Mastering the Marketplace examines the origins of modern mass-media culture through developments in the new literary marketplace of nineteenth-century France and how literature itself reveals the broader social and material conditions in which it is produced. Anne O'Neil-Henry examines how French authors of the nineteenth century navigated the growing publishing and marketing industry, as well as the dramatic rise in literacy rates, libraries, reading rooms, literary journals, political newspapers, and the advent of the serial novel. O'Neil-Henry places the work of canonical author Honore de Balzac alongside then-popular writers such as Paul de Kock and Eugene Sue, acknowledging the importance of "low" authors in the wider literary tradition. By reading literary texts alongside associated advertisements, book reviews, publication histories, sales tactics, and promotional tools, O'Neil-Henry presents a nuanced picture of the relationship between "high" and "low" literature, one in which critics and authors alike grappled with the common problem of commercial versus cultural capital. Through new literary readings and original archival research from holdings in the United States and France, O'Neil-Henry revises existing understandings of a crucial moment in the development of industrialized culture. In the process, she discloses links between this formative period and our own, in which mobile electronic devices, internet-based bookstores, and massive publishing conglomerates alter-once again-the way literature is written, sold, and read.

French Cultural Studies for the Twenty-First Century brings together current scholarship on a diverse range of topics-from French postcards and Third Republic menus to Haitian literary magazines and representation of race in vaudeville theater-in order to provide methodological insight into the current practice of French cultural studies. The essays in the volume show how scholars of French studies can effectively analyze what we term "non-traditional sources" in their historical and geographical contexts. In doing so, the volume offers a compelling vision of the field today and maps out potential paradigms for future research. This book builds upon previous scholarship that defined the stakes of using an interdisciplinary approach to analyze cultural objects from France and Francophone regions and aims to evaluate the current state of this complex and constantly evolving field and its current methodological practices.

French Cultural Studies for the Twenty-First Century brings together current scholarship on a diverse range of topics-from French postcards and Third Republic menus to Haitian literary magazines and representation of race in vaudeville theater-in order to provide methodological insight into the current practice of French cultural studies. The essays in the volume show how scholars of French studies can effectively analyze what we term "non-traditional sources" in their historical and geographical contexts. In doing so, the volume offers a compelling vision of the field today and maps out potential paradigms for future research. This book builds upon previous scholarship that defined the stakes of using an interdisciplinary approach to analyze cultural objects from France and Francophone regions and aims to evaluate the current state of this complex and constantly evolving field and its current methodological practices.