Michael Sheringham

theories and practices from surrealism to the present

Everyday life

Paul Gifford

Brian Stimpson

The first comprehensive account of the work of the French modernist writer Paul Valéry.

Universe in Mind

Reading Paul Valéry

Elza Adamowicz

A Bibliography (1972-1989) : (supplement to Michael Sheringham: André Breton, a Bibliography)

André Breton

In the last twenty years the concept of the quotidien, or the everyday, has been prominent in contemporary French culture and in British and American cultural studies. This book provides the first comprehensive analytical survey of the whole field of approaches to the everyday. It offers, firstly, a historical perspective, demonstrating the importance of mainstream and dissident Surrealism; the indispensable contribution, over a 20-year period (1960-80), of four major figures: Henri Lefebvre, Roland Barthes, Michel de Certeau, and Georges Perec; and the recent proliferation of works that investigate everyday experience. Secondly, it establishes the framework of philosophical ideas on which discourses on the everyday depend, but which they characteristically subvert. Thirdly, it comprises searching analyses of works in a variety of genres, including fiction, the essay, poetry, theatre, film, photography, and the visual arts, consistently stressing how explorations of the everyday tend to question and combine genres in richly creative ways. By demonstrating the enduring contribution of Perec and others, and exploring the Surrealist inheritance, the book proposes a genealogy for the remarkable upsurge of interest in the everyday since the 1980s. A second main objective is to raise questions about the dimension of experience addressed by artists and thinkers when they invoke the quotidien or related concepts. Does the 'everyday' refer to an objective content defined by particular activities, or is it best thought of in terms of rhythm, repetition, festivity, ordinariness, the generic, the obvious, the given? Are there events or acts that are uniquely 'everyday', or is the quotidien a way of thinking about events and acts in the 'here and now' as opposed to the longer term? What techniques or genres are best suited to conveying the nature of everyday life? The book explores these questions in a comparative spirit, drawing new parallels between the work of numerous writers and artists, including André Breton, Raymond Queneau, Walter Benjamin, Michel Leiris, Maurice Blanchot, Michel Foucault, Stanley Cavell, Annie Ernaux, Jacques Réda, and Sophie Calle.

Theories and Practices from Surrealism to the Present

Everyday Life

Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature Michael Sheringham

Tracing the development of autobiography in French, this book explores the differing devices with which autobiographers have dealt with enduring challenges: the difficulty of self-scrutiny, the self as textual construct, the problem of memory and the influence of other texts and people.

Devices and Desires : Rousseau to Perec

French Autobiography

Johnnie Gratton

The idea of the 'project' crosses generic, disciplinary and cultural frontiers. At a time when writers and artists are increasingly describing their practices as 'projects', remarkably little critical attention has been paid to the actual idea of the 'project'. This collection of essays responds to an urgent need by suggesting a framework for evaluating the notion of the project in the light of various modernist and postmodernist cultural practices, drawn mainly but not exclusively from the French-speaking domain. The overview offered by this volume promises to makes an original and thought-provoking contribution to contemporary literary, artistic and cultural criticism.

Projects and Experiments in Modern French Culture

The Art of the Project

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.

Parisian Fields

Beckett, Molloy

Michael Sheringham

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