France's Colonial Legacies

In an era of commemoration, France's Colonial Legacies contributes to the debates taking place in France about the place of empire in the contemporary life of the nation, debates that have been underway since the 1990s and that now reach across public life and society with manifestations in the French parliament, media and universities. France's empire and the gradual process of its loss is one of the defining narratives of the contemporary nation, contributing to the construction of its image both on the international stage and at home. While certain intellectuals present the imperial period as an historical irrelevance that ended in the years following the Second World War, the contested legacies of France's colonies continue to influence the development of French society in the view of scholars of the postcolonial. This volume surveys the memorial practices and discourses that are played out in a range of arenas, drawing on the expertise of researchers working in the fields of politics, media, cultural studies, literature and film to offer a wide-ranging picture of remembrance in contemporary France.Introduction: The Postcolonial Nation, Fiona BarclayPart One: Narrative Gaps1. Amnesia about Anglophone Africa: France’s Rhodesian mind-set, its manifestations and its legacies, 1947–58, Joanna Warson2. From ‘écrivains coloniaux’ to écrivains de ‘langue française’: strata of un/acknowledged memories, Gabrielle ParkerPart Two: The Algerian War, Fifty Years On3. Conflicting memories: modernisation, colonialism and the Algerian war appelés in Cinq colonnes à la une, Iain Mossman4. Derrida’s virtual space of spectrality: cinematic haunting and the law in Mon Colonel (Herbiet, 2006), Fiona Barclay5. ‘Le devoir de mémoire’: the poetics and politics of cultural memory in Assia Djebar’s Le Blanc de l’Algérie, Jennifer Mullen6. (Un)packing the suitcases: postcolonial memory and iconography, William KiddPart Three: The Transnational Family7. Interrogating the transnational family: memory, identity and cultural bilingualism in Sous la clarté de la lune (Traoré, 2004), Zélie Asava8. Continuity and discontinuity in the family: looking beyond the post-colonial in Il y a longtemps que je t’aime (Claudel, 2008), Fiona HandysidePart Four: Contemporary Commemorations9. Anti-racism, republicanism and the Sarkozy years: SOS Racisme and the Mouvement des Indigènes de la République, Thomas Martin10. Playing out the postcolonial: football and commemoration, Cathal Kilcline11. Crime and penitence in slavery commemoration: from political controversy to the politics of performance, Nicola Frith