Del 13 i serien Francophone Postcolonial Studies

French Decadence in a Global Context

Colonialism and Exoticism

Häftad, Engelska, 2025

AvJulia Hartley,Wanrug Suwanwattana,Jennifer Yee

729 kr

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Decadence is seldom looked at in the context of colonialism, and yet its heyday in the 1880s and 1890s is directly contemporary with the expansion of France’s modern colonial empire. Ever a slippery signifier, Decadence figures alternately as pro-colonial, anticolonial and apolitical. This edited volume gives a sense of the sheer range and diversity of intersections between colonialism and Decadence, from anticolonial anarchist writers to colonial discourse, from nineteenth-century women writers to our contemporary, Michel Houellebecq. Different chapters explore these intersections in the cultural imagination of dance, the novel, travel writing, historiographical theory, and literary networks. Decadence is often seen as an essentially metropolitan, urban movement, but this study identifies key spaces elsewhere, from fin-de-siècle Saigon to India in the heyday of French colonialism, from Byzantium to ancient Persia. Although the colonies were held up by some as an antidote to the threat of French decline, other writings reveal anxiety that the antidote might itself be a form of poison. Colonial contact might exacerbate degeneration, whether through cultural mixing or through the violence of colonial aggression itself. A profound anxiety about French identity and France’s so-called mission civilisatrice is played out through the imagery, the style and the pose of Decadence.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2025-02-04
Mått156 x 234 x 19 mm
Vikt464 g
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
SerieFrancophone Postcolonial Studies
Antal sidor304
FörlagLiverpool University Press
ISBN9781836244370

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AcknowledgementsIntroduction: French Decadence in a Global Context: Colonialism and ExoticismJennifer YeeChapter 1Bibelotic Buddhas: Decadence and its CriticsSam BootleChapter 2Sous-mission and the mission civilisatrice: Houellebecq’s Parody of Empire and DecadenceJenai Engelhard HumphreysChapter 3Gender, Decadence, and Orientalism in Jane Dieulafoy’s Journal de fouilles and ParysatisJulia HartleyChapter 4Anti-colonial exoticism in Mirbeau’s Jardin des supplicesRichard HibbitChapter 5Decadent and Anti-Decadent Networks of the Belle époque: littérature coloniale as a Rhetorical AllianceVladimir KaporChapter 6The Anarchist Denunciation of Decadent Colonialism: Georges Darien, Octave Mirbeau, and Jules VallèsAurélien LorigChapter 7Judith Gautier, La Conquête du Paradis or L’Inde éblouie: when French colonization becomes an Indian epicValérie Magdelaine-AndrianjafitrimoChapter 8Exoticism and the Threat of Contagion: Danger or Therapy for Decadent DanceHélène MarquiéChapter 9Decadent Colonial Saigon in Fin-de-siècle French LiteratureWanrug SuwanwattanaGeneral BibliographyNotes on ContributorsIndex

‘Hartley, Suwanwattana, and Yee’s French Decadence in a Global Context is an original work of intellectual curation that continues the project of opening up nineteenth-century French studies to colonial history and postcolonial theory… Picking out just a single thread among the chapters, the Decadent representation of sex/gender seems particularly promising for future scholarship in relation to the rich tradition of postcolonial thinking about the family romance.’ Richard Riddick, Cambridge University