What does citizenship mean? What is the process of “naturalization” one goes through in becoming a citizen, and what is its connection to assimilation? How do the issues of identity raised by this process manifest themselves in culture? These questions, and the way they arise in contemporary France, are the focus of this diverse collection.
The essays in this volume range in subject from fiction and essay to architecture and film. Among the topics discussed are the 1937 Exposition Universelle; films dealing with Vichy France; François Truffaut’s Histoire d’Adèle H.; the war of Algerian independence; and nation building under François Mitterrand.
Contributors: Anne Donadey, U of Iowa; Elizabeth Ezra, U of Stirling, Scotland; Richard J. Golsan, Texas A&M; Lynn A. Higgins, Dartmouth College; T. Jefferson Kline, Boston U; Panivong Norindr, U of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Shanny Peer, New York U; Rosemarie Scullion, U of Iowa; David H. Slavin; Philip H. Solomon; Florianne Wild, U of Alabama.
Steven Ungar is professor of cinema and comparative literature at the University of Iowa and author of Scandal and Aftereffect: Blanchot and France since 1930 (Minnesota, 1995). Tom Conley is professor of French at Harvard University (for a full biography, see page 15).