Journal Articles
FROM CULTURAL STUDIES TO TUDES CULTURELLES, TUDES DE LA CULTURE, AND SCIENCES DE LA CULTURE IN FRANCE
The starting point of our reflexion about the place of Cultural Studies in France and the development of French Cultural Studies lies in a double paradox. The first paradox consists in the absence of any stable terminology and taxonomy, whereas Cultural Studies has already, though implicitly - almost secretly, encroached on the French scientific realm in the shape of very plastic and dynamic formations. And the second paradox pertains to the history of ideas: albeit many French scholars have made major contributions to Cultural Studies as an intellectual endeavor, they have not generated French Cultural Studies of its own and, quite symptomatically, are not even connected (by current readings) with existing Cultural Studies…. In this respect it is no exaggeration to state that the French scientific community entertains an ambivalent relation to the polymorphous constellation of Cultural Studies. More than that, it is crucial to observe it to start investigating the manifold reasons for the French reluctance as well as the possible ways of overcoming it and finding innovative means of responding to the challenges of today's world. By doing so, we not only have to find out the ideological, epistemological, and intellectual factors in the French resistance, say French singularity (from Jacobinism to protectionism), but should figure out at what expense and to which extent a Cultural Studies approach is transferable as well as desirable in the French context. This is precisely the aim of the present paper, which will likely raise a further question: will this new approach be so 'singular' as the current French relation to Cultural Studies is? At any rate, this epistemo-political chapter is far from being closed…
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