This book offers a selection of the papers presented at the 2008 annual conference of the Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France (ASMCF), with chapters focusing on regional formation, European policy, the cultural landscape of Paris, the place of Maghrebi artists in popular music, the evolution of cultural policy regarding ‘popular’ culture, and filmic and novelised representations of desire, ethnicity and nationality. Guided by postcolonial critique, this book takes as its starting point the recognition of multiple identities in modern and contemporary France, despite (and against) the traditional republican emphasis on national unification and the relegation of notions of ethnicity, sexuality and cultural difference to the so-called private sphere. While many publications have engaged with this topic, few juxtapose social and political issues with cultural approaches. This edited volume, by contrast, incorporates the work of specialists drawn from a broad range of academic disciplinary areas, including history, politics, literature and cultural studies, and shows how perceptions of the self and of the other as French have changed over the years, with an emphasis on the contemporary period (post-1945).

Barbara Lebrun is Lecturer in Contemporary French Culture and Politics in the Department of French Studies at the University of Manchester. Her work focuses on the place of ethnicity, performance and contestation in French popular music. She is the author of Protest Music in France. Production, Identity and Audiences (2009). Jill Lovecy is Lecturer in Government in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Manchester. She has published on issues of gender representation in French and European politics.

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