Yale French Studies

Published on June 2024, Number 143 of Yale French Studies, “The French Seventies,” is a reexamination of 1970s France as a decade of intellectual, cultural, and political consequence, both then and now.

This issue of YFS reintroduces and reorients readers to a decade typically considered a period of disillusionment and malaise in the wake of the 1960s. This collection of essays, edited by Richard J. Golsan and Lynn A. Higgins, shows that the era was in fact a period of intellectual, cultural, and political ferment. It was a time not of spectacular leaps forward but rather of searching, regrouping, and cultivating trends that would flower in the 1980s and beyond, for better or worse.

The volume offers interdisciplinary scholarly essays on history, film, national identity as articulated in the mode rétro, social and literary movements, and more. Interviews and personal history essays by major figures who actively participated in this decade add further dimension to this broad collection.

Richard J. Golsan is University Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M University and Senior Fellow at the Scowcroft Institute. His books include Vichy’s Afterlife, René Girard and Myth: An Introduction, and Justice in Lyon: Klaus Barbie and France’s First Trial for Crimes against Humanity.

Lynn A. Higgins is the Edward Tuck Professor of French Studies Emerita at Dartmouth College. Her books include New Novel, New Wave, New Politics: Fiction and the Representation of History in Postwar France; Rape and Representation (coedited with Brenda Silver); and Bertrand Tavernier.

For more information please visit Yale University Press

For subscription inquiries or obtaining a copy, please contact Yale University Press customer service.

Bonne lecture !

********************************************************

YFS celebrated 75 years

The French Department hosted a celebration to mark the 75^th anniversary of Yale French Studies, the country’s oldest English-language journal devoted to French and Francophone literature, language, and culture on November 2, 2023.

The evening’s festivities opened with remarks from department chair, Maurice Samuels, followed by an introduction from YFS managing editor, Nichole Gleisner. A talented troupe of student actors, Kieron Cindric, Nour Darragi, Claire Donnellan and Karoline Vielemeyer, brilliantly performed two dramatic readings in French that represented the past and present of the publication. An excerpt from Jean-Paul Sartre’s existential drama Les Mains sales from the first volume of Yale French Studies was paired with a selection of scenes from Monique Wittig’s avant-garde Le Voyage sans fin to highlight the publication of #143, “Lesbian Materialism: The Life and Work of Monique Wittig” (see below.)

The volume’s editors, Morgane Cadieu (Yale) and Annabel L. Kim (Harvard) attended this special evening as well as many friends, faculty, students, and staff of the French department and the larger university community.

*****************************************************

Managing Editor: Nichole Gleisner (from Aug. 15, 2022)

Email: nichole.gleisner@yale.edu

Phone number: (203) 432-4910

******************************

Yale French Studies is the oldest English-language journal in the United States devoted to French and Francophone literature and culture. Each volume is conceived and organized by a guest editor or editors around a particular theme or author. Interdisciplinary approaches are particularly welcome, as are contributions from scholars and writers from around the world. Recent volumes have been devoted to a wide variety of subjects, among them: Crime Fiction; Surrealism; Contemporary Writing for the Stage; and Memory in Postwar French and Francophone Culture.

Yale French Studies is published twice yearly by Yale University Press and may be accessed on JSTOR.

Please note that Yale French Studies does not accept unsolicited articles. If you would like to submit a volume proposal, please contact yalefrenchstudies@yale.edu.