Twentieth-century France Research Articles

Ramon Llull and the Communicating Vessels Between Catholicism and Occultism in Early Twentieth-Century France

In 1919, the Avant-garde poet Max Jacob translated Ramon Llull’s mystical work, the Llibre d’amic e amat (Book of the Lover and the Beloved). In 1921, another translation appeared, authored by the Hispanist and Catholic activist Marius André. The plural strands of modern literary reception of Llull have only been superficially addressed. At the beginning of the 20th century, both Catholic intellectuals and Occultist circles considered his mystical and evangelical endeavors to have extraordinary imaginative potential. Catholic and conservative spheres were prompted to justify the validity and orthodoxy of Lullian doctrines, and to define him as a model. Simultaneously, pseudo-Lullist sources praising his alchemical adventures and the fanciful plasticity of his symbology were noted by Jacob and the Parisian Surrealist circle.This article analyzes the context of two modern translations of the Llibre d’amic e amat (Book of the Lover and the Beloved), as well as the motivations of their translators, to assess the confluence of interests and themes within these traditions. It thus showcases the interdependency between Christian apologetics, often connected to the Catalan intellectuals who were publishing Llull’s works at the time, and an international current of eclectic pseudo-Lullism, spanning from at least the 17th century, that was still influential in the works of pansophists, alchemical authors and Surrealist writers, and that would inform present-day, creative reception of the philosopher.

Ambiguity and experience: ethics of action in early twentieth-century France

ABSTRACT This article examines the ethics of ambiguity formulated by existentialist authors in the 1940s, linking it to turn-of-the-century debates on ethics between philosophy and the social sciences. The underlying thesis is that, rather than representing a radical conceptual novelty, the ethical thought of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, strained between freedom and situation, constitutes a revisiting and updating of philosophical positions from the landscape of the Third Republic. To demonstrate this, the thought of Frédéric Rauh is examined. Indeed, anticipating what de Beauvoir would later call “ambiguity”, Rauh sought to develop an ethics of action that would constitute a third way between sociological objectivism and the empty abstractions of idealism and rationalism. By reconstructing the transitions from one generation and historical context to the next, the article shows how, and through which mediators, the existentialists were well aware of this debate and, in their own way, developed a philosophy of action, of ethical experience, similar to Rauh’s.

The Iconic Apache: Early 1900s Paris and the Making of a Criminal Bogeyman

Abstract This article describes the creation of a criminal icon, the Paris Apache, brandished as a threat by the press and conservative politicians alike at the turn of the twentieth century in France. Archival analysis points to the theory that this figure of street crime was turned into a criminal ‘bogeyman’. The iconic Apache bogeyman allowed those manipulating it to focus the general public’s fears and attention on factual violence (crimes, assaults and misdemeanours) of which the structural causes (political instability and socio-economic inequalities) were masked by framing the criminal icon as solely responsible. This bogeyman role, embodied by the Apache in the past, is also examined in the present and analysed critically from the perspective of cultural criminology.

BATES (Richard), Psychoanalysis and the family in twentieth-century France. Françoise Dolto and her legacy

BATES (Richard), Psychoanalysis and the family in twentieth-century France. Françoise Dolto and her legacy

Unpeeling the banana dance: The quare fugitivity of Joséphine Baker

Unpeeling the banana dance: The quare fugitivity of Joséphine Baker

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.

C H E K A L O V K. A. OCHERKI ISTORII I TIPOLOGII FRANTSUZSKOY MASSOVOY PROZY XIX — NACHALA XX VEKA (ESSAYS ON THE HISTORY AND TYPOLOGY OF FRENCH MASS PROSE OF THE 19th– EARLY 20th CENTURY). — St.Petersburg: Nestor-History, 2022. — 286 pp.

The review analyses a book by K. A. Chekalov — a well-known scholar, Doctor of Philology, Head of the Department of Classical Literatures of the West and Comparative Literature Studies. His work continues the series of studies of mass French literature from its origins to the beginning of the last century. Th e author does not aim to cover all the phenomena of mass literature over a century and a half, trying at the same time to fi ll the gaps in their research, to turn to the least studied works of those novelists which his predecessors had already addressed (Eugène Sue, Alexandre Dumas, Maurice Leblanc), to the less explored writers (Paul Feval, Ponson du Terailles, Xavier de Montepin, etc.), as well as those famous writers whose relationship to mass literature is still ambiguous (Jules Verne). Comprising 11 essays, Chekalov’s monograph not only provides an insight into the poetics and function of the mass novel in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century France, but also shows the nature of its reception in Russia, from the fi rst published translations to the publications of the 2000s.

Witnesses to the Living God: Three Paradigms for Approaching the Politics of Nouvelle Théologie*

Witnesses to the Living God: Three Paradigms for Approaching the Politics of <i>Nouvelle Théologie</i>*

Psychoanalysis and the Family in Twentieth-Century France: Françoise Dolto and Her Legacy. By Richard Bates

Françoise Dolto (1908–1988) was a French psychoanalyst specializing in children and parenting who, as Richard Bates makes clear in this thorough and important account of her life, work, and influence, was also a ‘cultural phenomenon’ (p. 17). Contrasting Dolto’s place in French culture with that of Jacques Lacan, Bates argues that while the latter’s impact was restricted to theory and he addressed the ‘avant-garde elite’, Dolto’s work was directed towards the ‘everyday experience of ordinary French people’ (p. 8). Accordingly, Bates approaches Dolto through the lens of a cultural historian and situates his work alongside other (relatively rare) historical accounts of psychoanalysis as a social and cultural phenomenon. This wide-angle approach enables Bates to demonstrate the ways in which, in contrast to the left-oriented theoretical thrust of Lacan’s work, Dolto was a ‘thoroughly political’ and ‘nostalgically conservative’ figure (p. 13), whose work embodied a ‘ruralist nostalgia’ which reinforced ‘classic heteronormative assumptions’ and assumed an ‘overwhelmingly white and culturally Catholic audience’ (pp. 10, 12). One might suggest then that in the already fraught territory of the politics of the family and parenting, Dolto and ‘Doltomania’ have the status of a Barthesian myth, an allusion justified by Bates’s highlighting of Dolto’s ‘reassuring’ effect on her audience (p. 3). Bates offers a compelling analysis of this myth through meticulous and thoroughly documented research. He tracks the influence on Dolto of the 1930s psychoanalytic authorities, René Laforgue and Édouard Pichon. Their radically heteronormative concepts (for example, Laforgue’s ‘névrose familiale’) and defence of the Oedipal family unit, extending to Pichon’s rabid pathologization of homosexuality and insistence on the traditional division of gender roles, remained ‘cornerstones of Dolto’s later thinking’ (p. 38). A second chapter, ‘Dutiful Daughters’, discusses Dolto’s Catholic and anti-Dreyfusard background, evoking Simone de Beauvoir’s autobiographical memoir in comparison. Moving forward chronologically into the Occupation and its aftermath, Bates shows himself to be particularly adept at disentangling the ways in which Dolto’s barely ambivalent Pétainism played into the rifts in the institutional politics of psychoanalysis that led to her exclusion from the International Psychoanalytical Association in 1953. In the later chapters Bates focuses, with the same perspicacity and measured tone, on Dolto’s championing of the cause of children (as long as the family unit stood firm) and her startling ascription of autism to the ‘pathogenic family’; before a final chapter, which analyses Dolto’s move beyond the terrain of psychoanalysis as such and occupation of the role of media star, through the extremely popular daily radio broadcasts she made from the mid-1970s on. If Bates succeeds in his aim ‘not so much to judge Dolto’s work as to historicise it’ (p. 232), the pernicious implications of her anti-progressive views, in Barthesian terms the abuses hidden in the myth, are starkly illuminated. Whether these are ‘the products of a particular set of historical circumstances’ (p. 232), or problematics embedded in psychoanalytic theory and practice, is a matter for further debate.

Nimisha Barton. Reproductive Citizens: Gender, Immigration, and the State in Modern France, 1880–1945.

In the 2000s, the global turn swept through modern French history, above all among scholars in the United States. In a post-Cold War context where Western Europe was no longer of great strategic interest, France and the French had to be made “global” to retain their relevance in a crowded disciplinary marketplace. Fortunately, it was easy to globalize the history of a nation that had once had a substantial overseas empire, was widely recognized as a “great power,” and seemed to be grappling openly with the politics of racial difference and the legacies of its colonial past. As research agendas in the field quickly changed, a new cohort of graduate students began to rediscover topics that had fallen out of fashion or had been ignored altogether. Nimisha Barton fits squarely within this new generation of French historians, and her book reflects many of the most interesting innovations that have emerged from the global turn. Anyone who knows the field will recognize themes—such as immigration, gender, and the meaning of citizenship—that have been the subject of significant English-language scholarly attention in the past twenty years, but Barton carefully moves the conversation on to more unfamiliar chronological and methodological terrain. For a start, her focus on the Third Republic is a welcome departure from the much more crowded historiography of immigration in postwar France. Just as importantly, her use of the term “reproductive citizens” brings into conversation the histories of women, the family, and republican citizenship. Despite the stimulating work of scholars such as Camille Robcis, Judith Surkis, and Amelia Lyons, the strongly gendered character of republican citizenship in twentieth century France remains a neglected subject of study.

Richard Bates, Psychoanalysis and the Family in Twentieth-Century France: Françoise Dolto and Her Legacy

Richard Bates, Psychoanalysis and the Family in Twentieth-Century France: Françoise Dolto and Her Legacy

Ivo van Hove and Almodóvar: Remixing The Human Voice

Ivo van Hove and Almodóvar: Remixing <i>The Human Voice</i>

Do French ‘Nomads’ Have a War History? A Review of Seventy-five Years of Historiography

Through a study of the historiography of the persecution of “Nomads” in France from 1939 to 1946, this article offers a critical analysis of methodological and thematic biases present in much historical research on the topic. Historical studies on “Nomads” have significant practical implications today: this article examines how the history of French Roma and Travellers during the Second World War was written. It shows how French institutions have relied on historical work to deny the racial character of the persecution of the so-called“Nomads”. The paper emphasizes that internment and enforced residence were not so much an absolute break but rather part of a particularly virulent moment in the long history of persecution of “Nomads” in the twentieth century in France.

« Stimuler les phagocytes » : controverses autour de la naissance de l'immunité cellulaire à Paris à la fin du XIXe siècle au début du XXe siècle

This article traces the imaginative and linguistic work at play in the history of immunity from late nineteenth to early twentieth century France, culminating with Elie Metchnikoff, the “father” of immunology, and his discovery, the phagocyte. Metchnikoff founded a new discipline on the back of this small, ravenous actor, positing the “eater cell” as both the solution to and problem worsening the body's lack of synchronicity with itself and its surroundings. His inquiry rejoins discourses of decadence in its ontological anxiety about what determines self from other and how to go about restoring “harmony” - i.e. intactness and integrity - to fundamentally disharmonious, modern man, whose life, stripped of transcendence, is inexorably bound by time and biology.

Nadia Boulanger and Her World, edited by Jeanice Brooks

<i>Nadia Boulanger and Her World</i>, edited by Jeanice Brooks

Negotiating French Social Citizenship in Early Twentieth-Century Letters to a Representative for the Rhône Department

Taking the distinction made by Patrick Hassenteufel between statutory and identity-based citizenship as a starting point, this article investigates expressions of the latter citizenship in early twentieth-century France. More specifically, this article focuses on how ‘ordinary’ men and women from a rural area in the Rhône department perceived their place in French republican society shortly before and during the First World War. The war years were a time when (claims to) social policies were continuously renegotiated, in relation to men and women’s commitment to the Republic. Whether they had political voting rights or not, ‘ordinary’ citizens took part in these negotiation processes, yet in an informal (and therefore still underexposed) way, through written communication with a parliamentary representative (<em>député</em>). Men and women who shared the same social background used similar rhetorical tactics in their requests for help, support, or a favour. Men’s expressions of gratitude towards ‘their’ <em>député</em> could, however, entail a promise of a vote, whereas women were still not enfranchised. Though reminiscent of the image of a clientelist rural France at first sight, neither men’s nor women’s letters were characterised by mere trade-offs. Instead, they were increasingly revealing of how the letter-writers (re)imagined the notions attached to their citizenship. The connections between those concepts, such as (social) rights, duties, and knowledge (and the impact of the war on rhetorical constructions of these aspects of citizenship) are analyzed from the letter-writers’ viewpoints. Focusing on such a micro-level allows for insights into the mutually educational nature of the common practice of sending letters to a French Third Republican parliamentary representative.

From Material to Non-Material Needs? The Evolution of Mate Preferences through the Twentieth Century in France

This paper studies the evolution of mate preferences throughout the twentieth century in France. I digitized all the matrimonial ads published in France’s best-selling monthly magazine from 1928 to 1994. Using dictionary-based methods, I show that mate preferences were mostly stable during the Great Depression, WWII, and the ensuing economic boom. These preferences started transforming in the late 1960s when economic criteria were progressively replaced by personality criteria. The timing coincides with profound family and demographic changes in French society. These findings suggest that, in the search for a long-term partner, non-material needs have replaced material ones.

Features of book publishing in France

The article is devoted to the peculiarities of book publishing and book distribution in France, changes in the French book industry over the centuries and recently. The French book industry is studied. Book publishing (as a branch of the country's economy) appeared in France at the end of the 18th century, and in the five centuries of its existence book publishing has come a long way, developed and improved, adapted to new conditions and actively used all the achievements of technical progress. The nineteenth century was the golden age of French literature. The European world spoke French. In the twentieth century France's position faltered. The United States, Great Britain and Germany took the first place. Therefore, in France, great importance is attached to book publishing as a way to spread knowledge about France and the French language.&#x0D; The article analyzes the features of book publishing and book distribution in France before the COVID-19 pandemic, highlights some features and trends in the development of the French publishing industry during the pandemic restrictions.&#x0D; The spread of the virus to stop or significantly reduce book production in France. The exploration analyzes the changes that have taken place in the industry as a whole and in its individual parts. The ways of development of retail trade and internet-trade before and during the pandemic in France are investigated.&#x0D; The role and place of different book formats in the general system of book publishing in France, the advantages of a printed book, the place of an e-book and an audiobook in the value system of French readers are clarified.

To whom does a Letter Belong? Psychopathology and Epistolography in the Asylum Letters of Antonin Artaud and Camille Claudel

This article analyses the published letters of two important artists, Camille Claudel (1864–1943) and Antonin Artaud (1869–1948), who were incarcerated in French psychiatric asylums in the early twentieth century. It argues that although asylum letters deviate from standard modes of epistolography, and pose interpretive difficulties, they remain sophisticated and hyper-meaningful communications. Contending that the language of ‘schizophrenia’ and ‘paranoia’ is not one of disconnection or primitive drives, but one of hyper-reflexivity, the article analyses how these writers responded to the constraints of the communicative situation in which they were placed. It suggests that singular aspects of the texts, related to their materiality and psychotic patterns of thinking, reveal the limitations of traditional theories of epistolarity. TWEETABLE ABSTRACT Textual strategies employed in response to the policing of letters in psychiatric asylums in twentieth-century France.

The Crimes of Marguerite Duras: Literature and the Media in Twentieth-Century France. By Anne Brancky

<i>The Crimes of Marguerite Duras: Literature and the Media in Twentieth-Century France.</i> By <scp>Anne Brancky</scp>