In the face of the contested legacy of engagement in the Francophone context, this interdisciplinary collection demonstrates that French and Francophone writers, artists, intellectuals and film-makers are using their work to confront unforeseen and unprecedented challenges, campaigns and causes in a politically uncertain post-9/11 world. Composed of eleven essays and a contextualising introduction, this volume is interdisciplinary in its treatment of engagement in a variety of forms, as it reassesses the relationship between different types of cultural production and society as it is played out in the twenty-first century. With a focus on both the development of different cultural forms (Part 1) and on the particular crises that have attracted the attention of cultural practitioners (Part 2), this volume maps and analyses some of the ways in which cultural texts of all kinds are being used to respond to, engage with and challenge crises in the contemporary Francophone world.
List of Illustrations Introduction - Helena Chadderton and Angela Kimyongür Part 1: Culture in Crisis? Evolving Cultural Forms in the 21st Century Chapter 1: Engagement in la fiction d’affaires: François Bon and Thierry Beinstingel. - Helena Chadderton Chapter 2: Evolutions of engagement: Renaud and la chanson engagée in 21st-Century France. - Rachel Howarth Chapter 3: ‘Radical’ Independent Presses in France at the Turn of the 21st Century: a New Form of Political and Intellectual engagement? - Sophie Noël Chapter 4: Charity engagements: Television Coverage of Les Restos du Coeur and Les Enfoirés. - Chris Tinker Chapter 5: Plantu: caricaturiste engagé? - Sam Wilkinson Chapter 6: Criminal engagements: Dominique Manotti and the Politics of Crime Writing. - Angela Kimyongür Part 2: New Responses to New Crises: France and the Francophone World in the 21st Century Chapter 7: Crime and Comedy: Dominique Sylvain’s Ingrid Diesel and Lola Jost Series Post 9/11. - Andrea Hynynen Chapter 8: Michel Houellebecq, Masculinity and the Manipulation of Crisis. - Clive Hunter Chapter 9: Voicing the Silence: Exposing French Neo-Colonial History and Practices in Mathieu Pernot’s Les Migrants. - Sophie Watt Chapter 10: Engagement au marteau: Michel Onfray’s Université Populaire. - Jean-Frédéric Hennuy Chapter 11: New Aesthetics of engagement: Fatou Diome’s Kétala. - Charlotte Baker