School of Languages, Cultures, Art History and Music

'The French Avant-garde', The Literary Encyclopedia (2011).

by Stephen Forcer

'Before They Were Famous: Tristan Tzara, Nationhood and Poetry', in Anne Quinney (ed.), Paris-Bucharest, Bucharest-Paris. Francophone Writers from Romania (Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi, 2012). In press.

by Stephen Forcer

http://www.rodopi.nl/ntalpha.asp?BookId=FAUX+367&type=coming&letter=

This collection of essays presents new research on the work of Romanian writers who chose French as a literary... more This collection of essays presents new research on the work of Romanian writers who chose French as a literary language. Romanian is itself, of course, a Romance language, and there is a long history of close Franco-Romanian ties. But given the complex and often multilingual cultural heritage of these writers–whose influences included German, Russian, and Ottoman–their contribution to French literature represents a unique hybrid form of francophonie. And yet unlike the literary production of former French colonies, this work has received little scholarly attention as a contribution to French literature. This book aims to rectify this situation. Focusing on the historical, cultural, and artistic links between France and Romania in the twentieth century from the standpoint of such figures as Tristan Tzara, Anna de Noailles, Panaït Istrati, Eugène Ionesco, Isidore Isou, and E.M. Cioran, the essays develop innovative and insightful perspectives with regard to the work of individual authors. The volume as a whole will thus serve to reshape prevailing conceptions of Francophone literary production and to expand fundamentally the conceptual boundaries of Francophone Studies.

Co-authored with Emma Wagstaff: 'Dedication and Friendship in Two Livres d’artistes: Parler seul (Tzara-Miró, 1948-1950) and Vivantes cendres, innommées (Leiris-Giacometti,1961)’, in Forcer and Wagstaff (eds), The French Avant-garde, special issue of Nottingham French Studies, 50: 3 (Autumn 2011).

by Stephen Forcer

Queering the Family: fantasy and the performance of sexuality and gay relations in French cinema 1995-2000

by Kate Ince

This paper looks in detail at the representation of sexuality in the family in three films of the mid to late 1990s,... more This paper looks in detail at the representation of sexuality in the family in three films of the mid to late 1990s, Balasko’s Gazon maudit, Berliner’s Ma Vie en rose, and Giusti’s Pourquoi pas moi? Its double focus is the changing structure of the French family at the end of the twentieth century, considered against key political developments such as the pacte civil de solidarité (PaCS) of November 1999, and the cinematic fantasies in which these structural changes are envisioned. Fable, fantasy or anti-realism mark the endings of Gazon maudit and Pourquoi pas moi?, while sequences of childhood fantasy punctuate the entire length of Ma Vie en rose. No particular theoretical approach to fantasy is preferred, but the conclusion of the paper is that cinema may be a privileged cultural vehicle for politically enabling fantasy, and that the three films discussed demonstrate this where the French family is concerned.

Francois Ozon's cinema of desire

by Kate Ince

This essay offers readings informed by gender and queer theory of most of Ozon's films up to 5 x 2 (2004), and proposes that Ozon should be regarded as France's first mainstream queer filmmaker.

Bringing Bodies Back In: For a Phenomenological and Psychoanalytic Film Criticism of Embodied Cultural Identity

by Kate Ince

This article reassesses the concept of identification in line with the increased importance phenomenology has taken on... more This article reassesses the concept of identification in line with the increased importance phenomenology has taken on in film-philosophy of the 1990s and 2000s. In the 1970s and 1980s, a Lacanian psychoanalytic interpretation of identification dominated film theory and criticism, and spectatorial engagement with elements of films was understood as what psychoanalysis calls secondary identification – the identification with stable subject-positions (characters) in the film-text. But non-Lacanian psychoanalysis and Merleau-Ponty’s existential phenomenology offer film-philosophy a very different understanding of identification as a non image-based, ‘blind’, bodily affective tie that is established between spectators and what Vivian Sobchack describes as ‘the sense and sensibility of materiality itself’ (Sobchack 2004, 65). By first exploring how this more bodily (for psychoanalysis, primary) identification is theorized by psychoanalysts (Freud, Paul Schilder, Henri Wallon) and by film theorists (Kaja Silverman), the article proposes that film criticism make greater use of it in order to engage more meaningfully with the visible cultural specificities – size, skin colour, age, sex – of the images of bodies viewed on cinema screens. It is not just ‘the’ body that needs bringing back into thinking about film spectatorship, but culturally differentiated bodies, both on the screen and in the auditorium. A psychoanalytic and phenomenological film criticism of embodied cultural identity, one that attends to the materiality of the film and of the body-images and objects on the screen, may be the most culturally and politically useful successor to ‘screen’ theory of the 1970s and 1980s.

'On the Starfish Road: Surrealism and the Paris-Barcelona Connection', in Helena Buffery and Carlota Caulfield (eds), Barcelona: Visual Culture, Space and Power (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, forthcoming 2012).

by Stephen Forcer

http://www.gwales.com/goto/biblio/en/9780708324806/

Barcelona: Visual Culture, Space and Power offers a unique approach to the history of the avantgarde in Barcelona, as... more Barcelona: Visual Culture, Space and Power offers a unique approach to the history of the avantgarde in Barcelona, as well as its legacy in the post-war period. It presents the relationship between environment, identity and performance as explored by countercultural artists and communities from the 1960s to the present day. The volume brings together researchers and practitioners from the UK, Catalonia, Europe and the US to explore groundbreaking countercultural artists and movements and their relationship to a particular environment, Barcelona, setting them alongside more commercialised, global images of the city and its culture. The book explores the relationship between space and performance, theory and practice, production and institutionalisation, through an encounter between academic research and aesthetic practice, showcasing contemporary Catalan visual and performance work by artists, poets, dramatists, dancers and choreographers, puppeteers and film-makers.

'The Importance of Talking Nonsense: Tzara, Ideology, and Dada in the 21st Century', in Elza Adamowicz and Eric Robertson (eds), Dada and Beyond, vol. 2: Dada and its Legacies (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, forthcoming 2012).

by Stephen Forcer

'"Neither parallel nor slippers": Dada, war, and the meaning(lessness) of meaning(lessness)', in Elisabetta Tarantino (ed.) with Carlo Caruso, Nonsense and other Senses: Regulated Absurdity in Literature (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009), pp. 191-206.

by Stephen Forcer

http://www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/Nonsense-and-Other-Senses--Regulated-Absurdity-in-Literature1-4438-1006-1.htm

French-English translation. Blandine Kriegel, 'The Eighteenth-century Declarations of Rights and their Destinies', in Christina Howells (ed.), French Women Philosophers: A Contemporary Reader (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 437-49.

by Stephen Forcer

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415261401/

This reader is the first of its kind to present the work of leading French women philosophers to an English-speaking... more This reader is the first of its kind to present the work of leading French women philosophers to an English-speaking audience. Many of the articles appear for the first time in English and have been specially translated for the collection. Christina Howells draws on major areas of philosophical and theoretical debate including Ethics, Psychoanalysis, Law, Politics, History, Science and Rationality. Each section and article is clearly introduced and situated in its intellectual context. The book is necessarily feminist in inspiration but draws on an unusually wide range of thinkers, chosen to represent the philosophy of women rather than feminist philosophy. It will be ideal for anyone coming to this area for the first time as well as those seeking to extend their understanding of French thought and Continental Philosophy.

Articles by the following writers are included: Francoise Collin, Sylviane Agacinski, Catherine Chalier, Luce Irigaray, Francoise Proust, Francoise Dastur, Barbara Cassin, Natalie Depraz, Elisabeth de Fontenay, Elisabeth Badinter, Francoise Heritier, Helene Cixous, Monique Schneider, Julia Kristeva, Sarah Kofman, Monique David Menard, Francoise d'Eaubonne, Genevieve Fraisse, Michele Le Doeuff, Natalie Charraud, Francoise Balibar, Anne Fagot-Largeault, Colette Guillaumin, Dominique Schnapper, Myriam Revault-D'Allonnes, Nicole Loraux, Mireille Delmas-Marty, Blandine Kriegel.

French-English translation. Mireille Delmas Marty, 'Democracy and Humanity', in Christina Howells (ed.), French Women Philosophers: A Contemporary Reader (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 425-35.

by Stephen Forcer

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415261401/

French-English translation. Dominique Schnapper, 'Racism and the Radical Condemnation of Modernity', in Christina Howells (ed.), French Women Philosophers: A Contemporary Reader (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 369-84.

by Stephen Forcer

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415261401/

French-English translation. Anne Fagot-Largeault, 'Science and Ethics', in Christina Howells (ed.), French Women Philosophers: A Contemporary Reader (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 323-36.

by Stephen Forcer

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415261401/

French-English translation. Françoise d'Eaubonne, 'The Feminine and Philosophy', in Christina Howells (ed.), French Women Philosophers: A Contemporary Reader (London: Routledge, 2003), pp.274-82.

by Stephen Forcer

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415261401/

French-English translation. Catherine Chalier, 'Peace as Gift and Obligation' in Christina Howells (ed.), French Women Philosophers: A Contemporary Reader (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 56-68.

by Stephen Forcer

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415261401/

Review of Mark Antliff, Avant-Garde Fascism: The Mobilization of Myth, Art, and Culture in France, 1909-1939 (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2007), in Modern and Contemporary France, 19: 2 (May 2011), 235-236.

by Stephen Forcer

Tristan Tzara

by Stephen Forcer

The Literary Enyclopedia (2008).

Review of Johanna Malt, Obscure Objects of Desire: Surrealism, Fetishism, and Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), in Modern Language Review, 100: 3 (July 2005), 829-830.

by Stephen Forcer

'Word games and space invaders: play, form and philosophy in Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville's Numéro deux (1975)', in Studies in French Cinema, 5: 2 (2005), pp. 87-97.

by Stephen Forcer

It is well known that issues of playfulness, form and philosophy represent central concerns - even obsessions - within... more It is well known that issues of playfulness, form and philosophy represent central concerns - even obsessions - within the oeuvre of Jean-Luc Godard. However, what remains to be fully appreciated in Godard’s later work is the extremely dense and engaging way in which these questions interconnect within specific moments of text. Based on a general desire to further critical understanding of Godard’s collaborations with Anne-Marie Miéville, this article aims to open up new approaches to their 1975 work Numéro deux via the notion of formal play. To do this, the article begins with a reading of the wordplay that opens Numéro deux; analysis is then conducted on the film’s playful treatment of the filmic frame, which is variously bordered, transgressed and made mobile. This close reading is extended by reference to theoretical work on the filmic screen as frame/window by André Bazin, Jean Mitry and Jacques Aumont. The final section of the article goes on to argue that the ‘ludo-formal’ aspects of Numéro deux - a potentially crucial point of reference for much of Godard’s late work - raise an extremely rich set of philosophical ideas about what it is to be human in the spatial universe.

'Trust me, I'm a director: sex, sadomasochism and institutionalization in Luis Buñuel's Belle de Jour (1967)', in Studies in European Cinema, 1: 1 (2004), pp. 19-29.

by Stephen Forcer

This article offers a psychoanalytic rereading of a classic piece of European cinema, itself a cornerstone in the... more This article offers a psychoanalytic rereading of a classic piece of European cinema, itself a cornerstone in the œuvre of a major European director. Argumentation starts from the idea that Buñuel's playful laying of interpretative red herrings is valuable as a cultural gesture, but dangerous as a platform for satisfying film criticism. Seeking to challenge the descriptive auteurism that often characterizes studies of both Buñuel and Belle de Jour, the proposition here is that critically informed textual analysis reveals that Belle's psycho-sexuality is more complex than existing studies suggest. In particular, discussion works towards answering a previously unasked question about Belle: traditionally, she is held to embody all the classic signs of masochism - and yet, in its conceptual origin, a masochist is also a sadist, so what does it mean to consider the representation and actions of Belle within the context of sadism? By responding to this question via the film's mise-en-scène - which is rich but often neglected by critics - the article reveals a new relationship between Belle, her fantasies and a set of male-orchestrated institutions. In turn, the piece is able to shed new light on the film's notoriously enigmatic ending.