CIAO DATE: 08/2008
Volume: 21, Issue: 2
Summer 2003
If France Did Not Exist, Americans Would Have to Invent It
Sophie Body-Gendrot
Analysis of opinion polls shows that even Americans unfamiliar with France are prepared to hold opinions about the country. Many see France as a non-America, a positive or negative counter-model. Moreover, "Americans" comprise many different perspectives and so "France" does not mean the same thing to everyone.
The System of Francophobia
Jean-Phlippe Mathy
Francophobia is at base a systematic and recurrent critique of an alleged societal model based on political centralization and cultural elitism, seen as beginning with the monarchy and continuing on into the Republic, and contrasting with American liberalism, democracy, egalitarianism, and anti-statism.
American Francophobia Takes a New Turn
Justin Vaïsse
Francophobia, a set of stereotypes, insults, and ready-made judgments designed to prove one's patriotism and score political points, is based primarily in diplomatic and conservative circles. The war in Iraq was a moment of special mobilization of Francophobia by the administration and a large share of the media, and may prove to have been a crystallizing moment for the discourse.
A Turn-of-the-Century Honeymoon? The Washington Post's Coverage of France
Pierre Verdaguer
From a highly critical position in the early 1990s, the Washington Post evolved toward move favorable coverage of France in areas even beyond the familiar one of culture, as a function of a perceived tendency on the part of the French to follow at last the American lead. But for how long?
The Franco-American Novel of Literary Globalism: The Case of Diane Johnson
Carolyn Durham
Dane Johnson's Le Divorce and Le Mariage are representative of contemporary novels that use French-American interpersonal relations to reconfigure questions of national identity and cultural specificity, via metaphorical networks that recall the "complex connectivity" that characterizes globalization.
Screening France
Brigitte Humbert
American films about France or French people seek to maintain a certain level of Frenchness, usually through superficial traits and stereotypes, while also naturalizing them for perceived American expectations, including a taste for romance, a clear demarcation between good and evil, a certain type of action, and happy closure.
Gopnik and Company: A Literature of Accommodation
Edward C. Knox
In search of authenticity and a tradition of quality, and as a response to an increasingly standardized US, personal narratives set in Paris or the provinces recount attempts at cultural integration, through mastery of French cooking, learning French, or redoing a house into a home.
Constructing French-American Understanding: The Cultura Project
Gilberte Furstenberg
The MIT Cultura project juxtaposes French/American opinion and expression, in order to involve respondents in a collaborative and ongoing process designed to identify perspectives and values, and so to undermine cross-cultural misconceptions and stereotypes.