Imagining the Popular in Contemporary French Culture

(Hardback)

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Description

This groundbreaking book is about what 'popular culture' means in France, and how the term's shifting meanings have been negotiated and contested. It represents the first theoretically informed study of the way that popular culture is lived, imagined, fought over and negotiated in modern and contemporary France. It covers a wide range of overarching concerns: the roles of state policy, the market, political ideologies, changing social contexts and new technologies in the construction of the popular. But it also provides a set of specific case studies showing how popular songs, stories, films, TV programmes and language styles have become indispensable elements of 'culture' in France. Deploying yet also rethinking a 'Cultural Studies' approach to the popular, the book therefore challenges dominant views of what French culture really means today. -- .

Reviews

...there is much here to attract and hold the readers attention.The editors and authors are to be congratulated for the depth of critical expertise and the clarity of exposition that they bring to their coverage of both the topic as a whole and their particular areas of specialist knowledge. The book thus represents a significant addition to research on popular culture in
advanced societies and as such will be of interest to scholars outside the confines of French Studies.

"All in all, this volume is an excellent addition to our thinking about the ways in which popular culture in France has been conceptualized and materialized."
(Hugh Dauncey; French Studies: 2014)

Author Bio

Diana Holmes is Professor of French at the University of Leeds|David Looseley is Emeritus Professor of Contemporary French Culture at the University of Leeds