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Abstract
The starting point of our reflexion about the place of Cultural Studies in France and the development of French Cultural Studies lies in a double paradox. The first paradox consists in the absence of any stable terminology and taxonomy, whereas Cultural Studies has already, though implicitly – almost secretly, encroached on the French scientific realm in the shape of very plastic and dynamic formations. And the second paradox pertains to the history of ideas: albeit many French scholars have made major contributions to Cultural Studies as an intellectual endeavor, they have not generated French Cultural Studies of its own and, quite symptomatically, are not even connected (by current readings) with existing Cultural Studies…. In this respect it is no exaggeration to state that the French scientific community entertains an ambivalent relation to the polymorphous constellation of Cultural Studies. More than that, it is crucial to observe it to start investigating the manifold reasons for the French reluctance as well as the possible ways of overcoming it and finding innovative means of responding to the challenges of today's world. By doing so, we not only have to find out the ideological, epistemological, and intellectual factors in the French resistance, say French singularity (from Jacobinism to protectionism), but should figure out at what expense and to which extent a Cultural Studies approach is transferable as well as desirable in the French context. This is precisely the aim of the present paper, which will likely raise a further question: will this new approach be so ‘singular’ as the current French relation to Cultural Studies is? At any rate, this epistemo-political chapter is far from being closed…
Notes
1. It is now published by the Centre d'Etudes Transdisciplinaires Sociologie, Anthropologie, Histoire (EHESS), a research group associated with the CNRS, with the intention of creating an inter- and transdisciplinary dialog and finding out new research orientations.
2. According to the definition of the European Commission Education and Training, ‘The Bologna Process aims to create a European Higher Education Area by 2010, in which students can choose from a wide and transparent range of high quality courses and benefit from smooth recognition procedures. The Bologna of June 1999 has put in motion a series of reforms needed to make European Higher Education more compatible and comparable, more competitive and more attractive for Europeans and for students and scholars from other continents.…The three priorities of the Bologna process are: Introduction of the three cycle system (bachelor/master/doctorate), quality assurance and recognition of qualifications and periods of study. See http://ec.europa.eu/education/higher-education/doc1290_en.htm
3. Among the important steps, an ‘arrêté’ (a kind of decree) of 23 April 2002, recommended the implementation of pedagogical projects that would integrate several disciplinary approaches and the LRU – the law on the Liberties and Responsibilities of the Universities, which grants more autonomy to individual French universities, was enacted in 2007.
4. Here are the titles of the books that were recently translated by Maxime Cervulle, a French Cultural Studies practitioner: E. Kosofsky Sedgwick (2008) Epistémologie du placard, Paris, Editions Amsterdam; S. Hall (2007) Identités et Cultures. Politiques des Cultural Studies, collection of texts ed. and trans. M. Cervulle, Paris, Editions Amsterdam; J. Butler 2006, Défaire le genre, Paris, Editions Amsterdam.
5. Here are the titles of these few publications. The introductions and collections of texts about Cultural Studies are: A. Mattelart & E. Neveu (2003) Introduction aux Cultural Studies, Paris, La Découverte; A. Kaenel, C. Lejeune, & M.-J. Rossignol (2003) Cultural Studies. Etudes Culturelles, Nancy, Presses Universitaires de Nancy; A. Chalard-Fillaudeau & G. Raulet (2003/4) Pour une critique des ‘sciences de la culture’, in L'Homme et la société, no. 149, Paris, L'Harmattan; B. Darras (ed.) (2007) Etudes culturelles & Cultural Studies, Paris, L'Harmattan. Cultural Studies was first discussed in the special issue ‘Les Cultural Studies’ by A. Mattelart & E. Neveu (1996), Réseaux, 80, CNET, then further discussed in the chapter ‘Politiques identitaires’ in F. Cusset (2003) French Theory, Paris, La Découverte, as well as in the chapter ‘La comparaison internationale’ in P. Poirrier (2003) Les enjeux de l'histoire culturelle, Paris, Seuil. The first anthology was published just a few months ago, in December 2008: H. Glevarec, E. Mace, & E. Maigret (2008) Cultural Studies. Anthologie, Paris, Armand Colin.
6. The use of the conditional in this paragraph is linked to a notable fact: if there is a principled correlation between the still important distrust of Cultural Studies and both the French republican conception of nation, culture, and education and the French notion of disciplinarity (as we will see in the next section), scholars, and a fortiori republicanists questioning or even rejecting Cultural Studies have not felt the need to formalize their objections in pamphlets or essays. Except for remarks or comments in reviews (see Pavel Citation1992; Bertrand Citationn.d., pp. 7–8) and informal discussions or during departmental decision processes or academic events (when Marie-Jeanne Rossignol and Barbara Karsky, both professors in American Studies organized in 1998 a conference about ‘Histoire culturelle et Cultural Studies’, the event was punctuated by defensive reactions: Marianne Debouzy, professor in American history, even left the room), they do not necessarily justify and elaborate on their refusal, perhaps taking for granted that their peers share their views. That is why one has to deduce from their practices and principles the reason why they either ignore Cultural Studies, or reject it, or do not even take the time to discuss it.
7. Brice Hortefeux was replaced by Eric Besson in January 2009.
8. Marie-Jeanne Rossignol, a professor in American studies who is part of a group of experts in charge of evaluating the university degrees within the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, emphasizes the centralized and nation-state like self-conception of disciplines: ‘les scientifiques, les juristes, les médecins, n'ont pas encore compris à quel point une formation supérieure intégrant une part d'humanités est supérieure à une formation étroitement disciplinaire. On reste dans des logiques très disciplinaires, même en licence. … A Paris 7, j'encourageais les collègues à proposer des cours d'option aux autres disciplines, mais ils n'ont pas souhaité le faire, préférant enseigner dans des filières o[ugrave] les étudiants se consacrent entièrement à leur discipline ou au moins aux sciences humaines, à des personnes qui œuvreront plus tard dans leur propre champ scientifique’ (in Chalard-Fillaudeau, in press).
9. ‘Les partisans des études culturelles, comme les poststructuralistes avant eux, se méfient étrangement de la discipline intellectuelle. L'emploi d'un vocabulaire notionnel bariolé et d'une méthodologie indéfinissable produisent, il est vrai, un sentiment agréable de libération. A la longue, cependant, l'utopie a-disciplinaire, en dissolvant les critères de vérité et de netteté méthodologique, instaure un univers d'interprétations vagues et de faits invérifiables.’
10. A. Finkielkraut: ‘L'autre exemple est plutôt significatif de la mentalité ethnologique qui sévit dans le parti intellectuel: ce livre de l'helléniste Florence Dupont, Homère et Dallas, dans lequel, d'un seul coup, le prestige d'Homère est transféré à Dallas.’
11. The fact that Alain Finkielkraut used the term ‘discipline’ is further proof that French opponents of Cultural Studies often have an approximate notion of what Cultural Studies is.
12. G. Sellier (2005) La Nouvelle Vague: Un cinéma au masculin singulier, Paris, CNRS.
13. As Geneviève Sellier put it when we discussed the loss of critical dynamism of the once ‘revue de combat’: ‘Since the Seventies and the texts about Young Mister Lincoln and Morocco in particular, they do not publish any interesting innovative analysis any more: after their Maoist period, they were bought up by Filipacchi to become a review for cinemagoers, what they have been since then with a decreasing circulation. When they happen to publish more ambitious texts, they mainly confine their analysis to fruitless formalism and ‘authorism’, if not to wooly pseudo-philosophical remarks. They remain institutionally powerful because they are influential in the cultural-economic power sites (which are not few in France). In their own field of film criticism, they are tantamount to the auteur cinema in the field of production, which means that they belong to a well-protected area that enjoys the support of cultural institutions. As a result they nurture the idea of an elitist culture that France would be the quintessence of … in complete opposition to the interests and topics of Cultural Studies’ (23 May, 2009). See E. Bickerton 2007, ‘Adieux aux Cahiers’ La Revue des livres et des idées, nos. 1 & 2, Paris, editions Amsterdam.
14. J.-M. Bertrand: ‘Disons que ce qui explique mon embarras est l'attitude de procureur qu'adopte Geneviève Sellier vis-à-vis de la Nouvelle Vague, du “cinéma d'auteur” en général, ou des idées d'André Bazin en particulier. Ce sont aussi et surtout les présupposés théoriques qui fondent sa démarche: théorie de l'art comme reflet du réel, sous estimation du film comme forme, primat donné à une analyse réductrice de “contenu”, disparition de la question de l'art derrière le “culturel”.’ [online] Available: http://www.objectif-cinema.com/spip.php?article4308&artsuite=1
15. A. Kaenel, C. Lejeune, & M.-J. Rossignol (2003) Cultural Studies. Etudes Culturelles, Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy.
16. ‘un réflexe sceptique et cocardier face aux productions de la culture savante et universitaire américaine, surtout lorsque celle-ci prétend puiser dans la théorie française’.
17. ‘les nouveaux philosophes ont su emprunter une part de leur prestige aux penseurs qu'ils clouent au pilori, récupérant discrètement, pour les retourner précisément contre elle, enseignements ou concepts de ce que les Américains n'appellent pas encore la French Theory. Car Glucksmann a été l’élève de Foucault, et Lévy, de Derrida, de même que Blandine Kriegel et Pierre Rosanvallon ont été un temps des piliers du séminaire de Foucault au Collège de France’.
18. Thus, André Glucksmann fought against this selfishness through the invention of an 11th commandment, in his homonym book Le XI e commandement (1991), to complete the Ten Commandments of the Bible by justifying the interference in conflicts taking place outside the national boundaries.
19. ‘La France, ou le monde à l'envers. Pendant qu’à la suite des Etats-Unis le reste du champ intellectuel mondial incorportait peu à peu les perspectives lacano-derridiennes et foucaldo-deleuziennes, non seulement celles-ci mais, très vite, la possibilité même d'un débat à leur sujet se trouvaient bannies de l'Hexagone. Elles n'y seraient bientôt plus qu'un monopole de nostalgiques et, à mesure que disparaissent les auteurs concernés (Barthes en 1980, Lacan en 1981, Foucault en 1984, Guattari en 1992, Deleuze en 1995, Lyotard en 1998), l'apanage des seuls héritiers intellectuels et des ayants-droits officiels. Leur seule actualité y serait éditoriale, calendaire, commémorative – ostensiblement posthume. Si la politique économique française a eu l'audace, entre 1981 et 1983 d'aller à rebours des options suivies partout ailleurs, le paysage intellectuel français, lui, et à ce titre en tout cas, tourne obstinément le dos au reste du monde depuis plus d'un quart de siècle. La socio-démographie intellectuelle pourra peut-être éclairer un jour les conséquences à long terme de ce revirement soudain, au tournant des années 1980, dont il reste maintenant à rappeler l'histoire. Elle pourrait expliquer l'interruption brutale de croissance, la coupe des bourgeons, l'obsolescence subite de jeunes pousses, toutes métaphores botaniques en vertu desquelles la théorie française a fait en France si peu d’émules et, tout compte fait, de successeurs. Ce qui explique notamment, compte tenu du délai propre aux transferts culturels (puisque l'Anti-Œdipe n'a enfiévré l'Argentine et le Japon que quinze ans après la France), l'inexorable déclin de l'influence intellectuelle française dans le monde depuis l'apogée de la théorie française – déclin auquel la France ‘pensante’ n'a pas l'air en mesure de remédier de si tôt. Ce fâcheux décalage est une histoire de traditions, de rancœurs, de mauvaise foi et d'idéologie, une histoire tactique et politique bien sÛr; un effet peut-être aussi de cet injustifiable complexe de supériorité intellectuelle qui pouvait faire dire des Américains, en 1909, au dénommé Saint-André de Lignereux, comme pensent tout bas aujourd'hui tant de ses arrière-petits-neveux: “Ils auront beau fonder, à coup de chèques gigantesques, des universités, des académies, des bibliothèques, des musées, tout cela est inutile; il leur faudra venir s'incliner devant notre suprêmatie intellectuelle”’ (Cusset, 2003/Citation2008, pp. 323–324).
20. In 2004, the Société d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine (Society for Modern and Contemporary History) dedicated a part of its journal Revue d'histoire moderne & contemporaine (Bulletin de la Société d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine, 51-4bis, supplément 2004, Belin) to Cultural Studies for the purpose of delineating the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary dynamics of Cultural Studies.
21. Fabula was created in 1999 to bring together researchers from several disciplines, countries, and cultural backgrounds in order to renew literary studies, break down disciplinary barriers and further the intersection and interaction of literature with history, history and sociology of mentalities, sociology of art, linguistics, psychoanalysis, etc. A few months ago, it notably founded a web-bookstore with a series in Cultural Studies.
22. An important name is, for instance, Georges-Claude Guilbert whom I mentioned earlier. He is a professor in American literature, Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, and Queer Theory at the University of Tours, who specialized in Madonna studies and published Madonna as Postmodern Myth (2002), Pour un garçon ou pour une fille? La Dictature du genre (2004), as well as many articles about comics, pop music and television. Available: http://www.georgesclaudeguilbert.com/
23. Pascal Ory, a prominent figure of French cultural history, is notably concerned with possible intersections between Cultural Studies and French cultural history.
24. The ‘centre’ was created by Hélène Cixous in 1974. It has incorporated the Cultural Studies project, is truly committed to fighting against prejudices, and proposes the only PhD program in Women's Studies in France.