French Studies

This book explores the culture, and includes chapters on history, language, literature, thought, theatre, architecture, visual culture, film and music, and discuss the contributions of popular culture, Francophone culture, minorities and women.

From Near and Far relates the history of modern France from the French Revolution to the present and how the history of France interacts with both the broader history of the world and the local histories of French communities. It focuses on the interactions between France and three other parts of the world: Europe, the United States, and the French colonial empire.

French thinkers have revolutionized European thought about knowledge, religion, politics, and society. Delivering a comprehensive history of thought in France from the Middle Ages to the present, this book follows themes and developments of thought across the centuries.

"Colonizer or Colonized" introduces two colonial stories into the heart of France's literary and cultural history. The first describes elite France's conflicted relationship to the Ancient World, the Greeks, and Romans, defending against the legacy of this colonized past and the fear that they were the barbarian other. The second story mirrored the first. Just as the Romans had colonized the Gauls, France would colonize the New World. Borrowing the Roman strategy, the French Church and State developed an assimilationist stance towards the Amerindian "barbarian."