research in the arts, humanities and social sciences into what I described in the article that follows as an overarching disciplinary project fit address the challenges of a world seen as increasingly characterized by transnational and globalized connections. I am struck on re-reading Mobilising French Studies by the extent which the article remains ebauche, and I have indeed continued in my own work (on travel writing, postcolonial literature and translating cultures more generally) explore the implications of what I outlined. In the intervening few years since I wrote the piece, the convergence of the interests of French studies with those of the wider disciplinary field of Modern Languages has become increasingly apparent. Although I would consequently argue that has a relevance for a range of cognate fields concerned with the study of literatures, cultures and languages other than English, I still identify the potential of a specific mobilization of French studies, linked not only the unique geographical and more generally dynamics of the Francosphere, but also associated with a rich body of thought (produced by Henri Lefebvre, Michel de Certeau, Jean Baudrillard, Marc Auge, Paul Virilio, Bruno Latour, Etienne Balibar and others) that underpins the spatial turn in French cultural and critical theory since 1968. …