Dreyfus Affair and the Crisis of French Manhood

Christopher E. Forth is the Howard Professor of Humanities & Western Civilization at the University of Kansas. He is the author of Zarathustra in Paris: The Nietzsche Vogue in France, 1891-1918 (2001) and Masculinity in the Modern West: Gender, Civilization and the Body (2008).

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Body Politics of the Dreyfus AffairPart I: Masculinity and the Jewish Question1. Masculine Performances: Alfred Dreyfus and the Paradox of the Jewish SoldierPart II: Dreyfusard Fantasies2. Sanctifying Dreyfus: Intellectuals, Jews, and the Body of Christ3. Educating the Will: Crowds, Contagion, and the Dreyfusard Body4. Adventures of the Naked Truth: Women and the Dreyfusard ImaginationPart III: Remaking the Male Body5. The Belly of Paris: Manhood, Obesity, and the Body of Zola6. The New Man and the Culture of ForceConclusion: An Affair to RememberNotesSelected BibliographyIndex

By shifting the main focus from race to gender, from anti-Semitism to masculinity, Forth demonstrates just how deeply rooted in French culture the Dreyfus Affair was. -- Margaret H. Darrow H-France 2004 Forth provides an important contribution to the study of the scandal and to the broader cultural history of fin-de-siecle France by arguing that the divisive events of the Affair were framed by participants on both sides as a crisis in the French male body Choice 2004 Original and exciting... Forth uses the Dreyfus Affair as a means to explore not only the contingency of manhood but also the subtle ways in which gender norms are implicated in racist imagery, class boundaries, and the construction of the intellectual in fin-de-siecle France. -- Carolyn J. Dean American Historical Review 2004 A nuanced and sophisticated analysis of French manhood. -- Lisa O'Sullivan Medical History 2006 Forth's analysis... lends important insight into the problematic ways in which this rhetoric has operated historically. -- Judith Surkis Journal of Modern History 2006 Innovative and articulate, this book will appeal to anyone interested in the Dreyfus Affair, masculinity, or medical discourses in fin-de-siecle France. -- Nancy Fitch English Historical Review 2007 Erudite and interesting book. -- Rhonda Garelick Men and Masculinities 2008 A compelling portrait of a cultural crisis, and a book that should both interest the general reader and fascinate the area specialist. -- Joseph Zizek Journal of French Studies 2008 A rich and provocative study of the Dreyfus affair and the crisis of fin-de-siecle masculinity... This is a valuable book because it presents the Dreyfusards from a new perspective and because it disrupts the teleology that has surrounded the Dreyfus affair. -- Judith F. Stone Patterns of Prejudice 2008