James Day

Violence in French and Francophone Literature and Film James Day

Brief Description: Stories of violence such as the account in Genesis of Cain s jealousy and murder of Abel have been with us since the time of the earliest recorded texts. Undeniably, the scourge of violence fascinates, confounds, and saddens. What are its uses in literature its appeal, forms, and consequences? Anchored by Alice Kaplan s substantial contribution, the thirteen articles in this volume cover diverse epochs, lands, and motives. One scholar ponders whether accounts of Huguenot martyrdom in the sixteenth-century might suggest more pride than piety. Another assesses the real versus the true with respect to a rape scene in "The Heptameron." Female violence in fairy tales by Madame d Aulnoy points to gender politics and the fragility of female solidarity, while another article examines similar issues in the context of Ananda Devi s works in present-day Mauritius. Other studies address the question of sadism in Flaubert, the unstable point of view of Emmanuel Carrere s "L Adversaire," the ambivalence toward violence in Chamoiseau s "Texaco," the notions of terror and tabula rasa in the writings of Blanchot, the undoing of traditions of narrative continuity and authority in the 1998 film, "A vendre," and consequences of the power differential in a repressive Haiti as depicted in the film "Vers le Sud" (2005). Paradoxes emerge in several studies of works where victims may become perpetrators, or vice versa."Table of Contents: Mathilde BERNARD: Justice des hommes, justice de Dieu, le retournement de la violence dans l "Histoire des martyrs" de Jean Crespin et Simon Goulart Dora E. POLACHEK: Is It True or Is It Real? The Dilemma of Staging Rape in Marguerite de Navarre s Heptameron Marcy FARRELL: The Heroine s Violent Compromise: Two Fairy Tales by Madame d Aulnoy Florence PELLEGRINI: L indisable et l obscene: Flaubert, Sade et la loi. A propos de "Bouvard et Pecuchet" Esther N. MARION: The Narrator-Perpetrator and the Infectious Crime Scene: Emmanuel Carrere s "L Adversaire" Julia EFFERTZ: Le predateur, c est moi l ecriture de la terre et la violence feminine dans l uvre d Ananda Devi Veronique MAISIER: Texte et pre(-)textes dans Texaco de Patrick Chamoiseau Milo SWEEDLER: "Tabula Rasa" Blanchot and the Terror Alice KAPLAN: On Violent Judgment: Louis Guilloux s Novel about Race, Justice, and the Segregated Army that Liberated France Therese DE RAEDT: "Vers le Sud" de la violence, du pouvoir, du sexe et de l argent Michele CHOSSAT: "A quoi revent les loups? " De l animal et de l humain selon Khadra Mariah DEVEREUX HERBECK: Narrative Assault in Laetitia Masson s "A vendre" Patrick L. DAY: Homeland Security: How the Community Protects the Individual from Violence in the Fiction and Films of Ousmane Sembene" Review Citations:

Reference and Research Bk News 02/01/2009 pg. 289 (EAN 9789042024625, Paperback)

Contributor Bio:  Day, James James Day is past president of National Educational Television, WNET/New York and KQED/San Francisco. He is currently Professor Emeritus of Television and Radio, Brooklyn College, City University of New York.