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French Theory refers to a body of postmodern philosophical, literary and social theories, where the concept of deconstruction holds a central place, in line with post-structuralism. The term emerged in American universities and research work in the 1970s, from a school of thought born in the 1960s in France, and owes much, in terms of dissemination, to the journal Semiotext(e), founded by Sylvère Lotringer in 1974 at Columbia University.
French Theory met with particular enthusiasm in American humanities departments from the 1980s, where it contributed to the emergence of cultural studies, gender studies and postcolonial studies. French Theory has also had a strong influence in the arts and in the activism world. The label "French theory" was applied in American academic research in the late 1970, while later "post-structuralism" and French postmodernism were used.
The main authors associated with this movement are, in France: Louis Althusser, Jean Baudrillard, Simone de Beauvoir, Hélène Cixous, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Félix Guattari, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan, Jean-François Lyotard, Jacques Rancière, René Girard and Monique Wittig; and in the US: Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Judith Butler, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Stanley Fish, Edward Said, Richard Rorty, Fredric Jameson, Avital Ronell, and Donna Haraway.
At the same time as the impact of the work of these French authors gave birth in the United States to an intellectual movement called French Theory, the names of the French philosophers involved were demonized in France as "libidinal" and leftist. The theory faced a lot of reluctancy and resistance, highlighted by the critique of Camille Paglia and Alan Sokal (cf. Sokal affair and Fashionable Nonsense, co-authored with Jean Bricmont). François Cusset declared that based on this reaction, the "theory should probably be defined negatively".
An English name for a French corpus
According to intellectual historian François Cusset, the grouping of these French authors in the US under the term French Theory appears highly artificial in France. This gathering in the same philosophical school erases the singularities and strong theoretical divergences of their respective works. According to Cusset, the only similarities are similar critical approaches:
- the critique of the subject, of representation and of historical continuity;
- rereading of Freud, Nietzsche and Heidegger;
- the criticism of the "critical" itself, that is, from the German philosophical tradition.
French Theory was born from the conjunction of several factors in the U.S., including:
- the "pre-existence" of intellectual or political currents, within American universities, whose theories were close or easily assimilated;
- Americanization, reorganization and de-contextualization of original French concepts;
- the transmission of ideas through specific modes of publication (excerpts published in academic and alternative journals rather than full translations of the works);
- the preponderance of cross-interviews between French authors (giving the impression of a homogeneous corpus);
- translation difficulties.
Legacy
In France, from the mid-1970s, French Theory gradually faded from an intellectual landscape marked by the disappointments (on the left) of the post-May 68 period. Strong media personalities under the title of the New Philosophers led French debate towards various forms of struggle for rights and the conquest of the political apparatus for humanitarian ends. Intellectuals who claimed to be followers of Foucault, Deleuze, Baudrillard, and others disappeared from the forefront as the academic community gradually lost interest in them. It is paradoxically in this context that French Theory gained popularity in the US. In the 2000s, French Theory reappeared in France under the influence of translations of American works, taking different forms of accusatory questioning of the French model (gender studies, post-colonial studies, etc.), which pose the philosophical and political question of difference, power and the imposition of norms.
References
Citations
- Hedi El Kholti, Chris Kraus, Sylvère Lotringer (dir.), The History of Semiotext(e), Los Angeles, Whitney Biennial Catalogue / Whitney Museum of Art (New York), 2014.
- Cusset 2008, p. 6.
- Cusset 2008, p. xviii.
- Sylvano Santini (2004). "La leçon de la French Theory" (PDF). Spirale : arts • lettres • sciences humaines (195): 42-43..
- "Journée « Autour du livre de François Cusset French Theory » et des Cultural Studies" (in French).
Bibliography
- Johannes Angermuller, Why There Is No Poststructuralism in France. The Making of an Intellectual Generation, London, Bloomsbury, 2015.
- Johannes Angermuller, The Field of Theory. Rise and decline of structuralism in France, Paris, Hermann, 2013.
- Cusset, François (2008). French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, & Co. Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0-8166-4732-3. Retrieved 2024-12-17.
- Mike Gane, French Social Theory, ed. Sage (Baudrillard Studies), London, 2003.
- Sylvère Lotringer and Sande Cohen (eds.), French Theory in America, New York, Routledge, 2001.
- Francesca Manzari and Stéphane Lojkine, introductory course in French Theory, Aix-Marseille University, ALLSH Faculty, HBM6U03D, HBMU12, 2020 program : presentation and online program.
- Glyn Williams, French Discourse Analysis: The Method of Post Structuralism, London, Routledge, 1999.