New Perspectives on the Fin De SiÈcle in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century France

“The fourteen studies of this volume are a collective demonstration of the flexibility and the tenacity of the fin de siècle theme, yet they are also a celebration of its essential Frenchness. Studies of literature and film rub shoulders with sociological and historical enquiries, providing an overview of the concept in its various manifestations and offering a range of fascinating insights. Yet the common strand in this diversity is that of the fin de siècle itself, explicitly addressed in each of the chapters and analysed extensively in the editors’ introduction to the volume. The standard of debate and presentation is extremely high, and this volume will surely prove to be a major landmark for future discussion of the theme.” – Paul Dunham

“A fine collection of essays which make all manner of links between the nineteenth and twentieth fins de siècle, not just in literature, but in the wider cultural field too. If these interconnections can seem initially surprising, the care with which they are analysed and, above all, brilliantly illustrated by quoting chapter and verse comprehensively supports Huysman’s famous contention that all fins de siècle are alike. Yet beyond this, wider cultural continuities manifest themselves in a dynamism which bursts out of the artificial confines of temporal constriction.” – Richard Bales

Table of Contents:
Foreword (Brian Nelson)
Introduction (Kay Chadwick and Timothy Unwin)
Part One: Inclusion and Exclusion – (Re)defining Boundaries
1. Laïcité and its permutations at the fin(s) de siècle (Jean Baubérot)
2. Intellectuals, demonisation and exclusion in the Dreyfus Affair and l’affaire du foulard (David Drake)
3. The younger generation: a fin de siècle concern (Denis Pernot)
4. Fin de siècle feminism: the Mouvement pour la parité (Jane Freedman)
Part Two: Gender, Identity, Sexuality
5. La Fronde: fin de siècle feminism at the dawn of a new era (Máire Cross)
6. The politics of romance: popular romantic fiction at the fin de siècle (Diana Holmes)
7. Transgressive masquerades? Gazon maudit (1995) and Pédale douce (1996) (Brigitte Rollet)
8. Writing AIDS in France: poeticising or politicising the fin de siècle (Owen Heathcote)
Part Three: Past and Future
9. Decadence and renascence: Louis Bertrand and the concept of rebarbarisation in fin de siècle Algeria (Patricia Lorcin)
10. The fin de siècle : reception and understanding of Cyrano de Bergerac and Ubu roi (Anthony Simons)
11. The Belle Epoque films of Jean Renoir (Martin O’Shaughnessy)
12. Forward to the past: Patrick Modiano’s Du plus loin de l’oubli (John Flower)
Part Four - Cultural and Economic Opportunities
13. France, cultural policy and identity at the fin de siècle : the opportunities of the European Union (Louise Strode)
14. Facing up to globalisation: Franco-German industrial co-operation at the fin de siècle (Jean-Marc Trouille)