The representation of colonials and natives in French colonial cinema from 1918 to 1945

In spite of having an empire that was second only to Britain's by 1914, the French people remained mostly unconvinced by and mistrustful of the colonial idea. There is no better proof of this than the French colonial films between 1918 and 1945 which depicted the empire in a particularly unattractive way while seemingly advocating the colonial cause. The paradox is all the more surprising given that the negative image that emerges from the films made in France around the colonial theme was not the manifestation of an anti-colonialism subtly disguised to avoid governmental censorship, but the mere expression of the general feeling of the French about their colonies. The lack of Gallic enthusiasm for the empire translated on screen into an intrinsic mistrust for what was regarded as the epitome of danger and despair.

What if? Epidemic discourse and serial narration in the alternate history series La Révolution (2020)

The article examines the formal and thematic manifestations of seriality in the Netflix series La Révolution, which justifies the revolutionary outbreak in a counterfactual plot with a viral outbreak that turns the nobles into zombie-like monsters. While, on a macrostructural level, the generic frame of alternate history promotes the serial character through the varying repetition of the historical event, the microstructural level of the narration evokes seriality by exponential contagion and spread of the disease as well as an increasing spiral of violence. First, the focus is on the representation of the aristocrat as a monster in pamphlets and caricatures of the revolutionary era. Subsequent to a contextualization of seriality in the age of streaming platforms, the analysis then discusses the medium-specific implementation of the epidemic discourse based on selected sequences of the series. Finally, it gives a hypothetical outlook on the implied motivations regarding the fictional development of the revolutionary event: through its contrasting exaggeration, the alternate-historical narrative can shed new light on the real historical events.

La traduction au prisme du genre et de la pensée islamique

The main objective of this article is to make the female voice heard in an area of the world where women are discriminated against and prejudiced, despite the progress made regarding their status in status in society. The aim is to demonstrate that the translation of the male discourse produced undergoes fundamental transformations that are the result of choices studied by the translator. She intervenes She intervenes and rewrites the text in her own way, even in the way that allows her to represent herself as a full human being in her own right, not relegated to the background. Through the analysis of samples taken from the work of the Algerian thinker Malek Bennabi “Les conditions de la renaissance” as well as the questioning of the first translation by the Egyptian thinker Abdel Sabbour Chahine, considered reductive and ‘religiously oriented’, we are in line with the feminist approach to translation feminist approach to translation, which advocates taking a stand on the dominant discourse. By invoking some of the methodological tools of Giles' IDRC Model and by referring to the notion of subjectivity developed in the framework of feminism of colour, we proceeded to the analysis of the source and target texts. We found that the doubly masculine discourse (the author and her (the author and his translator) was reproduced differently in the target language by taking into consideration elements that are absent from the source text. The invisibility of the woman in the process since she is considered an object, she passes to the status of visibility through the translational choices, the positions taken, and thus the decisions made.

Translating Boris Vian's Vercoquin et le plancton: Does it mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing?

This article is the result of research and reflection undertaken in the process of translating Vercoquin et le plancton. Focusing on music-related references in Boris Vian's first published novel, this article will discuss different layers of meaning and a variety of techniques that can be discerned in Vian's punning and wordplay. The complexity and compactness of his writing make for an exceptional case study. Whilst much of the wordplay may justifiably be classed as ‘juvenile’, its many facets also reflect life in Occupied France, document the Zazou movement, voice a manifesto for jazz, and stage playfulness that can be viewed as ranging from the very silly to a form of resistance. Such sophistication – largely overlooked, hitherto – justifies re-evaluation of Vian's early work. Analysis of a number of challenges to translation gives rise to discussion of possible solutions, based on different considerations – genre, function and audience – and using different ‘tools’. This article seeks not to justify my own choices in translation. Rather, it should illustrate the point that research is essential, and that interpretation and creativity are necessary if one's strategy in literary translation is to try to provide a new audience with similar opportunities for their own readings as a Francophone audience might have.

Alain Ehrenberg: Autonomy and empowerment

This article considers Alain Ehrenberg's extensive analysis of individualism in contemporary France. It shows how he has traced the emergence of autonomy as a key social value, and it goes on to analyse the distinctive features of Ehrenberg's sociological approach. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Ehrenberg does not regard the growth of individualism in France as a tragic process of anomie and isolation. In fact, he is critical of what he sees as a pervasive French discourse of ‘declinology’, and he has expressed his growing frustration with this perspective more recently in explicitly political terms. Although he acknowledges that autonomy can be burdensome for individuals, he feels that the state should respond to the sociological fact of autonomy by supporting and empowering citizens as autonomous agents. The article concludes by drawing attention to the limitations of this political position.

Le regard décolonial d’Alfred Alexandre: Les villes assassines ( )

This article focuses on the novel Les villes assassines ( 2011 ) by the Martinican writer Alfred Alexandre that shows his decolonial and critical vision of the politics indirectly established from France on overseas territories. The author paints a topography of misery where mafia, drugs and prostitution reign, showing the mechanisms of control and subjection of popular minorities, belonging to the «urban mangrove», whose only way out is, according to the author, a violent position to subvert an order inherited from the slavery regime.

Destabilising myths of origin: Collaborative storytelling and biopolitical communities in Wajdi Mouawad's Le Sang des promesses

This article analyses how diverse communities are formed through storytelling and mythmaking in Wajdi Mouawad's theatrical tetralogy, Le Sang des promesses (1999–2009). Mythic origin stories, which Mouawad's migratory characters collect and share on their journeys from one community to the next, draw individuals from their pasts on stage to act out the events from each narrative. Mouawad thus reveals how the theatre can serve as an ideal venue for spectators from diverse backgrounds to gather and experience the various conditions many migrants face. Drawing on Roberto Esposito's biopolitical theory of communitas and Lévi-Strauss's structuralist analysis of myth, this article argues that collaborative storytelling and mythmaking allow Mouawad's migratory characters to cross various types of borders and form unexpected communities that defy barriers of time and space.

Feminist psychogeography long after May 1968: Whatever Happened to My Revolution

Whatever Happened to My Revolution offers a French feminist perspective on the impact today of the uprising by the left in Paris in May 1968. The continuing appeal of the events of ‘68 are considered to be in decline, yet the film suggests that the energy of 50 years ago continues to mobilize cultural politics through cinematic appeals that amount to the radical recuperation of some of the ambitions of the day, a continuation of the past in the present. Whatever Happened to My Revolution is explored with reference to Guy Debord's concept of psychogeography, which suggested new phases of discovery in social life for remaking urban life, cross-referencing aspects of Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytical approach that appear in the film, especially the concept of desire, informing its feminist psychogeography. The challenges facing the current generation can be described as a desire by the French left, in this film defined and described by women, for the realization of May ‘68s cultural transformations in public and private culture.

Seduction, Aggression, and Frenchness in LA VIE PARISIENNE (1914–1918)

The article retraces how the notion of cultural singularity in sexuality was constructed and weaponized in the most popular French illustrated periodical of the First World War. It argues that La Vie Parisienne’s sublimation of romantic love, sex, and Frenchness worked as a cultural tactic that, while helping the readership cope with a devastating historical disruption, undermined at the same time claims for social change. The close analysis of works by illustrator Chéri Hérouard uncovers how nationalism and anxieties of sexual dispossession contributed to integrate a fraught notion of women’s sexual consent to a broader claim of cultural superiority. This article provides a critical approach to popular and visual representations of heterosexual and non-conjugal norms of desire, seduction, and sexuality in wartime France. It also offers a historical example of how the racialization and nationalisation of gender relations, discussed as ‘Gallic singularity’ in recent scholarship, trivialises masculine aggression and produces the ambivalence long associated with the notion of women’s sexual consent in France.

Islamophobia, racialisation and the ‘Muslim problem’ in France

This article introduces the special issue on ‘Islamophobia, Racialisation and the “Muslim Problem” in France’. Islamophobia is here understood as (anti-Muslim) racism, with structural and historical dimensions beyond those of individual acts of discrimination or prejudice, and whereby those perceived to be Muslim are systematically racialised as if they are ‘a race’ and as a ‘problem’ to be debated (primarily by the White non-Muslim majority). The issue brings together researchers from France and beyond, in French and in English, and from several disciplines, to demonstrate the diversity of international academic research on the topic as well as the relative consensus among specialist scholars on how to theorise and critique such phenomena.