Freedom In France Research Articles

Soundscapes of Liberation: African American Music in Postwar France. By Celeste Day Moore

In Soundscapes of Liberation, Celeste Day Moore has woven together a compelling book that sheds new light on the Black (American) experience in twentieth century France. Her critical intervention is to show that although the circulation and reception of Black music in postwar France seemed emancipatory, the reality was more complex. Moore outlines the tensions between an idealized rhetoric of racial freedom in France and the real erasures and stereotyping that characterized the transmission and reception of music of the African diaspora. She uses approaches from social and cultural history, popular culture studies, sound studies, and French colonial and postcolonial studies. Moore’s nuanced account of the emancipatory and constraining effects of soundscapes is central to understanding the complexity of “race” and racialization in France. She focuses on the time period after the Second World War although, as she points out, these characteristics are typical of earlier periods and continue to this day.

“I Am Afraid Americans Cannot Understand”: The Congress for Cultural Freedom in France and Italy, 1950–1957

This article examines the nature and significance of the activities carried out in France and Italy by the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), an international organization that was secretly funded by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to support anti-Communist intellectuals, including those on the left end of the political spectrum. These two West European countries, with their large and politically influential Communist parties, were central to the CCF's work in Europe. The organization's task was complicated by domestic concerns and traditions that forced local intellectuals to stress their autonomy from the CCF International Secretariat and its U.S. patrons. The article uses the cultural Cold War and the competing interpretations of anti-Communism and cultural freedom within the CCF as a lens to explore the limits of U.S. influence and persuasion among the intellectual classes of Europe. By repeatedly asserting their independence and agency, the French and Italian members of the CCF helped redefine the character and limits of U.S. cultural diplomacy.

Zakres swobody artystycznej we Francji – wybrane aspekty

W opracowaniu podjęto próbę analizy normatywnego kształtu granic wolności twórczości artystycznej we Francji. Z uwagi na to, że Francja odpokoleń uchodzi za kolebkę kultury i sztuki, ukazano zakres ingerencji prawa karnego w powszechnie uznaną wolność twórczości artystycznej – właśnie na przykładzie tego państwa. W artykule zwrócono również uwagę, iż kult wolności i kreatywności opanował rynek sztuki, przyczyniając się dopowstania sporów interpretacyjnych w orzecznictwie i doktrynie. Ilość procesów przeciwko artystom stanowi dowód na to, że jednak pewien zakres cenzury we Francji wciąż istnieje. Liczne skandale, procesy ożywiają debatę wokół wolności twórczości artystycznej. Autorka omówiła charakterystykęwybranych przestępstw popełnionych z przekroczeniem wolności artystycznej, wskazując na zasady odpowiedzialności karnej. W opracowaniu omówiono zakres swobody artystycznej we Francji w aspekcie ochrony praw autorskich i pokrewnych, swobody wypowiedzi, a także w zakresie swobody artystycznego wyrazu w kinematografii i teatrze.

The Muslim Veil in France: Between Power and Silence, between Visibility and Invisibility

This paper will explore the contingency and fluidity of religious freedom in France and stress the existence of overlapping, competing and coexisting legal discourses in terms of national security and public order. In response to the Muslim veil, changing power structures, changing societal norms and new faces of injustice, established doctrines are reconsidered, reformulated and partly replaced by competing doctrines and hypotheses. Given the relative indeterminacy of law on the concept of secularism and French neutrality, it is no surprise that the problem of interpretation has always been one of the focal points of attention for legal practice and drafting.

The debate on the principle of legitimacy of power in France and Italy between 1815 and 1821

ABSTRACTAfter the revolutionary storm, which had exported Jacobin democracy on the tips of its bayonets and after the epic deeds of the Napoleonic era, which, in the midst of remarkable contradictions, had asserted a number of principles and values of the French Revolution, the moderate or conservative liberal thinkers who wished for the introduction of a representative government and of personal freedom in France and in Italy were faced with the return of the old regime and with attempts of the Restoration to eradicate the reforms of the previous period. The only way these thinkers could save or restore parliamentary institutions and civil rights was to link their efforts to the destinies of the ruling dynasties. In both countries, this move was fiercely opposed, especially by reactionary writers. Hence, this essay will deal with the structure and contours of a debate which set two alignments in opposition, from the time of the Congress of Vienna to the Revolutions of 1820-21 and hinged on the principle of monarchic legitimacy and on the foundations of political authority which, for the first time, were being openly questioned in the midst of the American and the French revolutions.

Outlawing the Veil, Banning the Muslim? Restricting Religious Freedom in France

Outlawing the Veil, Banning the Muslim? Restricting Religious Freedom in France

Outlawing the Veil, Banning the Muslim? Restricting Religious Freedom in France

Outlawing the Veil, Banning the Muslim? Restricting Religious Freedom in France

Nation, Faith and War: The Birth of Freedom in France and the United States

Although both France and the United States take pride in the secularism of their legal systems and claim historical primacy when it comes to establishing a human rights regime based on secular laws, their constitutional separation of Church and State was achieved through very different historical circumstances. By comparing the French and US approaches to republicanism and secularism, this article argues that French history is a prime example of the controlling tendency of European nation-states over religion—and that this is precisely what distinguishes it from the United States. The contribution also shows that the connection between laïcité and France’s imperialism was intimate, and that this represents a second crucial difference between the French and the American conceptions of secularism.

The Bloomsbury Enlightenment Project

Review Article| September 01 2008 The Bloomsbury Enlightenment Project Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Avant-Garde: War, Civilization, Modernity, by Froula, Christine, New York: Columbia University Press, 2005 (paperback 2007). 428 pages. Suzette Henke Suzette Henke Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Twentieth-Century Literature (2008) 54 (3): 401–409. https://doi.org/10.1215/0041462X-2008-4007 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Suzette Henke; The Bloomsbury Enlightenment Project. Twentieth-Century Literature 1 September 2008; 54 (3): 401–409. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/0041462X-2008-4007 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsTwentieth-Century Literature Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © Hofstra University2008 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal Issue Section: Reviews You do not currently have access to this content.

John Milton, the English revolution (1640–60), and the dynamics of the French revolution (1789)

This article builds a bridge between England in 1642–60 and revolutionary France. It is about the use of Milton, a symbolic figure of the Puritan Revolution, by a leading personality of the French Revolution, Mirabeau. As he adapted Milton's Areopagitica as Sur la liberte de la presse, imité de l'anglois de Milton (1788) and “translated” his Defence of the English People as Théorie de la royaute, d'après la doctrine de Milton (1789), Mirabeau shrewdly introduced English concepts of political freedom in France. The following article will provide a close comparison and in‐depth analysis of the original documents.

The Origins and Foundations of the First Amendment and the Alien and Sedition Acts

The Origins and Foundations ofthe First Amendment and the Alien and Sedition Acts Murray Dry We seem to accordmore importance to the FirstAmendment freedoms, and the Bill ofRights in general, today than the American Founders did. Where they focused on the structure and powers ofgovernment, we focus on individual rights against government. I overstate the differ­ ence in orderto make this point: the best way to study the FirstAmendment freedoms ofreligion and speech is to examine their relationship to the purpose of government as a whole. This article has three main parts. In part one, I consider the significance of what could be called our country’s dual founding: by Puritan settlers in the early seventeenth century and then by rights-based constitution-makers in the latter part of the eighteenth century. In part two, I look to the state constitutions for instruction about the meaning of religious freedom and free­ dom ofspeech. In part three, I examine the FirstAmendment, from the federal Constitution and the Bill of Rights to Madison’s response to the Alien and Sedition Acts. I. Origins and Foundations of Our First Amendment Freedoms In his introduction to volume one of De­ mocracy in America, published in 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville emphasized democratic revolution as the characteristic ofhis age. “This whole book has been writtenunderthe impulse of a kind of religious dread inspired by con­ templation of this irresistible revolution....”1 Tocqueville calls for a “new political science...for a world itselfquite new.” More­ over, he viewsAmericaas the country to study, since “I saw in America...the shape ofdemoc­ racy itself...its inclinations, character, preju­ dices, and passions....”2 Convinced that freedom cannot survive without good mores, and that good mores re­ quire religion, Tocqueville is most impressed with the way religion supports freedom in America. In France, on the otherhand, “[m]en ofreligion fight against freedom, and lovers of liberty attackreligions...honest and enlightened citizens are the enemies of all progress, while men without patriotism or morals make them­ selves the apostles of civilization and enlight­ enment!”3 130 JOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY Tocqueville’s concern for the opposition between religion and freedom in France may account for his discussion of the Puritans in chapter two, which is titled “Concerning Their Point of Departure and Its Importance for the Future of the Anglo Americans.” Remarking on the importance of origins for understand­ ing human beings, and then analogizing nations to human beings, Tocqueville calls this chap­ ter, on the Puritans, “the germ of all that is to follow and the key to almost the whole work.”4 The Puritans came from England with a common language, the germ ofdemocracy, and a high level ofeducation. The education comes from their religion: “[I]nAmerica it is religion which leads to enlightenment and the obser­ vance of divine laws which leads men to lib­ erty.”5 Thus, the Puritans present Tocqueville with “a marvelous combination,... the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom.” Religion regards civil liberty as a noble exercise of men’s faculties, the world of politics being a sphere intended by the Creator for the free play of intelli­ gence. Religion, being free and pow­ erful within its own sphere and content with the position reserved for it, real­ izes that its sway is all the better estab­ lished because it relies only on its own powers and rules men’s hearts without external support.6 Tocqueville’s discussion of Puritan com­ pacts and their criminal codes complicates the relationship between liberty and religion how­ ever. Here is a part of the Mayflower Com­ pact, which he quotes: We whose names are underwritten ...having undertaken for the glory of God, and advancement ofthe Christian faith, and the honor of our king and country... do enact, constitute, and frame suchjust and equal laws ...as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good ofthe colony....7 After quoting a part ofConnecticut’s crimi­ nal code—“If any man after legal conviction shall have or worship any other God but the Lord God, he shall be put to death—,” Tocqueville adds: Blasphemy, sorcery, adultery, and rape are punish[able] by death; a son...

Problems of Intellectual Freedom in France

This article is part of a report on the state of cultural and intellectual freedom in France based upon the replies to a questionnaire prepared last year by the International Association for Cultural Freedom.

The Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos: A Chapter in the Struggle for Religious Freedom in France

One of the most significant documents in the literature of the Continental Reformation is that bearing the title The Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants. Its significance rests upon a basis of historical importance far exceeding that of its inclusion in the body of Huguenot writings which illumines the religious life of sixteenth and seventeenth century France. It is important because, as Mr. Harold Laski indicates, it is “a brilliant summary of ideas already adumbrated by the Huguenot party,” and it “surpassed all other essays of the time in the vigor and lucidity with which it restates these ideas.” It is a work which is regarded as embodying the best Huguenot thinking, and it records a memorable protest against tyranny that has renewed poignancy at every crisis in the age-long struggle for human freedom. It asked, and in its own fashion answered, questions having wide political significance because of the inextricable union of political with religious problems of the time.