Books in the Contemporary French and Francophone Cultures series

A monograph that is dedicated to the work of Valentin Yves Mudimbe. It charts the history of the seminal Congolese philosopher, epistemologist, and philologist from the late 1960s to the present day, exploring his major essays and novels. It highlights Mudimbe's trajectory through major debates on African nationalism, and Panafricanism.

Sex, Sea, and Self reassesses the place of the French Antilles and French Caribbean literature within current postcolonial thought and visions of the Black Atlantic.

This book reconsiders authorship by the descendants of North African immigrants to France by consulting how these authors' novels have been discussed and promoted in the national audio-visual media.

A collection of 23 riveting essays on aspects of contemporary French culture by the superstars of the field.

Traces of War examines how the trauma of the Second World War influenced the work of the brilliant generation of writers and intellectuals who lived through it.

The question `What is Quebecois literature?' may seem innocent and answerable, yet Rosemary Chapman's compelling study shows that to answer it is to chart the cultural history of French Canada, to put francophone writing in Canada in postcolonial context and to ask whether literary history, with its focus on the nation, is in fact obsolete.

Over the past two decades interest in travel has developed significantly. As well as exploring the reasons for Africans' exclusion from the genre, the book examines the important relationship between ethnicity and travel and identifies the concerns and preoccupations that define African writers' approaches to travel.

Considered by many as one of the most innovative writers to hit the French literary scene in over 40 years, Chamoiseau made his name with his book Texaco (published in 1992 and winner of the highest literary prize in France, the Prix Goncourt). This book examines the work of the award-winning writer Patrick Chamoiseau.

At a time when the world is contemplating the depletion of non-renewable natural resources, the consumer society is increasingly being called into question.

Presents studies of authors who can be visualized as the islands that constitute an unknown, fragile and trembling literary and cultural Francophone archipelago. This book argues that they repair trauma through writing.

Acclaimed critic Lawrence Schehr uses analysis of AIDS narratives, mainstream films, popular novels, more mainstream novels, a graphic novel, and rightist polemics to explore the changing meaning of masculinity in French society.

Exile and Post-1946 Haitian Literature reinterprets and analyses post-1946 Haitian writing as a literature of exile. The breadth and scope of this book will attract scholars and students with interests in fields such as Caribbean studies, postcolonial studies, francophone studies, migration studies, and African-American studies.

A full-length account of Barthes' lecture courses given in Paris,1977-80, placing his teaching within institutional, intellectual and personal contexts. Analysing texts and recordings of the four lectures together with his 1970s output, it brings together all the strands of Barthes' activity as writer, teacher and public intellectual.

This book takes a new look at the 'spatial turn' in French cultural and critical theory since 1968. It examines how key thinkers (inc. Henri Lefebvre, Michel de Certeau, Jean Baudrillard, Marc Auge, Paul Virilio, Bruno Latour and Etienne Balibar) reconsider the experience of space in the midst of considerable political and economic turmoil.

Historically and contemporarily, politically and literarily, Haiti has long been relegated to the margins of the so-called 'New World.' This book looks at the works of three such writers: the Haitian Spiralists Franketienne, Jean-Claude Fignole, and Rene Philoctete.