This is the first study of May 68 in fiction and in film. It looks at the ways the events themselves were represented in narrative, evaluates the impact these crucial times had on French cultural and intellectual history, and offers readings of texts which were shaped by it. The chosen texts concentrate upon important features of May and its aftermath: the student rebellion, the workers strikes, the question of the intellectuals, sexuality, feminism, the political thriller, history, and textuality. Attention is paid to the context of the social and cultural history of the Fifth Republic, to Gaullism, and to the cultural politics of gauchisme. The book aims to show the importance of the interplay of real and imaginary in the text(s) of May, and the emphasis placed upon the problematic of writing and interpretation. It argues that re-reading the texts of May forces a reconsideration of the existing accounts of postwar cultural history. The texts of May reflect on social order, on rationality, logic, and modes of representation, and are this highly relevant to contemporary debates on modernity.

May 1968 and its aftermath constitute a watershed in contemporary French history. France was brought to a standstill as over 10 million went on strike, factories and campuses were occupied, and pitched battles were fought on the streets of Paris between riot police and students. Its roots were many and varied, its consequences equally diverse, but the slogans and images of May - utopia and spectacle, pure politics and pure play - gained mythic status as founding texts of a new cultural politics. This is the first book-length study of May 68 in French fiction and film. Eight texts, including works by Beauvoir, Cardinal, Godard, and Kristeva, are chosen to present major features of May and its aftermath, and to highlight the importance of language, image, and spectacle in the cultural and intellectual history of an extraordinary event.

The Second World War and the German Occupation remain a major focal point in French culture and society, with new and sometimes controversial titles published every year - Irene Nemirovsky's Suite francaise and Jonathan Littell's Les Bienveillantes, both rapidly translated into English, offer just two examples of this significant phenomenon. Gathering within one volume studies of genres, visual cultures, chronology, narrative theory, and a wealth of narratives in fiction and film, Framing Narratives of the Second World War and Occupation in France 1939-2009 brings together an internationally distinguished group of contributors and offers an authoritative overview of criticism on war and occupation narratives in French, a redefinition of the canon of texts and films to be studied and a vibrant demonstration of the richness of the work in this area. Edited by two leading specialists, the book includes contributions by William Cloonan, Richard J Golsan, Leah Hewitt, Colin Nettelbeck, and Gisele Sapiro.

The Second World War and the German Occupation remain a major focal point in French culture and society, with new and sometimes controversial titles published every year - Irene Nemirovsky's Suite francaise and Jonathan Littell's Les Bienveillantes, both rapidly translated into English, offer just two examples of this significant phenomenon. Gathering within one volume studies of genres, visual cultures, chronology, narrative theory, and a wealth of narratives in fiction and film, Framing narratives of the Second World War and occupation in France 1939-2009 brings together an internationally distinguished group of contributors and offers an authoritative overview of criticism on war and occupation narratives in French, a redefinition of the canon of texts and films to be studied and a vibrant demonstration of the richness of the work in this area. Now available in paperback, the book includes contributions by William Cloonan, Richard J Golsan, Leah Hewitt, Colin Nettelbeck and Gisele Sapiro -- .

French feminism was central to the theory and culture of Second Wave feminism as an international movement, and 1975 was a key year for the women's movement in France. Through a critical review of the politics, activism and cultural creativity of that moment, from the perspective of both preceding and subsequent 'waves' of feminism, this book evaluates the legacies of 1975, and their strengths and limitations as new questions and new conjunctures have come into play. Edited and written by an international group of feminist scholars, it offers both a critical re-evaluation of a vital moment in women's cultural history, and a new analysis of the relationship between second wave agendas and contemporary feminist politics and culture.

This volume explores contemporary French women's writing through the prism of one of the defining moments of modern feminism: the writings of the 1970s that came to be known as "French feminism". With their exhilarating renewal of the rules of fiction, and a sophisticated theoretical approach to gender, representation and textuality, Helene Cixous and others became internationally recognised for their work, at a time when the women's movement was also a driving force for social change. Taking its cue from Les Femmes s'entetent, a multi-authored analysis of the situation of women and a celebration of women's creativity, this collection offers new readings of Monique Wittig, Emma Santos and Helene Cixous, followed by essays on Nina Bouraoui, Michele Perrein and Ying Chen, Marguerite Duras and Mireille Best, and Valentine Goby. A contextualising introduction establishes the theoretical and cultural framework of the volume with a critical re-evaluation of this key moment in the history of feminist thought and women's writing, pursuing its various legacies and examining the ways theoretical and empirical developments in queer studies, postcolonial studies and postmodernist philosophies have extended, inflected and challenged feminist work.