Table of Contents

Part 1 Introduction and Sources
Introduction
France @ your fingertips
Part 2 The Background to French Cultural Exceptionalism
How the French present is shaped by the past: the last 100 years in historical perspective
French cultural policy: the special role of the state
French education: equal or elitist?
Part 3 Cultural Differences and Identity Politics in France Today
Social differences: age and place
Sexual fault lines: sex and gender in cultural context
The challenge of multiculturalism: regional and religious differences in France today
French political culture: homogenous or fragmented?
Part 4 Frenchness Revisited: Forces for Cultural Unity
If it isn't clear it isn't French: language and identity
French public culture: spaces and places
Frenchness constructed and reconstructed
Part 5 French Cultural Production at the turn of the Twenty-First Century
Sport and identity in the new France
No Coca-cola please, we're French! The advertising culture in France
A night out: theatre and opera
Cinema in a nation of filmgoers
Festivals and fetes populaires
The changing French media: press barons, NRG and digital TV
From Messian to MC Solaar: music in France in the late twentieth century
Reading books in France: la culture du livre
Intellectuals in French culture: where to look today
A guide to contemporary cultural analysis: the French contribution

About the Author

William Kidd is Reader in French Studies at the University of Stirling. Siân Reynolds is Professor of French Studies at the University of Stirling.

Reviews

This book should prove enormously useful to undergraduate readers who are seeking to gain an overall orientation within the field of French culture. An excellent resource to the general academic reader who might wish to decipher and interpret the complex and polyphonic text of French culture. -- European Journal of Communication Both editors and contributors are to be congratulated on producing a book that works both as an undergraduate introduction and as a series of critical essays on French culture on the cusp of the twenty-first century. -- Journal of European Area Studies This is a stimulating introduction to French cultures and identities...resolutely contemporary and thought-provoking -- Forum for Modern Language Studies 20030201