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53181. Comment on Robert Nye's "The Pacte Civile de Solidarité and the History of Sexuality" [Dossier: The PaCS in Historical Perspective]

Author:
Joan W. Scott
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Robert Nye's elegant essay rightly puts the PaCS, and the debates about it into a historical context of French natalism. At least since the late nineteenth century, reproduction has been the raison d'être of the married couple and the state has often made fertility synonymous with patriotism. From this has followed all manner of representations, many of them contradictory. Although it surely was the case, as Nys shows, that marriage was eroticized and marital love idealized, it was also the case that reproduction and sexual satisfaction were considered separate domains.
Topic:
History
Political Geography:
France

53182. Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop's Democracy in America [Forum: Translating Tocqueville]

Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
The new Mansfield and Winthrop translation of Tocqueville's classic text, notable for the lengthy introduction the translators provide as well as their determined effort to create the most literal word-for-word translation that has ever been published of the work, draws the critical eye of four Tocqueville specialists. Focusing on the introduction, Seymour Drescher points out that the translators' decision to regard the Democracy of 1935 and the one of 1840 as a single work, a decision made against the grain of recent scholarship, leads them into misunderstandings of how Tocqueville came to view the strengths and weaknesses of American democracy by the 1840s. Arthur Goldhammer, at work on his own translation of Democracy, goes beyond the longstanding debates over literal versus interpretive translation to point out a large number of errors in rendering French expressions into English. Melvin Richter explores a number of instances where the pursuit of literalness leads to distortions, and then focuses on the consequences translating l'état social as "social state" rather than "state of society." Cheryl Welch examines how the decision to translate inquiet as "restive" rather than "restless" or "anxious," as she would have preferred, leads the translators to underestimate how much Tocqueville's views of religion and women were informed by his own anxieties about moral disorder in a democratic society. Mansfield and Winthrop respond to their critics with a detailed discussion of several of their most controversial word choices and with a defense of their strategy of literal translation.
Political Geography:
America

53183. Review Essay: Tocqueville entre l'ancien et le nouvel monde

Author:
Françoise Mélonio
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Sheldon Wolin propose de Tocqueville une interprétation dont le principe est énoncé dès le titre: «Tocqueville entre deux mondes». Tocqueville est pour Wolin un démocrate réticent, attaché a la démocratie comme à une épreuve inévitable, tant il reste lié à ce que Wolin appelle, d'un mot que Tocqueville n'emploie guère, «l'ancienneté», c'est à dire les valeurs de la société hiérarchique. La thèse n'est pas nouvelle, mais elle fait l'objet ici d'une argumentation extrèmement fouillée.

53184. Constructing French-American Understanding: The Cultura Project

Author:
Gilberte Furstenberg
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
The MIT Cultura project juxtaposes French/American opinion and expression, in order to involve respondents in a collaborative and ongoing process designed to identify perspectives and values, and so to undermine cross-cultural misconceptions and stereotypes.
Political Geography:
America and France

53185. If France Did Not Exist, Americans Would Have to Invent It

Author:
Sophie Body-Gendrot
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Analysis of opinion polls shows that even Americans unfamiliar with France are prepared to hold opinions about the country. Many see France as a non-America, a positive or negative counter-model. Moreover, "Americans" comprise many different perspectives and so "France" does not mean the same thing to everyone.
Political Geography:
America and France

53186. The System of Francophobia

Author:
Jean-Phlippe Mathy
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Francophobia is at base a systematic and recurrent critique of an alleged societal model based on political centralization and cultural elitism, seen as beginning with the monarchy and continuing on into the Republic, and contrasting with American liberalism, democracy, egalitarianism, and anti-statism.
Political Geography:
America

53187. American Francophobia Takes a New Turn

Author:
Justin Vaïsse
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Francophobia, a set of stereotypes, insults, and ready-made judgments designed to prove one's patriotism and score political points, is based primarily in diplomatic and conservative circles. The war in Iraq was a moment of special mobilization of Francophobia by the administration and a large share of the media, and may prove to have been a crystallizing moment for the discourse.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Iraq and America

53188. A Turn-of-the-Century Honeymoon? The Washington Post's Coverage of France

Author:
Pierre Verdaguer
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
From a highly critical position in the early 1990s, the Washington Post evolved toward move favorable coverage of France in areas even beyond the familiar one of culture, as a function of a perceived tendency on the part of the French to follow at last the American lead. But for how long?
Political Geography:
Washington and France

53189. The Franco-American Novel of Literary Globalism: The Case of Diane Johnson

Author:
Carolyn Durham
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Dane Johnson's Le Divorce and Le Mariage are representative of contemporary novels that use French-American interpersonal relations to reconfigure questions of national identity and cultural specificity, via metaphorical networks that recall the "complex connectivity" that characterizes globalization.
Political Geography:
America and France

53190. Screening France

Author:
Brigitte Humbert
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
American films about France or French people seek to maintain a certain level of Frenchness, usually through superficial traits and stereotypes, while also naturalizing them for perceived American expectations, including a taste for romance, a clear demarcation between good and evil, a certain type of action, and happy closure.
Political Geography:
America and France