43 research outputs found
Cultural policy through the prism of fiction (Michel Houellebecq)
Cultural policy studies tends to talk about fiction without actually using it. A typical move is to place it in an aesthetic realm to be protected, situated and/or critiqued. This is an eminently worthwhile activity. However, this paper explores some ways in which works of fiction may, following their own dynamic, yield significant perspectives upon the world of cultural policy itself. In what ways do fictional works offer us prisms through which to reappraise the worlds of cultural policy? What are the effects of the reconfigurative imaginative play to which they subject the institutions of that world? How are the discourses of cultural policy reframed when redeployed by novelists within free indirect style or internal monologue? The article begins by distinguishing four broad modes in which fictional works refract the world of cultural policy, and then analyses in more fine-grained detail two novels by the leading French writer Michel Houellebecq
International recognition regimes and the projection of France
The recent turn to substantial theories of ârecognitionâ in international relations is of considerable interest for the study of international cultural relations. France provides a revealing case study due to the historical importance of culture as such in its foreign policies. Its âdiplomacies of influenceâ can be understood as forms of recognition-seeking across shifting international âregimes of recognitionâ (Ringmar). France once played a leading role in shaping the global templates for cultural recognition between states. In recent decades, it has had to adapt to the terms of new recognition templates established elsewhere, either via forms of institutional imitation, or by seeking to inflect these new templates (notably in a self-ascribed role as global champion of cultural diversity). These dynamics can be traced in a series of official reports on Franceâs external cultural policies, notably across the sectors of language policy, arts diplomacy, higher education mobility and global news projection. The reportsâ deliberation on these processes opens a space for critical discussion concerning the contemporary operation of international regimes of recognition
Cultural insecurity and its discursive crystallisation in contemporary France
This article analyses the emergence in French public discourse since 2010 of the term âinsĂ©curitĂ© culturelleâ (âcultural insecurityâ). It traces firstly the take-up of the term outside France since the 1980s in anglophone written news media. It establishes four received meanings for the term: a âpureâ cultural insecurity expressing simply a relation to the arts world; a nationally refracted cultural insecurity that expresses that relation through the prism of relations between nations; an anthropologico-political conception; and a conception related to the human development paradigm. The take-up in France of the term has conformed to the anthropologico-political conception. Developments after 2002 in France created propitious conditions for coupling the semantic fields of âcultureâ and âinsecurityâ. The term itself was launched from 2010 through the work of two quite different âdiscursive entrepreneursâ associated with the erstwhile âpopular leftâ current close to the French Socialist Party (Christophe Guilluy and Laurent Bouvet). The article analyses in both linguistic and political perspectives how the expression has been taken up since 2012 in the national press in France. In particular, it explores the debate concerning the purchase of the term on reality, and its current discursive fit with the agendas of the mainstream and far right
Between cultural theory and policy : the cultural policy thinking of Pierre Bourdieu, Michel de Certeau and Regis Debray
This study explores the cultural policy thinking of three major French
theorists. The introduction surveys relations between different types of research
and cultural policy making both in the anglophone world and in France, and
places the decision to focus on these three thinkers within a wider context of
cultural policy research in France. Chapter one, which will cover a certain
amount of ground familiar to specialists in the field, traces how the cultural
policy reflection of these figures emerges against or negotiates the policy model
represented by André Malraux. Chapters two to four, which constitute the main
substance of the study, move across these three oeuvres with a sustained focus
on their cultural policy implications and prescriptions. The summary and
concluding remarks draw together the elements of a âtriangulatedâ framework
for cultural policy reflection developed over the study as a whole
Introduction : Bourdieu and the literary field
Pierre Bourdieuâs range as a thinker was extremely wide, and it would
be misleading to present him primarily as a literary theorist. Trained
as a philosopher, he became the leading French sociologist of his
generation, and brought under the spotlight of his âcritical sociologyâ
a whole series of institutional and discursive universes (education,
art, linguistics, public administration, politics, philosophy, journalism,
economics and others). Far from representing an intellectual dispersal,
these manifold objects of enquiry allowed him to develop and refine
a comprehensive theory of social process and power-relations based
on distinctive concepts such as âfieldâ, âhabitusâ, variously conceived
notions of âcapitalâ, and âillusioâ (all these concepts and others will
be explicated and assessed in this issue). Yet Bourdieuâs analyses were
scarcely ever received as neutral descriptions within the fields which
he analysed. Bourdieuâs abiding agenda was to show how the discursive
presuppositions and institutional logics at work in such fields carried
but also masked certain social logics that a âcritical sociologyâ could
disclose. Coupled with the inveterately combative drive seldom absent
from Bourdieuâs objectifying analysesâand even setting aside the
misprisions to which an external analyst is inevitably subjectâthis
helps explain the resistance which his work recurrently provoked. In
this respect, Bourdieuâs forays into the world of literary studies and his
reception therein can be seen as part of a wider pattern
What good is a supercentral language? Justificatory repertoires for the projection of French, 1998-2018
The article focuses on shifts in justificatory repertoires within France for the promotion of the French language beyond the regions of the world where it is securely the core language. It is based on a corpus of 19 French public policy reports on external language and cultural policies published between 1998 and 2018. The corpus is characterised by a thick referential interplay, and its authors work within a loose and evolving advocacy coalition. The reports suggest that Franceâs position as a âsupercentralâ world language is characterised by significant fragility, and that its defenders must break with former representations of French as a prestigious language of culture and diplomacy. They argue that it must âequipâ itself as a manifestly useful, broadly attractive and polycentric language in a new geolinguistic space. At an initial level, they attempt to justify its external projection by framing French with its specific attributes and reach as a sui generis global public good. They supplement this stock of justifications by invoking a privileged role for French in the defence of the second-order global public good of linguistic diversity as such. These discursive moves produce both ruptures and continuities in relation to the French cultural and language policy traditions of rayonnement and universalism
Emmanuel Macron and the reprojection of the French Language
Although preceding presidents of the Fifth Republic have shown commitment in varying degrees to the projection of the French language, none has done so in as focused and symbolically charged a manner as Emmanuel Macron. This can be explained through the combination of his individual biographical trajectory, the opportunity offered to carve out a presidential profile in relation to his predecessors and his rivals, and through the contemporary position of French in the world language system. The uncertain position of French in this system means that Macron could not simply perpetuate older rhetorical and policy practices for projecting the language. Instead he sought to recast French as an imaginary object through recourse to an alternative cluster of metaphors and a reframed symbolic space, and the appropriation of motifs developed by postcolonial and other critical thinkers. He also aggregated a platform of policy measures acting as âsemesâ designed to demonstrate the uses and desirability of the language under the rubrics of education, communication and creation. Macronâs reprojection of French is âversatileâ and ambiguous insofar as it allows him symbolically to defuse political and cultural tensions. This is demonstrated in his project for a CitĂ© internationale de la langue française in Villers-CotterĂȘts
Timing of high-dose methotrexate CNS prophylaxis in DLBCL: an analysis of toxicity and impact on R-CHOP delivery
High-dose methotrexate (HD-MTX) is increasingly used as prophylaxis for patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) at high risk of central nervous system (CNS) relapse. However, there is limited evidence to guide whether to intercalate HD-MTX (i-HD-MTX) between R-CHOP-21 (rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisolone given at 21-day intervals) or to give it at the end of treatment (EOT) with R-CHOP-21. We conducted a retrospective, multicenter analysis of 334 patients with DLBCL who received CNS prophylaxis with i-HD-MTX (n = 204) or EOT HD-MTX (n = 130). Primary end points were R-CHOP delay rates and HD-MTX toxicity. Secondary end points were CNS relapse rate, progression-free survival, and overall survival. The EOT group had more patients with a high CNS international prognostic index (58% vs 39%; P < .001) and more concurrent intrathecal prophylaxis (56% vs 34%; P < .001). Of the 409 cycles of i-HD-MTX given, 82 (20%) were associated with a delay of next R-CHOP (median, 7 days). Delays were significantly increased when i-HD-MTX was given after day 9 postâR-CHOP (26% vs 16%; P = .01). On multivariable analysis, i-HD-MTX was independently associated with increased R-CHOP delays. Increased mucositis, febrile neutropenia, and longer median inpatient stay were recorded with i-HD-MTX delivery. Three-year cumulative CNS relapse incidence was 5.9%, with no differences between groups. There was no difference in survival between groups. We report increased toxicity and R-CHOP delay with i-HD-MTX compared with EOT delivery but no difference in CNS relapse or survival. Decisions on HD-MTX timing should be individualized and, where i-HD-MTX is favored, we recommend scheduling before day 10 of R-CHOP cycles
Cultural policy explicit and implicit : a distinction and some uses
This paper develops a distinction between âexplictâ or ânominalâ cultural policies (policies that are explicitly labelled as âculturalâ) and âimplicitâ or âeffectiveâ cultural policies (policies that are not labelled manifestly as âculturalâ, but that work to prescribe or shape cultural attitudes and habits over given territories). It begins by defining the distinction through reference to a suggestive inconsistency located within the work of the French thinker RĂ©gis Debray. It then specifies the distinction further in relation to certain anglophone references in cultural policy studies and wider political thinking (Geoff Mulgan and Ken Worpole, Raymond Williams, Joseph Nye). Finally, it explores the history of laicity in France conceived initially in terms of a conflict between the implicit cultural policies of the Catholic Church and the republican State, as well as certain tensions implied by the realpolitik of laicity
Michel de Certeau : interpretation and its Other
Since his death in 1986, Michel de Certeau's reputation as a thinker has steadily grown both in France and throughout the English-speaking world. His work is extraordinarily innovative and wide-ranging, cutting across issues in historiography, literary and cultural studies, anthropology, sociology, theology, philosophy and psychoanalysis.
This book represents the first full-length study of Certeau's thought. It is organized around the central theme of interpretation and alterity, which Ahearne uses to illuminate Certeau's work as a whole. The author also examines Certeau's theory and practice of historiography; his reflection on the relations between changing historical forms of writing, reading and orality; and his distinction between the "strategic" programmes of the politically powerful and the "tactics" of the relatively powerless.
Ahearne places Certeau's work in its general intellectual context, relating it to the views of important contemporary thinkers, such as Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault, and demonstrating the decisive importance to Certeau's thought of the writings of the early modern mystics and travellers.
This book constitutes an excellent critical introduction to Certeau's work, while also providing a comprehensive and nuanced reading for those already familiar with his thought