Charles Forsdick – författare

From his premature death in 1919 until the final decades of the twentieth century, the French traveller, author, and naval doctor Victor Segalen remained relatively obscure, his extensive work on exoticism largely unavailable. With the appearance of the Complete Works in 1995, the dramatic scope and wide-ranging implications of his reflections on diversity were at last fully apparent. Segalen's understanding of the exotic is radically different from that of his colonial contemporaries. His exoticism - or Aesthetics of Diversity - focuses on the instability of contact between different cultures and represents a unique response to the decline of diversity triggered by colonialism and Westernization. Recent attention to Segalen in a variety of fields - post-modern sociology, post-colonialism, literary criticism, anthropology - indicates his role as a precursory theorist of the exotic whose work is of increasingcontemporary relevance. At a moment when exoticism is rapidly emerging as a term of critical currency, this study of the genesis of Segalen's aesthetics is a timely contribution to work in this area.

This book is one of the first studies of twentieth-century travel literature in French, tracking the form from the colonial past to the postcolonial present. Whereas most recent explorations of travel literature have addressed English-language material, Forsdick's study complements these by presenting a body of material that has previously attracted little attention, ranging from conventional travel writing to other cultural phenomena (such as the Colonial Exposition of 1931) in which changing attitudes to travel are apparent.Travel in Twentieth-Century French and Francophone Cultures explores the evolution of attitudes to cultural diversity, explaining how each generation seems simultaneously to foretell the collapse and reinvention of 'elsewhere'. It also follows the progressive renegotiation of understandings of travel (and travel literature) across the twentieth century, focusing in particular on the emergence of travel narratives from France's former colonies. The book suggests that an exclusive colonial understanding of travel as a practice defined along the lines of class, gender, and ethnicity has slowly been transformed so that travel has become an enabling figure - encapsulated in notions such as James Clifford's 'traveling cultures' - central to analyses of contemporary global culture. Engaging initially with Victor Segalen's early twentieth-century reflection on travel and exoticism and Albert Kahn's 'Archives de la Planète', Forsdick goes on to examine a series of interrelated texts and phenomena: early African travel narratives, inter-war ethnography, post-war accounts of Citroën 2CV journeys, the travel stories of immigrant workers, the work of Nicholas Bouvier and the Pour une littérature voyageuse movement, narratives of recent walking journeys, and contemporary Polynesian literature. In delineating a francophone space stretching far beyond metropolitan France itself, the book contributes to new understandings of French and Francophone Studies, and will also be of interest to those interested in issues of comparatism as well as colonial and postcolonial culture and identity.

This landmark text constitutes the first comprehensive overview of Francophone Postcolonial Studies. Moving away from reductive geographical or linguistic surveys of the Francophone world, this collection of original essays provides a thematic discussion of the complex historical, political and cultural links between France and its former colonies. Providing a theoretical framework for postcolonial criticism of the field, it also aims to trigger a genuine dialogue between Francophone and Anglophone scholars of postcolonialism.Part I provides a historical overview, from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, addressing issues of colonialism, slavery and exoticism. Part II looks at language issues and discusses France's belief in the universality of its language and culture and the postcolonial challenges to that view. Part III discusses issues of diversity and multiculturalism in contemporary Francophone cultures. Part IV concludes with an analysis of the French-language contribution to postcolonialism as well as an examination of Francophone postcolonial thought and culture in the principal areas of the French-speaking world.Edited by two of the up-and-coming names in Francophone Postcolonial Studies, the collection includes contributions from an international team including some of the world's leading scholars in the field.

Despite the recent increase in scholarly activity regarding travel writing and the accompanying proliferation of publications relating to the form, its ethical dimensions have yet to be theorized with sufficient rigour. Drawing from the disciplines of anthropology, linguistics, literary studies and modern languages, the contributors in this volume apply themselves to a number of key theoretical questions pertaining to travel writing and ethics, ranging from travel-as-commoditization to encounters with minority languages under threat. Taken collectively, the essays assess key critical legacies from parallel disciplines to the debate so far, such as anthropological theory and postcolonial criticism. Also considered, and of equal significance, are the ethical implications of the form’s parallel genres of writing, such as ethnography and journalism. As some of the contributors argue, innovations in these genres have important implications for the act of theorizing travel writing itself and the mode and spirit in which it continues to be conducted. In the light of such innovations, how might ethical theory maintain its critical edge?

'In overthrowing me, you have done no more than cut down the trunk of the tree of liberty - it will spring back from the roots, for they are numerous and deep.' - Toussaint LouvertureThe leader of the only successful slave revolt in history, Toussaint Louverture is seen by many to be one of the greatest anti-imperialist fighters who ever lived. Born into slavery on a Caribbean plantation, he was able to break from his bondage to lead an army of freed African slaves to victory against the professional armies of France, Spain and Britain in the Haitian Revolution of 1791-1804. In this biography, Louverture's fascinating life is explored through the prism of his radical politics. It champions this 'black Robespierre' whose revolutionary legacy had inspired people and movements in the two centuries since his death.For anyone interested in the roots of modern-day resistance movements and black political radicalism, Louverture's extraordinary life provides the perfect starting point.

This is an exploration of Francophone communities from the 19th century to the present. It is a special Issue of Paragraph edited in 2001 by Celia Britton and Michael Syrotinski on Francophone Texts and Postcolonial Theory played a determining role in shaping the research field it helped to map. Ten years later, this collection of ten articles provides an opportunity to explore Francophone communities from a range of perspectives which similarly engage with today's most pressing questions in Francophone-Caribbean studies and postcolonial studies more generally. The contributions draw on material from different historical moments, ranging from the 19th century to the contemporary period, and explore questions of literature, culture, society and thought from across the Francophone Caribbean and beyond. They will bring together original work by some of the leading scholars in those fields, including Charles Forsdick, Kate Hodgson, Martin Munro, Lorna Milne, Eli Park Sorenson, Mary Gallagher, Maeve McCusker and Michael Syrotinski.

Containing a wealth of new scholarship and rare primary documents, The Black Jacobins Reader provides a comprehensive analysis of C. L. R. James's classic history of the Haitian Revolution. In addition to considering the book's literary qualities and its role in James's emergence as a writer and thinker, the contributors discuss its production, context, and enduring importance in relation to debates about decolonization, globalization, postcolonialism, and the emergence of neocolonial modernity. The Reader also includes the reflections of activists and novelists on the book's influence and a transcript of James's 1970 interview with Studs Terkel.  Contributors. Mumia Abu-Jamal, David Austin, Madison Smartt Bell, Anthony Bogues, John H. Bracey Jr., Rachel Douglas, Laurent Dubois, Claudius K. Fergus, Carolyn E. Fick, Charles Forsdick, Dan Georgakas, Robert A. Hill, Christian HØgsbjerg, Selma James, Pierre Naville, Nick Nesbitt, Aldon Lynn Nielsen, Matthew Quest, David M. Rudder, Bill Schwarz, David Scott, Russell Maroon Shoatz, Matthew J. Smith, Studs Terkel

Containing a wealth of new scholarship and rare primary documents, The Black Jacobins Reader provides a comprehensive analysis of C. L. R. James's classic history of the Haitian Revolution. In addition to considering the book's literary qualities and its role in James's emergence as a writer and thinker, the contributors discuss its production, context, and enduring importance in relation to debates about decolonization, globalization, postcolonialism, and the emergence of neocolonial modernity. The Reader also includes the reflections of activists and novelists on the book's influence and a transcript of James's 1970 interview with Studs Terkel.  Contributors. Mumia Abu-Jamal, David Austin, Madison Smartt Bell, Anthony Bogues, John H. Bracey Jr., Rachel Douglas, Laurent Dubois, Claudius K. Fergus, Carolyn E. Fick, Charles Forsdick, Dan Georgakas, Robert A. Hill, Christian HØgsbjerg, Selma James, Pierre Naville, Nick Nesbitt, Aldon Lynn Nielsen, Matthew Quest, David M. Rudder, Bill Schwarz, David Scott, Russell Maroon Shoatz, Matthew J. Smith, Studs Terkel

Translating Cultures in the Arab World: New Histories and Geographies significantly expands translation studies by unearthing overlooked discussions and reconceptualizing the history and movements of translation. It moves beyond a Western-centric and Anglonormative research perspective by beginning with the Middle East and the Arabic language, critically engaging with scholarship from the Arab world, including the Gulf region and the Global South. This provides a more inclusive and representative theorization of translating cultures for the twenty-first century. It features contributions from leading scholars that challenge previous interpretations and highlight translation’s crucial role in reshaping the translational humanities and Middle Eastern studies.The text addresses critical issues, including the philosophy of translation, the dialectical relationship between translation and culture, the complexities of untranslatability, and the pivotal role of translation within specific historical and cultural contexts, such as Medieval Islamic cookbooks, the Arab world in sixteenth-century Islamic Spain, epistemic translation in the Arab Renaissance (Nahḍa), the first Saudi Opera, Zarqa Al Yamama, and the contemporary proliferation of translational spaces within the Gulf region. The volume thus serves as an essential intervention, urging scholars to interrogate how knowledge is constructed, contested, and reconfigured in global and translational contexts.As a comprehensive examination of translating cultures at the intersection of historical analysis, theoretical exploration, and global cultural exchange, this volume serves as an essential resource for scholars and students in translation studies, comparative literature, Middle Eastern studies, and related fields.

Translating Cultures in the Arab World: New Histories and Geographies significantly expands translation studies by unearthing overlooked discussions and reconceptualizing the history and movements of translation. It moves beyond a Western-centric and Anglonormative research perspective by beginning with the Middle East and the Arabic language, critically engaging with scholarship from the Arab world, including the Gulf region and the Global South. This provides a more inclusive and representative theorization of translating cultures for the twenty-first century. It features contributions from leading scholars that challenge previous interpretations and highlight translation’s crucial role in reshaping the translational humanities and Middle Eastern studies.The text addresses critical issues, including the philosophy of translation, the dialectical relationship between translation and culture, the complexities of untranslatability, and the pivotal role of translation within specific historical and cultural contexts, such as Medieval Islamic cookbooks, the Arab world in sixteenth-century Islamic Spain, epistemic translation in the Arab Renaissance (Nahḍa), the first Saudi Opera, Zarqa Al Yamama, and the contemporary proliferation of translational spaces within the Gulf region. The volume thus serves as an essential intervention, urging scholars to interrogate how knowledge is constructed, contested, and reconfigured in global and translational contexts.As a comprehensive examination of translating cultures at the intersection of historical analysis, theoretical exploration, and global cultural exchange, this volume serves as an essential resource for scholars and students in translation studies, comparative literature, Middle Eastern studies, and related fields.

Despite the recent increase in scholarly activity regarding travel writing and the accompanying proliferation of publications relating to the form, its ethical dimensions have yet to be theorized with sufficient rigour. Drawing from the disciplines of anthropology, linguistics, literary studies and modern languages, the contributors in this volume apply themselves to a number of key theoretical questions pertaining to travel writing and ethics, ranging from travel-as-commoditization to encounters with minority languages under threat. Taken collectively, the essays assess key critical legacies from parallel disciplines to the debate so far, such as anthropological theory and postcolonial criticism. Also considered, and of equal significance, are the ethical implications of the form’s parallel genres of writing, such as ethnography and journalism. As some of the contributors argue, innovations in these genres have important implications for the act of theorizing travel writing itself and the mode and spirit in which it continues to be conducted. In the light of such innovations, how might ethical theory maintain its critical edge?

Keywords for Travel Writing Studies draws on the notion of the ‘keyword’ as initially elaborated by Raymond Williams in his seminal 1976 text Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society to present 100 concepts central to the study of travel writing as a literary form. Each entry in the volume is around 1,000 words, the style more essayistic than encyclopaedic, with contributors reflecting on their chosen keyword from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The emphasis on travelogues and other cultural representations of mobility drawn from a range of national and linguistic traditions ensures that the volume has a comparative dimension; the aim is to give an overview of each term in its historical and theoretical complexity, providing readers with a clear sense of how the selected words are essential to a critical understanding of travel writing. Each entry is complemented by an annotated bibliography of five essential items suggesting further reading.

Recognized as one of the most influential studies of memory in the late twentieth century, Pierre Nora’s monumental project Les Lieux de mémoire has been celebrated for its elaboration of a ground-breaking paradigm for rethinking the relationship between the nation, territory, history and memory. It has also, however, been criticized for implying a narrow perception of national memory from which the legacy of colonialism was excluded. Driven by an increasingly critical postcolonial discourse on French historiography and fuelled by the will to acknowledge the relevance of the colonial in the making of modern and contemporary France, the present volume intends to address in a collective and sustained manner this critical gap by postcolonializing the French Republic’s lieux de mémoire. The various chapters discern and explore an initial repertoire of realms and sites in France and the so-called Outremer that crystalize traces of colonial memory, while highlighting its inherent dialectical relationship with firmly instituted national memory. By making visible the invisible thread that links the colonial to various manifestations of French heritage, the objective is to bring to the fore the need to anchor the colonial in a collective memory that has often silenced it, and to foster new readings of the past as it is represented, remembered and inscribed in the nation’s collective imaginary.

The contributors to Transnational French Studies situate this disciplinary subfield of Modern Languages in actively transnational frameworks. The key objective of the volume is to define the core set of skills and methodologies that constitute the study of French culture as a transnational, transcultural and translingual phenomenon. Written by leading scholars within the field, chapters demonstrate the type of inquiry that can be pursued into the transnational realities – both material and non-material – that are integral to what is referred to as French culture. The book considers the transnational dimensions of being human in the world by focussing on four key practices which constitute the object of study for students of French: language and multilingualism; the construction of transcultural places and the corresponding sense of space; the experience of time; and transnational subjectivities. The underlying premise of the volume is that the transnational is present (and has long been present) throughout what we define as French history and culture. Chapters address instances and phenomena associated with the transnational, from prehistory to the present, opening up the geopolitical map of French studies beyond France and including sites where communities identified as French have formed.

The contributors to Transnational French Studies situate this disciplinary subfield of Modern Languages in actively transnational frameworks. The key objective of the volume is to define the core set of skills and methodologies that constitute the study of French culture as a transnational, transcultural and translingual phenomenon. Written by leading scholars within the field, chapters demonstrate the type of inquiry that can be pursued into the transnational realities – both material and non-material – that are integral to what is referred to as French culture. The book considers the transnational dimensions of being human in the world by focussing on four key practices which constitute the object of study for students of French: language and multilingualism; the construction of transcultural places and the corresponding sense of space; the experience of time; and transnational subjectivities. The underlying premise of the volume is that the transnational is present (and has long been present) throughout what we define as French history and culture. Chapters address instances and phenomena associated with the transnational, from prehistory to the present, opening up the geopolitical map of French studies beyond France and including sites where communities identified as French have formed.

Recognized as one of the most influential studies of memory in the late twentieth century, Pierre Nora’s monumental project Les Lieux de mémoire has been celebrated for its elaboration of a ground-breaking paradigm for rethinking the relationship between the nation, territory, history and memory. It has also, however, been criticized for implying a narrow perception of national memory from which the legacy of colonialism was excluded. Driven by an increasingly critical postcolonial discourse on French historiography and fuelled by the will to acknowledge the relevance of the colonial in the making of modern and contemporary France, the present volume intends to address in a collective and sustained manner this critical gap by postcolonializing the French Republic’s lieux de mémoire. The various chapters discern and explore an initial repertoire of realms and sites in France and the so-called Outremer that crystalize traces of colonial memory, while highlighting its inherent dialectical relationship with firmly instituted national memory. By making visible the invisible thread that links the colonial to various manifestations of French heritage, the objective is to bring to the fore the need to anchor the colonial in a collective memory that has often silenced it, and to foster new readings of the past as it is represented, remembered and inscribed in the nation’s collective imaginary.

Keywords for Travel Writing Studies draws on the notion of the ‘keyword’ as initially elaborated by Raymond Williams in his seminal 1976 text Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society to present 100 concepts central to the study of travel writing as a literary form. Each entry in the volume is around 1,000 words, the style more essayistic than encyclopaedic, with contributors reflecting on their chosen keyword from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The emphasis on travelogues and other cultural representations of mobility drawn from a range of national and linguistic traditions ensures that the volume has a comparative dimension; the aim is to give an overview of each term in its historical and theoretical complexity, providing readers with a clear sense of how the selected words are essential to a critical understanding of travel writing. Each entry is complemented by an annotated bibliography of five essential items suggesting further reading.

The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic imposed immobility on large sectors of the world’s population, with confinement becoming an everyday reality. The lives of those who previously enjoyed the privileges of being ‘fast castes’ ground to a halt, while at the same time the displacement of more vulnerable populations along well-established migration corridors has been radically reduced. The result has been a recalibration of the scale of journeying, with travellers slowing down their journeys and readjusting their relationship to the proximate and nearby. This situation has provided an opportunity for those who study travel and travel writing to rethink their objects of study and approaches to them. This volume explores and historicizes the phenomenon of ‘microtravel’, designating slower journeys within a limited radius which allow, and sometimes necessitate, new forms of experiencing the world.

In the late 1990’s, Postcolonial Studies risked imploding as a credible area of academic enquiry. Repeated anthologization and an overemphasis on the English-language literatures led to sustained critiques of the field and to an active search for alternative approaches to the globalized and transnational formations of the post-colonial world. In the early twenty-first century, however, postcolonial began to reveal a new openness to its comparative dimensions. French-language contributors to postcolonial debate (such as Edouard Glissant and Abdelkebir Khatibi) have recently risen to greater prominence in the English-speaking world, and there have also appeared an increasing number of important critical and theoretical texts on postcolonial issues, written by scholars working principally on French-language material. It is to such a context that this book responds. Acknowledging these shifts, this volume provides an essential tool for students and scholars outside French departments seeking a way into the study of Francophone colonial postcolonial debates. At the same time, it supplies scholars in French with a comprehensive overview of essential ideas and key intellectuals in this area.

‘Human zoos’, forgotten symbols of the colonial era, have been totally repressed in our collective memory. In these ‘anthropo-zoological’ exhibitions, ‘exotic’ individuals were placed alongside wild beasts and presented behind bars or in enclosures. Human zoos were a key factor, however, in the progressive shift in the West from scientific to popular racism. Beginning with the early nineteenth-century European exhibition of the Hottentot Venus, this thoroughly documented volume underlines the ways in which they affected the lives of tens of millions of visitors, from London to New York, from Warsaw to Milan, from Moscow to Tokyo… Through Barnum’s freak shows, Hagenbeck’s ‘ethnic shows’ (touring major European cities from their German base), French-style villages nègres, as well as the great universal and colonial exhibitions, the West invented the ‘savage’, exhibited the ‘peoples of the world’, whilst in many cases preparing for or contributing to their colonization… This first mass contact between ‘us’ and ‘them’, between the West and elsewhere, created an invisible border. Measured by scientists, exploited in shows, used in official exhibitions, these men, women and children became extras in an imaginary and in a history that were not their own. Based on the best-selling French volume Zoos Humains but with a number of newly commissioned chapters, Human Zoos puts into perspective the ‘spectacularization’ of the Other, a process that is at the origin of contemporary stereotypes and of the construction of our own identities. A unique book, on a crucial phenomenon, which takes us to the heart of Western fantasies, and allows us to understand the genesis of identity in Japan, Europe and North America.

‘Human zoos’, forgotten symbols of the colonial era, have been totally repressed in our collective memory. In these ‘anthropo-zoological’ exhibitions, ‘exotic’ individuals were placed alongside wild beasts and presented behind bars or in enclosures. Human zoos were a key factor, however, in the progressive shift in the West from scientific to popular racism. Beginning with the early nineteenth-century European exhibition of the Hottentot Venus, this thoroughly documented volume underlines the ways in which they affected the lives of tens of millions of visitors, from London to New York, from Warsaw to Milan, from Moscow to Tokyo… Through Barnum’s freak shows, Hagenbeck’s ‘ethnic shows’ (touring major European cities from their German base), French-style villages nègres, as well as the great universal and colonial exhibitions, the West invented the ‘savage’, exhibited the ‘peoples of the world’, whilst in many cases preparing for or contributing to their colonization… This first mass contact between ‘us’ and ‘them’, between the West and elsewhere, created an invisible border. Measured by scientists, exploited in shows, used in official exhibitions, these men, women and children became extras in an imaginary and in a history that were not their own. Based on the best-selling French volume Zoos Humains but with a number of newly commissioned chapters, Human Zoos puts into perspective the ‘spectacularization’ of the Other, a process that is at the origin of contemporary stereotypes and of the construction of our own identities. A unique book, on a crucial phenomenon, which takes us to the heart of Western fantasies, and allows us to understand the genesis of identity in Japan, Europe and North America.

The 2007 manifesto in favour of a “Littérature-monde en français” has generated new debates in both “francophone” and “postcolonial” studies. Praised by some for breaking down the hierarchical division between “French” and “Francophone” literatures, the manifesto has been criticized by others for recreating that division through an exoticizing vision that continues to privilege the publishing industry of the former colonial métropole. Does the manifesto signal the advent of a new critical paradigm destined to render obsolescent those of “francophone” and/or “postcolonial” studies? Or is it simply a passing fad, a glitzy but ephemeral publicity stunt generated and promoted by writers and publishing executives vis-à-vis whom scholars and critics should maintain a skeptical distance? Does it offer an all-embracing transnational vista leading beyond the confines of postcolonialism or reintroduce an incipient form of neocolonialism even while proclaiming the end of the centre/periphery divide? In addressing these questions, leading scholars of “French”, “Francophone” and “postcolonial” studies from around the globe help to assess the wider question of the evolving status of French Studies as a transnational field of study amid the challenges of globalization.

The 2007 manifesto in favour of a “Littérature-monde en français” has generated new debates in both “francophone” and “postcolonial” studies. Praised by some for breaking down the hierarchical division between “French” and “Francophone” literatures, the manifesto has been criticized by others for recreating that division through an exoticizing vision that continues to privilege the publishing industry of the former colonial métropole. Does the manifesto signal the advent of a new critical paradigm destined to render obsolescent those of “francophone” and/or “postcolonial” studies? Or is it simply a passing fad, a glitzy but ephemeral publicity stunt generated and promoted by writers and publishing executives vis-à-vis whom scholars and critics should maintain a skeptical distance? Does it offer an all-embracing transnational vista leading beyond the confines of postcolonialism or reintroduce an incipient form of neocolonialism even while proclaiming the end of the centre/periphery divide? In addressing these questions, leading scholars of “French”, “Francophone” and “postcolonial” studies from around the globe help to assess the wider question of the evolving status of French Studies as a transnational field of study amid the challenges of globalization.

This book examines the representation of penal colonies both historically and in contemporary culture, across an array of media. The chapters draw on media discourse analysis, critical cartography, museum and heritage studies, ethnography, architectural history, visual culture including film and comics studies and gaming studies.

This book examines the representation of penal colonies both historically and in contemporary culture, across an array of media. The chapters draw on media discourse analysis, critical cartography, museum and heritage studies, ethnography, architectural history, visual culture including film and comics studies and gaming studies.