Parisian Fields

by Michael Sheringham

Overview

Perhaps no world city has so many resonances, on so many levels, as Paris. Cafe society, demi-monde, the intellectual life, film-makers and writers... Paris has fragmented socially, sexually, intellectually and linguistically into many fields. Parisian Fields sets out to investigate some of these.

The writers investigate how Paris has been both seen and shaped by tourist guides; how its topography has been represented and allegorized by film-makers like Godard, Clair, Vigo and Renoir; how the city has responded to "new" Parisians – for example Afro-American musicians and dancers such as Josephine Baker – and to previously marginalized Parisians – gays and women.

Literary analysis, film, social and gender theory, perspectives on urbanism; here are many provocative and innovative views of the open field of Paris, which will appeal to anyone interested in French cultural and literary studies – or just in the City of Light herself.

With essays by Roger Clark, Nicholas Hewitt, Jon Kear, Tom Conley, Michael Sheringham, Alex Hughes, Adrian Rifkin, Belinda Jack, Verena Andermatt Conley and Marc Augé.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780948462856
Publisher:	Reaktion Books, Limited
Publication date:	08/28/1997
Series:	Reaktion Books - Critical Views Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.15(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Michael Sheringham is Professor of French Literature at the Royal Holloway College, University of London.

Table of Contents

Photographic Acknowledgements
Notes on the Editor and Contributors
Introduction - Michael Sheringham
1. Threading the Maze: Nineteenth-century Guides for British Travellers to Paris - Roger Clark
2. Shifting Cultural Centres in Twentieth-century Paris - Nicholas Hewitt
3. Vénus noire: Josephine Baker and the Parisian Music-hall - Jon Kear
4. 'Le Cinéaste de la vie moderne': Paris as Map in Film, 1924-34 - Tom Conley
5. City Space, Mental Space, Poetic Space: Paris in Breton, Benjamin and Réda - Michael Sheringham
6. The City and the Female Autograph - Alex Hughes
7. The Poetics of Space Rewritten: From Renaud Camus to the Gay City Guide - Adrian Rifkin
8. 'Mirages de Paris': Paris in Francophone Writing - Belinda Jack
9. Electronic Paris: From Place of Election to Place of Ejection - Verena Andermatt Conley
10. Paris and the Ethnography of the Contemporary World - Marc Augé
References
Bibliography
Index