French Cultural Studies ? The stakes and politics of knowledge
Study day
Although cultural studies constitutes one of the major academic turning pointsthat has influenced and transformed research in the humanities and social sciences over the last sixty years, it has long been marginal in France. Today, it is gaining ground among researchers from various disciplines (languages and civilisations, sociology, anthropology, history, literature, information and communication). In the public debate, Anglo-Saxon cultural studies hs recently been identified as the source of 'wokism'. Imported from American universities, it supposedly threatens the universalism of which France is a cultural pillar.
The specific aim of this event is to reflect on the challenges of research in cultural studies in the French academic context. Can we speak of "cultural studies" in France? To what extent is it (or could it be) independent -- epistemologically and beyond-- from Anglo-Saxon cultural studies?
Who does "cultural studies" in France? Under what conditions? How does it differ from what is done in other cultural contexts? What do the current controversies surrounding "wokism" say about the preconceptions that prevail in French academic spaces and the relationships between knowledge and power?
Are there (im)possible subjects or objects of research for the human and social sciences in France? If such (im)possibilities can be observed, what is at stake and what is political about treating them?
Although we will likely not answer all these questions, asking them and responding to them in a variety of ways will be our focus for the day.
The day is co-organised by several USIAS Fellows.
Programme
09:30 Welcome coffee
Session I : Broadening the scope of cultural studies
09:45 Lost in a book – on the nature and value of immersive reading
Diana Holmes, Professor of French literature and cinema, School of Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of Leeds (United Kingdom)
10:45 Round Table : French Cultural Studies here and elsewhere, with:
- Diana Holmes (University of Leeds)
- Isabelle Marc (Complutense University of Madrid, USIAS Fellow 2021)
- Anthony Mangeon (University of Strasbourg, USIAS Fellow 2017)
- Todd Reeser (University of Pittsburgh, USIAS Fellow 2021)
- Monica Manolescu (University of Strasbourg)
12:30 End of session I
Session II
14:30 The savages of civilisation: A look at the Zone, past and present
Jérôme Beauchez (University of Strasbourg, USIAS Fellow 2018) will present his new book on "the Zone". The Zone is located between the centre of Paris and the suburbs; it was a very particular kind of no-man's-land, born in the 1840s, which brought together a whole lumpenproletariat excluded from the bourgeois centre as well as from the working-class suburbs. The book examines the different ways in which marginalized populations are designated, despised or dominated. It also examines the violence that is attributed to them, often in order to better hide the violence done to them.
17:30 End of session II
