The works of French singer Yseult (b. 1994) are bound in an intricate tension between voice and body. Rooted in the traditions of variété and chanson française , her music challenges themes of representation and pushes musical boundaries. Through an analysis of three key songs— Corps (2019), Rien à prouver (2019) and Bad Boy (2020)—I introduce the concept of the “plastic ga(u) ze”, a framework that connects visual and auditory filters. This concept, paired with a timbral analysis, offers a fresh perspective on how listeners engage with Yseult’s music, emphasizing the interplay of sound, image and identity in her work. By foregrounding the materiality of her voice and the physicality of her body, Yseult redefines traditional paradigms of music and representation, urging audiences to listen more critically and intimately to the vibratory and performative dimensions of her artistry.

Après avoir éliminé politiquement Robespierre et ses partisans le 27 juillet 1794, les députés de la Convention nationale doivent se justifier auprès de l’opinion publique : peignant l’Incorruptible sous les traits du « monstre » et du « buveur de sang », ils se présentent, à l’inverse, comme les restaurateurs de la « civilisation » et de l’ordre politique et moral. Dans ce contexte, ils érigent les savants-martyrs en symboles d’une Terreur (le terme prend alors la signification qu’on lui connaît) dont ils doivent empêcher le retour. Cette contribution étudie les modalités de cette construction symbolique, qui permet l’instauration et la légitimation d’un gouvernement de la Raison : la république du Directoire.

Cet article évoque le travail de collaboration et les contributions intellectuelles de John West-Sooby dans le contexte des études historiques de l’histoire naturelle, en se concentrant particulièrement sur l’expédition menée par Nicolas Baudin en Australie (1800–1804), qui a ou bien marqué la fin du XVIIIᵉ siècle ou bien annoncé une nouvelle approche scientifique. La méthodologie de West-Sooby, appelée « pensée pragmatique », implique une analyse méticuleuse des textes, y compris des manuscrits et des journaux, afin de révéler des récits plus profonds et la dynamique des personnages au sein des expéditions scientifiques. Cette approche transcende une lecture simpliste des documents historiques, permettant une compréhension plus riche des contextes sociaux et culturels de l’époque. Le document souligne également l’importance des diverses sources, y compris les dessins et les artéfacts, dans la reconstruction des récits historiques. En outre, l’auteur fait l’éloge de l’engagement de West-Sooby en faveur de la recherche collaborative et de l’éducation, en soulignant son impact sur les étudiants et la communauté universitaire au sens large. En fin de compte, le texte souligne le rôle de West-Sooby dans l’avancement des connaissances sur l’expédition Baudin et sa signification culturelle, en l’inscrivant dans un discours plus large sur la science, la société et la mémoire historique.

Around the end of the aughts, France witnessed another resurgence of cinematic interest in the Second World War, with a spate of films released between 2008–2011 being linked by a particular focus on “memory work”. This article examines three of them: L’Armée du crime (Robert Guédiguian, 2009), Liberté/Korkoroedom (Tony Gatlif, 2010) and Les Hommes libres (Ismaël Ferroukhi, 2011). Although the Holocaust is of secondary (if unavoidable) importance in these films, this article argues that their objective is less to revisit the genocide perpetrated against Europe’s Jews than to shed light on previously un- or under-explored angles of the Occupation period. These films make a novel contribution to the cinematic corpus of the Occupation by focussing on the neglected heroes and forgotten victims of this episode in French history. Examined as a group, these films undertake a process that this article terms “minor memory work”. By analyzing the films and their subtexts, it argues that this cinematic memory work trend is a direct response to the Sarkozy-era debates on the subject of national identity.

In the preface to Raymond Chirat and Olivier Barrot’s Les Excentriques du cinéma français , Barrot writes affectionately of the excentriques of French cinema: “Ce sont les seconds rôles, acteurs de complément, aussi indispensables à la puissance d’évocation des films que les stars. Membres actifs de la famille des comédiens, catalyseurs de notre complicité, ces ‘excentriques’ […] sont nos amis”. Located far from the centre, in terms of audience recognition and narrative status, these character actors, who worked consistently and across genres from 1929 to 1958, form an indispensable part of French cinema, adding in particular colour, mood and nuance to 1930s French cinema. This article focusses on one particular “excentrique”, Raymond Aimos (1889–1944), showing how his vocal and performative style, his genre eclecticism and embrace of an “anti-stardom” register and his frequent on-screen positioning as the star’s friend, confidant or comic side-kick exemplifies his marginal status in the domestic film industry of the period.

This article sheds light on two key “transprovincial” moments in the history of the Lyon-based Académie Provinciale (1826), a sort of contre-académie and local alternative to the Paris-based Académie française: 1) the admission of Breton poet Élisa Mercœur (1809–1835) as a “membre correspondant” and 2) the publication of the Préludes poétiques by Franc-Comtois Aimé de Loy (1798–1834) as the first volume in the “Bibliothèque de l’Académie Provinciale”. Building on a “transprovincial” framework inspired by non-linear epistemologies, the article highlights the importance of the Académie Provinciale’s transprovincial ambitions, as seen in zigzagging networks of mutual support and collective emancipation. The article argues that these efforts towards a sort of utopian league of provinces underscore the empowering value of provincialism, foster a pluriversal and decentralized view of nineteenth-century French literary culture and thus contribute to a more positive and progressive, rather than conservative and reactionary, provincialization of the idea of “Frenchness”.

In her novel on the 1994 genocide, The Shadow of Imana: Travels in the Hearth of Rwanda , Véronique Tadjo visits memorial sites in Rwanda after the genocide against the Tutsis. Despite the enormous suffering, the author and certain victims succeed in understanding the mechanisms of hatred while, at the same time, believing in life at the end of the book. How is this conclusion possible given the scale of pain felt by the victims, the author and intellectual witnesses? The answer is in the leitmotif of Kristévian abjection that is interwoven throughout the text. In her essay Powers of Horror, Julia Kristeva theorizes how people can continue to live despite facing the abyss of death. By working through the process of abjection, victims and intellectual witnesses can participate in the tragedy in Rwanda and then let life begin anew, which makes the theory of abjection one of the stakes in Tadjo’s work.