Turns to the Right? ed. by Michael A. Johnson, Lawrence R. Schehr

Abstract

literary and historical analysis, Caron posits that these locations of supposed antirepublicanism are, in fact, a necessity: the Republic, he claims, needs these sites of memory and/or resistance in order to justify its own ideologies and existence. In the example of the Jewish Marais, it represents a folklorized space and stands as a testament to the integrative powers of the Republic; as for the Gay Marais, it operates as a warning that the politicizing of private identity is dangerous to the integrity of the Republic. The overarching theme of the second part of Caron’s book is the queerness of objects that “are still here” (125). He concludes that, “[j]ust as Jews were expected to vanish with the advent of Christianity but haven’t, so are homosexuals the archaic relics of an earlier, immature stage of sexual indeterminacy to be relinquished with its fulfillment into mature, reproductive heterosexuality, but whose traces linger on, according to Proust” (123). Moving deftly from personal anecdotes to literary and film analysis to 1970s radical theory and back again, Caron embarks on an examination of Jews and queers, wherein he uncovers the queerness of family, friendship, and community. Caron questions the narrative of progress and authenticity and the limiting powers these discourses have on those who do not fit into nineteenth-century bourgeois norms of development. As “creatures of the past” (123), Jews and queers occupy two temporal positions at once, thereby defying the bourgeois discourse of progress towards what is ultimately an unattainable future. Caron later proposes that disaster “is the origin of all communities” (159) and has a paradoxical relationship to time in that it brings a past event into the present. Disaster, then, reminds the group of their failures, and it is these failures that draw people together into a community. Caron also demonstrates that the failure of the family model allows for other kinds of community building. He argues that group friendship destabilizes the family-based model of community since it functions in a kind of “eternal present” (203), without regard for the future. He warns us against adopting the family as the model for community since the family functions as a privatized entity, and is thus stripped of its political power within the public sphere. Groups that adopt the family as a model are therefore relinquishing their claim to political power from the outset. In his final chapter, Caron concludes by discussing the duty of memory and the call to remember through photographs of his father and his father’s family. Weaving in historical and literary analysis with ethnographic fieldwork, Caron crafts a wonderfully compelling book. Written in an accessible style that does not shy away from dense theoretical discussions, his work speaks to many research fields (e.g. Film studies, Jewish studies, Queer studies, Urban studies). College of William and Mary (VA) Luke L. Eilderts JOHNSON, MICHAEL A., and LAWRENCE R. SCHEHR, eds. Turns to the Right? Yale French Studies 116/117 (2010). ISBN 978-0-3001-1823-0. Pp. 185. $22. Ce volume se divise en quatre parties intitulées “The State of Affairs”, “French Intellectuals”, “The Political Self”, et “Literary Plaints”. Malgré le titre Virages à droite?, la préface nous avertit d’emblée que l’on assisterait plutôt à une “réorientation” (liée à une “désorientation” palpable) qu’à une “droitisation” du débat intellectuel en France. Parmi les causes: la tension entre anciens mythes républicains, les inévitables reconfigurations de l’identité française, et le statut 840 FRENCH REVIEW 84.4 précaire de “l’intellectuel médiatique”, sorte d’oxymore au temps de “l’imbécél ébrité”. Ce sont les causes historiques de cette désorientation (où l’on reparle souvent de Mai 68) ainsi que les modalités de la réorientation, que ce volume explore. Selon François Noudlemann, la tension identitaire en France s’explique par l’émergence de généalogies multiples et concurrentes et par la transformation du patrimoine en objet sacré. Il faudrait alors, comme André Gorz et Antonio Negri, accepter le monde à venir avec un esprit critique. Verena Andermatt Conley souligne la responsabilité de Mai 68 dans l’échec de l’exp...