French Identities: 21st Century Culture and Society in France

Catalog description

This course is conceived as a critical introduction to a cultural and political debate that appeared in the years of Mitterrand's France and reached its climax in the last decade. It will focus on a French society deeply shaped by immigration and globalization. In which way do the youth of the banlieue - mostly formed by postcolonial Blacks and Muslims - create their own culture with the French culture? How have literature, essays, movies, documentary films, national identity carried on by governments reacted to these transformations? Selecting literary texts (by Maryse Conde, Zahia Rahmani, Adb El Malik) and other cultural productions, the course will explore the new expressions of France as an imagined community.