The transcultural self: mapping a French identity in contemporary Australian women’s travel memoirs

Rare during the twentieth century, at least twenty-nine book-length memoirs of Australians in France have been published since 2000. Unlike their British and American counterparts, these are overwhelmingly written by women, staying as often as not in Paris as in rural France. The relocation inevitably provides the opportunity for reinvention of the self in relation to new surroundings. Striking is the desire among many of these writers to claim a French identity, as evidenced in titles such as: Almost French, How to Be French, My French Life. The paper seeks to understand what enables Frenchness to appear as readily accessible to this group of Australian women and what this version of Frenchness entails. It investigates what constitutes cultural belonging in these memoirs, and the ‘technologies of the self’ by means of which this new identity is crafted, assumed and circulated as a template for others to follow. Curiously, neither a high level of French language proficiency nor long-term residence are considered essential attributes. More often, the authors focus on the availability of alternative forms of female subjectivity, and the invention of a transcultural self is articulated in terms of cultural paradigms of femininity and gender relations

The Seduction of Sarah: travel memoirs and intercultural learning

The paper explores the nexus between intercultural storytelling and intercultural learning. Noting the wide appeal of the travel memoir set in France, it takes as a case study a book that, while positioned within that genre, attempts to shift some predictable patterns: Sarah Turnbull’s best-selling Almost French. Analysis shows that the book in fact participates in a subtle play of genres, whereby the lure of the travel memoir is used to entice readers towards a position where they read the book as a guide to French culture. The particular form of hybridity attempted is, however, a delicate enterprise, as the reception of the book demonstrates, in that the intercultural lessons on offer risk being overshadowed by the expectations readers bring to the genre of the travel memoir. The paper examines the competing seductions operating throughout the text and relates the conditions for taking up the opportunity for intercultural learning to questions of genre. It offers a pedagogical uptake of the textual analysis, thus bridging disciplines in a way that mirrors Turnbull’s bridging of genre

Negotiating Cross-Cultural Difference in Electronic Discussion

Although a good deal of research exists both on computer-mediated communication (CMC) and on cross-cultural communication, rarely are the two areas brought together. In practice however, extrapolation from one context to the other is common, with the internet and email being increasingly used to teach cross-cultural communication. What assumptions about the transfer of culture into cyberspace inform these practices? And are these assumptions well-founded? This paper explores practices of discussion on French and British internet media sites to determine the extent to which they reflect communicative practices elsewhere in those cultures. The case studies underline the importance of attending to the interaction between culture and genre, and have pedagogical implications for the use of such sites in the teaching of cross-cultural communication

Comme une Française: maintaining an intercultural threshold space in online video

This chapter analyses the website interaction, exploring the ways in which the multimodal interface is used to achieve the intercultural goals of both teacher and learners in an online educational business. It focuses particularly on the audio-visual affordances that are used to project and negotiate an intercultural identity. In multimodal contexts such as the Comme une Francaise videos and website, elements including dress, decor, gaze, camera angle, and even page layout are used strategically to position self and other, participants and viewers, teachers and learners. Accessed free of charge on the company website or via YouTube, the videos form the cornerstone of the marketing strategy for Comme une Francaise. Comme une Francaise is advertised as "a girl's best friend in France," and its explicit aim is to facilitate the integration of expatriate women in France through improved French language proficiency and intercultural learning