Interpreting the Republic

Marginalization and Belonging in Contemporary French Novels and Films

Vinay Swamy

Interpreting the Republic focuses on contemporary French literary and cinematic works (1986-2003) that reflect on what it means to belong to a nation such as France by giving voice to those who find themselves marginalized by French society. While citizenship and belonging can be, and indeed are, interpreted differently depending on the socio-cultural and political context, it is the foundational universalist republican principle of egalitarianism that has remained the sacred cow of French society. One of the major claims of this study is that the rigidity of French national discourse that attempts to impose a certain homogeneity in its official identificatory practices—all citizens are French, and thus difference (ethnic, sexual or other) ceases to matter—is but one of the many possible interpretations of the notion of the Republic. Vinay Swamy seeks to show how such supposedly unshakeable principles, too, can be, and often are, reinterpreted in novel ways by the works analyzed in this study, which carve out niches for their protagonists that are otherwise foreclosed in the French national space.
Swamy examines the different tactics of identification deployed in works ranging from early "romans beurs" by Azouz Begag, Farida Belghoul and Soraya Nini, and Allah Superstar, the 2003 satirical novel by Y.B., to a number of films including Gazon maudit (1995), Ma vie en rose (1997), Le Placard (2001), Chouchou (2003), all of which (re)interpret the Republic in an effort to legitimize their protagonists' otherwise marginalized social position(s). He demonstrates how all these works put pressure, in a variety of ways, on an unacknowledged understanding of the institutional positions.

Lexington Books

Pages: 208 • Trim: 6½ x 9½

978-0-7391-6536-2 • Hardback • May 2011 • $120.00 • (£92.00)

978-0-7391-6537-9 • Paperback • December 2012 • $57.99 • (£45.00)

978-0-7391-6538-6 • eBook • June 2011 • $55.00 • (£42.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / European / French, Social Science / World / Africa

Interpreting the Republic

Marginalization and Belonging in Contemporary French Novels and Films

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Interpreting the Republic focuses on contemporary French literary and cinematic works (1986-2003) that reflect on what it means to belong to a nation such as France by giving voice to those who find themselves marginalized by French society. While citizenship and belonging can be, and indeed are, interpreted differently depending on the socio-cultural and political context, it is the foundational universalist republican principle of egalitarianism that has remained the sacred cow of French society. One of the major claims of this study is that the rigidity of French national discourse that attempts to impose a certain homogeneity in its official identificatory practices—all citizens are French, and thus difference (ethnic, sexual or other) ceases to matter—is but one of the many possible interpretations of the notion of the Republic. Vinay Swamy seeks to show how such supposedly unshakeable principles, too, can be, and often are, reinterpreted in novel ways by the works analyzed in this study, which carve out niches for their protagonists that are otherwise foreclosed in the French national space.
Swamy examines the different tactics of identification deployed in works ranging from early "romans beurs" by Azouz Begag, Farida Belghoul and Soraya Nini, and Allah Superstar, the 2003 satirical novel by Y.B., to a number of films including Gazon maudit (1995), Ma vie en rose (1997), Le Placard (2001), Chouchou (2003), all of which (re)interpret the Republic in an effort to legitimize their protagonists' otherwise marginalized social position(s). He demonstrates how all these works put pressure, in a variety of ways, on an unacknowledged understanding of the institutional positions.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 208 • Trim: 6½ x 9½

978-0-7391-6536-2 • Hardback • May 2011 • $120.00 • (£92.00)

978-0-7391-6537-9 • Paperback • December 2012 • $57.99 • (£45.00)

978-0-7391-6538-6 • eBook • June 2011 • $55.00 • (£42.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / European / French, Social Science / World / Africa

Author

Vinay Swamy is assistant professor of French and Francophone studies at Vassar College.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Chapter One: Ethnicizing the National, Nationalizing the Ethnic
Chapter 3 Chapter Two: The Society of Spectacle in Post 9/11 France
Chapter 4 Chapter Three: Reading Gender into Ethnicity
Chapter 5 Chapter Four: Of Lesbians and Cross-dressers
Chapter 6 Chapter Five: In the Shadow of the Republic
Chapter 7 Conclusion

Reviews

This modest discussion of five novels and five films (1986-2003) by writers with Maghrebi antecedents requires ingenious interpretations, first about the works themselves and second about what they bring to the concept of French and Frenchness. The reader will assume that Swamy (Vassar), who offers few opinions of his own, supports the notion that all French are Francophone and that the North African Maghrebi are simply the latest influx of immigrants to France itself. Whether their citizenship or their deviation from heterosexual normativity is at stake, the protagonists of the works Swamy discusses want to belong. The author is particularly impressive in situating these works in the context of the ongoing political debates that came to a head with the banlieue riots when Nicolas Sarkozy was minister of the interior. Although Swamy quotes liberally from the French, he provides accurate translations. And because he includes synopses of the works discussed and captioned photographs even those who have not read the novels or seen the films will find the discussion easy to follow.
— Choice Reviews

Vinay Swamy’s monograph represents an important addition to recent scholarship that seeks to expand studies of minority populations and perspectives in France to include not only the category of ethnicity but also gender and sexual orientation. . . .This study proves to be engaging and well argued.

— Contemporary French Civilization

Interpreting the Republic moves deftly among interdisciplinary approaches ranging from cultural and postcolonial studies to political analysis, film criticism, and literary theory. . .Swamy offers a fresh and important contribution to the scholarship on the identity debate.

— French Forum

Vinay Swamy's admirable Interpreting the Republic: Marginalization and Belonging in Contemporary French Novels and Films is a remarkable intervention in French and Francophone studies, one that brings the field closer to bridging the gap between 'French' and 'Francophone.' It does so by bringing 'Beur studies' to the center of both metropolitan French studies and the way we understand the French Republic, thereby demarginalizing the postcolonial periphery. Swamy does not stop there, however, for he goes on to add several additional layers of complexity to his redefinition of the Republic by incorporating questions of gender, sexuality, and religion. In the context of a global 'war on terror,' this timely study therefore thoroughly challenges what some have called a "clash of civilizations.
— Jarrod Hayes, University of Michigan

In this elegant and incisively written study, Swamy shows how recent Francophone literature and cinema are changing and indeed enriching the legacy of Republican France. At this very moment, in the midst of current events in Tunisia and Egypt, his arguments in favor of our embrace of difference are timely and necessary. This book shows exactly what we can make and do with the Francophone canon in the best of all ways. Interpreting the Republic is a book that engages and inspires.
— Tom Conley, Abbott Lawrence Lowell Professor of Visual and Environmental Studies and of Romance Languages and Literatures, Harvard University