French Literature Research Articles

The History of French Literature on Film. By Kate Griffiths and Andrew Watts

<i>The History of French Literature on Film.</i> By Kate Griffiths and Andrew Watts

Linguistique informatique et linguistique diachronique : une alliance nécessaire

In this paper, we will try to show how formal linguistics applied to the study of diachrony can be a fundamental asset for research (and consequently also for teaching at a university level) in the field of French language and literature. We will treat successively the analysis of the support verbs (§2), the realization verbs (§3), the intensity collocations (§4) and the pragmatically restricted clichés (§5). In each section, we will present and discuss numerous examples in medieval French accompanied by their published translations into contemporary French.

BOOK N.A. ZHYMUNSKOY «FROM BAROQUE TO ROMANTICISM»: HISTORY OF CREATION AND HISTORY OF PUBLICATION

The article discusses a collection of articles of professor St. Petersburg State University Nina Zhirmunsky, articles on French and German literature. The collection was published posthumously. The article traces the author’s scientific path, the evolution of his interests related to French and German literature, as well as literary relationships. In addition, the article tells the history and principles of the posthumous publication of the collection.

Egyptian Heart, French Tongue

Only a few traces of Egyptian Francophone writers exist among the pages of old, outdated books and anthologies. Even though Albert Cossery, Ahmed Rassim, Georges Henein, Joyce Mansour, and Edmond Jabès were stranded in the land and language of diaspora, they stayed Egyptian at heart. The author, a novelist, poet, and critic himself, takes each of these writers and individually explores the aesthetics and impact of their work to ultimately consider the question: Is what they wrote considered Egyptian literature, or does it remain Francophone and, thus, French literature? In the process, the author articulates his appreciation that these writers exhibit a deep underlying Egyptian sensitivity.

Reality Bites

Reality Bites

From totalitarian regimes towards multipolar world: advantages and disadvantages of the new senior year curriculum on history in France

History taught in schools becomes increasingly important worldwide. School textbooks, standards and curricula on, which used to be just part of the learning process, turn into documents that are subject to extensive discussion. Leaning in the contemporary French scientific literature and speeches of the representatives of the French Ministry of National Education in a panel sessions of the Russian-French group on modernization of school curriculum on history (2018&amp;ndash;2019) and at the World Congress of School History Teachers held in Moscow in October 2021, analysis is conducted on the curriculum on history for senior year students, that came into force on September 1, 2019. The new school curriculum is structured in such a way that the rivalry between totalitarian regimes in the 1930s, primarily between the Soviet Union and Germany, is the key factor of the outbreak of World War II, which unfortunately corresponds to modern political trends in Western countries, but contradicts the historical facts. It arises questions and draws excessive attention to the program of the protection of the rights of minorities, and the elements of gender theory overall. At the same time, heightened attention to the history of genocides in the XX century, coverage of the events of 1968 and 1989 in global scope as separate topics, and a multifaceted approach towards teaching history of the Cold War are the strong points of the new French school curriculum on history.

Niveurmôrre: Versions françaises du “Corbeau” au XIXe siècle

Niveurmôrre: Versions françaises du “Corbeau” au XIXe siècle

What evidence exists on the possible effects of urban forms on terrestrial biodiversity in western cities? A systematic map protocol

BackgroundAs urban areas expand, scientists now agree that the city is an important space for biodiversity conservation. Yet, still relatively little is known about how urban forms could have a differential impact on terrestrial species and ecosystems. If some reviews have been conducted to examine the link between biodiversity and urban characteristics at an infra-city scale, none have explored the relationship between urban organization and biodiversity and tried to assess the capacity of various urban forms to maintain and possibly favour flora and fauna in the city. The resulting map will present the state of knowledge regarding possible relationships between urban forms and its features on the establishment and settlement of terrestrial and temperate biodiversity at infra-city scale in western cities.MethodsThe systematic map will follow the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence (CEE) Guidelines. We will collect the relevant peer-reviewed and grey literature in French and English language. The scientific literature will be retrieved with the use of a search string in two publication databases, one environmental and one social science database (Web Of Science Core Collection, and Cairn.info). We will also perform supplementary searches (search engines, call for literature, search for relevant reviews). All references will be screened for relevance using a three-stage process, according to a predefined set of eligibility criteria. Our study will concentrate on urban areas at the infra-city scale in cities of the temperate biogeographical zone. The subject population will include terrestrial species and ecosystems, except for archaea and bacteria. The exposure will consider all types of urban forms described by any urban descriptors or measures including heterogeneity, fragmentation, housing density, organisation of urban matrix, urban fabric) and all types of urban features (e.g. size, age of the buildings, materials, urban artefacts). All relevant outcomes will be considered (e.g. species richness, abundance, behaviour). We will provide an open-access database of the studies included in the map. Our results will also be presented narratively, together with tables and graphs summarising the key information coded from the retained articles (e.g. study characteristics, types and areas of research that has been undertaken, types of exposure, population concerned, etc.).

Cost-Utility of Acromegaly Pharmacological Treatments in a French Context.

ObjectiveEfficacy of pharmacological treatments for acromegaly has been assessed in many clinical or real-world studies but no study was interested in economics evaluation of these treatments in France. Therefore, the objective of this study was to estimate the cost-utility of second-line pharmacological treatments in acromegaly patients.MethodsA Markov model was developed to follow a cohort of 1,000 patients for a lifetime horizon. First-generation somatostatin analogues (FGSA), pegvisomant, pasireotide and pegvisomant combined with FGSA (off label) were compared. Efficacy was defined as the normalization of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) concentration and was obtained from pivotal trials and adjusted by a network meta-analysis. Costs data were obtained from French databases and literature. Utilities from the literature were used to estimate quality-adjusted life year (QALY).ResultsThe incremental cost-utility ratios (ICUR) of treatments compared to FGSA were estimated to be 562,463 € per QALY gained for pasireotide, 171,332 € per QALY gained for pegvisomant, and 186,242 € per QALY gained for pegvisomant + FGSA. Pasireotide seems to be the least cost-efficient treatment. Sensitivity analyses showed the robustness of the results.ConclusionFGSA, pegvisomant and pegvisomant + FGSA were on the cost-effective frontier, therefore, depending on the willingness-to-pay for an additional QALY, they are the most cost-effective treatments. This medico-economic analysis highlighted the consistency of the efficiency results with the efficacy results assessed in the pivotal trials. However, most recent treatment guidelines recommend an individualized treatment strategy based on the patient and disease profile.

Anxious Influencers – Reading the Nineteenth Century in 2021

ABSTRACT Looking at the conditions of academic work in nineteenth-century French literature as well as the foundations of the discipline of literary studies, this article argues that the study of literature in an historical context allows for a flexibility in conceptual frameworks. Readings attentive to the anxiety of overinterpreting the past, creating the possibility for us to compare the differences between historical ways of ordering perception, that is to say how new concepts emerge from textual forms. Works written around the events of July 1830, Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris, Stendhal’s Le Rouge et le Noir, and Sand’s Indiana serve as a case study.

Trans Rachilde: A Roadmap for Recovering the Gender Creative Past and Rehumanizing the Nineteenth Century

ABSTRACT Gender-focused studies of nineteenth-century French literature and history in the last few decades have often relied on heteronormative and gender normative paradigms. Using Rachilde as an example, I demonstrate how trans studies can offer tools through which to recover the gender-creative past. These tools are meant to work in concert with feminist and queer theories, while centering gender in a broad sense by focusing on challenges to the gender binary, modes of gender expression, attention to the material body, and a felt sense of gender.

Use, Value, Justification: On History and Historicism in Nineteenth-Century French Studies

ABSTRACT The ‘historical turn' has been particularly fruitful and enabling in nineteenth-century French studies, and methodological approaches that might broadly be described as ‘historicist’ remain dominant within the subfield. Yet these approaches inevitably privilege certain types of literary critical thinking over others, and may even obscure some of the ways in which literary texts have, or can be given, meaning. They also tend to posit the audience of work in nineteenth-century French studies as being composed primarily of other specialists. I suggest that ‘taking a break’ from historicism might facilitate new conversations about nineteenth-century French literature, with new interlocutors.

Lipofibromatous hamartoma of median nerve: A review article

Background: Lipofibromatous Hamartoma (LFH) is a rare condition that involves diffuse infiltration of peripheral nerves by normal-appearing fibrous and adipose tissues. Material and Methods: A literature search in Google Scholar, Medline, Embase, Current Contents, and Science Citation Index yielded original publications from January 1946 to August 2021 in English using the keywords “lipofibromatous hamartoma,” “fibrolipomatous hamartoma,” “lipofibroma,” “fibrolipoma,” “macrodystrophia lipomatosa,” “fibrofatty proliferation,” “intraneural lipoma,” “median nerve,” “median neuropathy,” and “peripheral nerve diseases.”Conclusion: LFH of the median nerve is a rare condition, with 180 reported cases in the English and French literature between January 1946 and November 2012. One third of cases are associated with macrodactyly, with no gender predominance. Patients are often affected at or shortly after birth and present before age 30 years.

Fetal Personhood and Voice in Medieval French Literature

AbstractThis essay examines medieval French literary representations of fetal speech and proposes a new understanding of medieval conceptions of personhood. Placing passages from theRoman de Fauvel,Histoire de Marie et de Jésus,Pelerinage de Jhesucrist, andTristan de Nanteuilin conversation with elements of thirteenth-century theological, encyclopedic, and scientific discourses, as well as with contemporary sound studies and theories of the voice, this essay shows that emergent human personhood is constructed in medieval texts as an audible social phenomenon. Medieval personhood is a notion reliant on sound and speech, and thus on the presence of an audience: a person is a composite of body and soul occupying a social and vocalic space shared with other persons. This relational understanding allows for a redefinition of personhood: not as a quality originating at a fixed point in human development but as a social and sensory experience.

What Forms Can Do: The Work of Form in 20th- and 21st-Century French Literature and Thought. Edited by Patrick Crowley and Shirley Jordan

<i>What Forms Can Do: The Work of Form in 20th- and 21st-Century French Literature and Thought</i>. Edited by Patrick Crowley and Shirley Jordan

The Paradox of Bazinian Adaptation: Translation and Fidelity in Saramago’s The Double and Villeneuve’s Enemy

Abstract Discussing Enemy (2013), his adaptation of Portuguese novelist José Saramago’s The Double (2002), French-Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve remarks: ‘the best way to respect an author is to be very honest about the way you adapted [their work] and to totally destroy the original and make it your own’. Villeneuve’s recreative (translational) use of ‘respect’ reverberates intertextually with André Bazin’s description of respect-based fidelity. For Bazin, utterly faithful yet completely original adaptations could be achieved through ‘a ceaselessly creative respect’ in which faithfulness and unfaithfulness paradoxically converge in translational acts of recreation. I term this paradoxical doubling the paradox of adaptation in Bazin. In part 1 of this article, I explore how Bazin illustrates that paradox in his essays about adaptation with examples of translation, and particularly with examples of Baudelaire’s and Mallarmé’s translations of Edgar Allan Poe (an emblem of intertextual rewriting in French literature). Bazin’s references to translation provide an aperture into a wider understanding of adaptation’s intertextual and heteroglossic nature. Bazinian adaptations are faithful reconstructions and unfaithful transformations. As I discus in part 2 of this essay, Villeneuve capitalizes on this paradox in his recreative translation of The Double. The film reflects and ‘destroys’ (as Villeneuve would say) Saramago’s novel in order to recreate it. Through its re-theorization of Bazin’s fidelity as a translational prism of recreation, this essay contributes to the ‘resurgence of (pro)fidelity criticism’ (Hermansson) as well as to ongoing calls (Krebs, Venuti) for greater attention to the hermeneutic synergy between translation and adaptation studies.

Non-Operative Management of Appendicitis: Evolution, not Revolution.

Background: The medical fascination with the appendix vermiformis dates from the clandestine prosectors of the fifteenth century. The surgical management of appendiceal inflammation dates from 1735, but acceptance that acute appendicitis (AA) should be treated primarily by resection with or without drainage would not follow for 150 years. Recent publication of several randomized clinical trials (RCTs) of non-operative management (NOM) of AA affords the opportunity to review the historical record, describe the evolution of AA management toward NOM, and assess what is in the best interest of the patient. Methods: Review and synthesis of historical and contemporary English, French, German, and Italian literature with expert opinion. Results: Modern understanding of AA dates to the landmark 1886 clinico-pathologic correlative study by Reginald Fitz, which coined the term appendicitis and coincided with recognition by surgeons that AA could be diagnosed pre-operatively and managed surgically, with mortality rates of approximately 10%. Not until 1901 did Albert Ochsner advocate NOM, paradoxically for severe cases unlikely to survive operation. Markedly decreased mortality coincided with the introduction of sulfanilamide in 1935 and penicillin and curare in 1942. The first large series of patients with AA treated primarily with NOM was published in 1956 by Eric Coldrey. Modern management evolved rapidly in the late twentieth century, including effective anti-anaerobic antibiotic agents (1970s), laparoscopic appendectomy (LA; 1980), and pelvis computed tomography with rectal contrast (1998) all representing important contributions. Randomized controlled trials of NOM of AA date to 1995, with one large trial (2015) showing that open appendectomy was not non-inferior to NOM, and another (2020) demonstrating non-inferiority between (mostly) LA and NOM. However, one-year failure rates are high (∼30%) and appear to increase further with longer follow-up. Conclusions: Laparoscopic appendectomy is curative and cost-effective management for AA, with low morbidity. Results of recent RCTs of NOM of AA indicate that LA remains the treatment of choice, particularly if a fecalith is present. However, patient preferences must be taken into account; some may prefer NOM for the 60%-70% chance that surgery may be avoided, which should be considered when providing informed consent. Non-operative management should be undertaken in the outpatient setting if possible. Antibiotic management-whether or not for NOM-should adhere to the principles of stewardship.

Les traductions françaises dans le polysystème littéraire ukrainien : le cas de la « Renaissance fusillée »

This contribution is within the framework of the polysystem theory of I. Even-Zohar, who, starting in translation studies, raised lively reflections on the role of translated literature within the literature of national culture. Literature, according to the researcher, is an open and dynamic polysystem composed of the centre and the periphery, the evolution of which is due to the continuous rivalry between the innovative and conservative tendencies of the polysystem. The contribution of the translations to the literary polysystem of a culture depends on their position in the polysystem of the target culture. Translations, being central in the literary polysystem, serve as sources of innovation as translators are freer to introduce foreign elements and techniques to the target literature. On the contrary, if the subsystem of the translated literature lies in the periphery of the polysystem, translators have to limit themselves to the models existing in the target culture, thus helping to maintain conservative tendencies. Our contribution is therefore an attempt to apply the theory of I. Even-Zohar to the study of French translations in the Ukrainian literary polysystem of the 1920ies-30ies. We have tried to shed light on the position of translated French literature in the Ukrainian literary polysystem as well as its contribution to the development of the reception system by analyzing the translation activity of the neo-classics representatives. Thus, we have identified three types of relationships between systems and subsystems characterizing the polysystemic approach: the centre versus the periphery (transitions from French); innovative systems versus conservative systems (the emergence of new literary genres in the centre of the field such as sonnets and heroic comedies; in addition the Symbolist and the Impressionist movements replaced the Soviet realism); canonical systems versus non-canonical systems (the introduction to the system of versification of forms and motifs which were different from those of Soviet literature).

McIlvanney, Siobhán and Gillian Ni Cheallaigh (eds). Women and the City in French Literature and Culture (2019)

McIlvanney, Siobhán and Gillian Ni Cheallaigh (eds). Women and the City in French Literature and Culture (2019). Un article de la revue Dalhousie French Studies (Infox, Fake News et « Nouvelles faulses » : perspectives historiques (XVe – XXe siècles)) diffusée par la plateforme Érudit.

Lyme neuroborreliosis in pediatrics: A retrospective, descriptive study in southwest France

BackgroundThe neurological effects of Lyme borreliosis in children are varied and their clinical progression is not widely reported in the French literature. We carried out a retrospective study to describe the clinical characteristics of Lyme neuroborreliosis in children in southwest France and their clinical progression at 6 months. MethodsThis study was carried out at Toulouse University Hospital during the period 2006–2017 using patient records. Case definition was based on the combined French clinical and laboratory diagnostic criteria. ResultsIn total, 26 children were included. The median age was 8 years (4–14 years). The different neurological symptoms reported were: meningoradiculitis (62%), which was usually associated with facial palsy (54%); isolated facial palsy (15%); isolated meningitis (8%); polyradiculoneuritis (4%); benign intracranial hypertension (4%) and myelomeningoradiculitis (4%). The most common functional symptoms were headaches (54%), the perception of asthenia (42%), neck pain (27%), and a loss of appetite (19%). Patients with laboratory meningitis (84%) often had no signs of meningism or headaches (38%). ConclusionThe majority of the cases involved meningoradiculitis but other, less common, neurological conditions have been described. The clinical signs suggestive of meningitis are not very marked and might delay the diagnosis.