The (French) Creole Turn?

In what ways can study of cultural mixing or métissages, often linked to histories of empire, colonization, and assimilation, help to better understand complexities in contemporary French and francophone societies? How can theories of creolization explain ambiguous ethnic, racial, and national phenomena that have long existed but have remained obscure? This article critically examines hybrid cultures that have coalesced as a result of pervasive French presence in the world over the last several centuries. The publications of Histoire mondiale de la France and its English translation France in the World: A New Global History sparked debate both inside and outside the Academy, on both sides of the Atlantic, about the global currents that have shaped nations like France and the United States. More readily acknowledged creolizations in French-speaking parts of the globe signal a noteworthy evolution. The analysis herein leans on oceanic thought developed by philosopher Édouard Glissant in his influential Traité du Tout-Monde. Glissant emphasizes the ephemeral, unpredictable, improvisational nature of creolizations. While common in the French and francophone world, creolizations know no boundaries and respect no borders; they are constantly and transgressively reinventing themselves. To what extent is the question of creolization in modern Québec relevant? The essay focuses in particular on French cultural cross-fertilization in the Americas and the compelling tensions between créolité and américanité. De quelles manières l’étude des métissages culturelles, souvent liées aux histoires d’empire, de colonisation et d’assimilation, peut-elle nous aider à mieux comprendre les complexités des sociétés françaises et francophones actuelles? Comment les théories de la créolisation peuvent-elles expliquer l’ambiguïté de certains phénomènes ethniques, raciaux et nationaux qui existent depuis longtemps mais qui restent obscurs. Cet article examine de manière critique les cultures hybrides qui résultent d’une présence mondiale française depuis plusieurs siècles. L’édition d’Histoire mondiale de la France et de sa traduction anglaise, France in the World: A New Global History, a suscité des débats sur les courants mondiaux qui ont forgé des nations comme la France et les États-Unis à l’intérieur et à l’extérieur de l’académie, des deux côtés de l’Atlantique. Des créolisations plus facilement reconnues dans quelques régions du monde francophone signalent une évolution pertinente. Cette analyse s’appuie sur la pensée océanique du philosophe Édouard Glissant dans son influent Traité du Tout-Monde, dans lequel il met l’accent sur la nature éphémère, imprévisible et improvisée des créolisations. Quoique communes en France ainsi que dans le monde francophone, les créolisations ne respectent ni limite ni frontière; elles s’inventent de nouveau sans cesse et de manière transgressive. Dans quelle mesure la question de la créolisation est-elle pertinente au Québec actuel? Cet essai jette un regard particulier sur les métissages culturels français dans les Amériques et sur les tensions entre la créolité et l’américanité.

Building bridges from K-12 to higher education in French and Francophone Studies

As scholars of French and Francophone Studies (FFS), our collective expertise encompasses a vast array of topics and methodological approaches. Too often, however, we write only for our peers, thereby neglecting opportunities and responsibilities to engage broader audiences. I advocate in this article for increasing the overlap between FFS, public humanities, digital humanities, and K-12 education, with a particular emphasis on the latter. In doing so, we can contribute to valorizing FFS, strengthen ties with our K-12 colleagues, inspire young people to pursue FFS in college, and promote intercultural understanding.

Editors’ introduction: Alive and Kicking: French and Francophone Feminisms Now

This article provides an overview of the diversity of feminist activism throughout the world over the last decade and situates these contributions to a transnational feminist (re)surge(ence) within the context of French and Francophone cultures. This article also offers a synopsis of the seven articles in this special issue, each of which engages with specific aspects of feminisms spanning diverse French and Francophone regions including Algeria, Canada, France, Haiti, Kanaky/New Caledonia, Te Ao Mā’ohi/French Polynesia, and Senegal. These contributors’ articles focus on the work of writers who share a demonstrated commitment to social change or who attest to the power of writing to heal personal and collective trauma, to raise critical awareness of social injustices, to inspire social and political transformations, and to imagine more pro-feminist, expansive, inclusive, and equal societies.

Performing the techno-self: Paul B. Preciado’s Testo Junkie as a twenty-first century feminist narrative

This article examines Paul B. Preciado’s Testo Junkie as portraying the need for a postpornographic trans* feminism that contests homonormative queer and feminist responses to LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, and asexual) individuals in neoliberal French and Francophone societies during the rise of far-right anti-gender movements. Interrogating Preciado’s autotheory text, which questions what gendered performance entails in the pharmacopornographic era, allows for a consideration of the author’s bodily subjectivity and how he represents material-discursive practices to theorise his techno-identity. The article argues that Preciado highlights his sexual and gendered performance to assert a trans* identity that rebels against classification. Unveiling the multiplicity of gendered and sexual experiences that counter Western hegemonic binary categorisations, Preciado shows readers that through his material representation, he controls his own subjectivity to centre possibility with postpornographic feminist performance, expanding what it means to be a feminist subject in the twenty-first century.