Report on ASMCF-SSFH Postgraduate Study Day, University of Exeter, March 7, 2015
The Association for the Study of Modern & Contemporary France (ASMCF) and the Society for the Study of French History (SSFH) held their annual joint Postgraduate Study Day at the University of Exeter on March 7. The theme of the day was ‘The Local and the Global’, and asked presenters how these concepts manifested themselves or could be reconciled. There were eleven papers from the UK, France and Morocco, spanning a wide range of domains from History to Literature, and Film Studies to Linguistics.
After registration and coffee, and a welcome provided by Lori Lee Oates of the organising committee and Exeter, and the Hon. Vice Secretary of the ASMCF, Steve Wharton, the first session was on the end of the PhD process. Joanna Warson (Portsmouth) spoke about the Viva process, and gave a series of useful tips, interspersed with humorous observations. Jenny McCall of Palgrave MacMillan then spoke about the process of turning the PhD thesis into a monograph, and the processes involved. Morning coffee was then followed by a session on research dissemination. Penny Roberts (Warwick), and co-editor of French History, talked about getting published in a journal, and gave tips about the procedures, but also gave tips that could apply to other aspects of academic life, namely taking advice, and being prepared to re-write multiple times. Then, Alison Carrol (Brunel) and Ludivine Broch (Westminster), managing editors of the French History Network (FHN) blog, talked about the advantages of blogging and also Twitter, and how this can benefit early-career academics.
There then followed a keynote from Claire Eldridge of Southampton, which discussed collective memories in both France and Algeria of the Algerian War of Independence, and focused upon how pied-noir communities appropriated global affairs, and questions d’actualité in order to convey local sentiments of marginalisation in the crowded landscape of French memory. This addressed questions such as collective memory, identity in contemporary France, immigration and integration, and the ever-troublesome relationship between history and memory.
The afternoon sessions began at 2pm after lunch. The panel on History and Politics in the Urban Environmentbegan with a paper by Will Clement (St. John’s, Oxford) on the cités ouvrières of nineteenth-century Mulhouse, which discussed the local factors involved in this attempt to transform prolétaire en propriétaire, and the reasons why the concept often failed to take off elsewhere despite being widely praised. This was followed by an analysis by Ravi Hensman (Manchester) of activism and local governance in La Courneuve from 1959 to 1973, which used this local example to examine the paradoxically shared desire of both the national planning ministry and the PCF to create in the post-war banlieue an ordered, pacified space in which radical activism was discouraged. Finally, Rebecca Shtasel (Sussex) analysed the history of collaboration amongst trade union leaders in occupied Le Havre, discussing the links between their collusion with the authorities to ensure that unrest about low wages and unemployment did not turn into action and their predominantly anti-communist, anarcho-syndicalist views. A discussion afterwards touched upon issues such as the links between local and national policy, the reasons for focusing historical research on the local level, the strategies of the PCF for dealing with grassroots activism and the responses of working-class populations to the imposition of urban reform.
Panel B on ‘Representations of Francophone Africa’ was diverse and wide-ranging, taking the audience from Algeria to Mali via the Côte d’Ivoire. David Cummings (Queens, Belfast) used the popular literary figure Cagayous to rethink the role played by class in settler identification in colonial Algeria. Wabiy Salawu (Kent) explored the links between Emile Zola and Ahmadou Kourouma, two novelists not usually placed together, but whose texts both deal with heroes whose lives are ‘doubly determined’ by environment and hereditary. While Monika Kukolova (Manchester) discussed Abderrahmane Sissako’s most recent film, Timbuktu (2014), as a commentary on Mali’s present and future situation, particularly in terms of the options open to the nation’s younger citizens. The papers were linked by their concern to explore the role of environment on identification, particularly local environments. Focusing on moments of social transformation, each panellist exposed the complex and multifarious influences that shape the actions of individuals and communities; a point further underscored by questions from the audience.
After afternoon coffee, Panel C was entitled Negotiating Identity Though Language & Text. Adrian Chrimes (Exeter) looked at the difficulties around identity and language within Brittany, and perhaps surprised more than one delegate by highlighting a difference between Breton and Gallo. Rifai Houssaine (Ibn Tofail, Kénitra) gave a paper that looked at translation and literature in Morocco during the period of the French protectorate, and how French culture impacted upon Moroccan Arabic. Jordi Cassan (Clermont-II) looked at globalisation and its impacts upon the representation of rugby union in France, following the critique of Frederick Cooper, and the tensions between the local and the global, and between the dominated and the domineer. Questions were posed in both French and English, andthemes included imperialism, the influence of capitalism, and the research methodologies.
Panel D looked at France and its role in the World in a postcolonial context, with two papers from PhD students at Portsmouth. Kelsey Suggitt's paper concerned the OCRS’ attempt to create a vast administrative area in 1950s Saharan Africa, as a kind of compromise between nationhood and the more prosaic need for an economic community, based on a new model of colonialism in which the 'colonised' occupied a more or less even position with the 'coloniser'. Roel Van de Velde's paper was on the French military doctrine of the Guerre Révolutionnaire and the wider legacy of this doctrine in informing postcolonial military action, particularly in South Africa. This 'military mindset' was presented as an enduring feature of French colonial action that was truly transnational in its reach.The subsequent discussion expanded on the notion of 'military mindset' to explore how (and indeed whether)these policies reflected political shifts in the métropole.
The day closed at 5pm, and several delegates joined the organisers for a social evening at The Rusty Bike in Exeter on Saturday night. The organisers would like to thank the College of Humanities at Exeter for their hospitality and facilities, the ASMCF and the SSFH and the Voltaire Foundation for their financial support,the FHN for their support and promotion of the day, the Rusty Bike for stepping into the breach at the last moment, and all of the delegates for providing a stimulating day of discussion and dissemination.
Organisers: Stacie Allan (Bristol), Ellen Crabtree (Newcastle), Lori Lee Oates (Exeter), Mason Norton (Edge Hill).
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