Elisabeth Mudimbe-Boyi

Despite the loss of the French Empire, France and its former colonies are still bound by a common historical past. With the new global promotion of la Francophonie, the relation between the various constituencies of the French-speaking regions of the world is reexamined and debated in this book, through the conversation between scholars dealing with diverse texts and contexts that present the colonial contact and its imprint. The book illustrates how, in France and in its other worlds, that contact, its repercussions, and its memory are lived and expressed today in a variety of textual representations. The historical contact between France and its other worlds has given birth to new kinds of cross-cultural expressions in the arts, in literature, and in aesthetics, establishing interrelations and generating appropriations from both sides of the Hexagon frontier, highlighting the fluidity and the permeability of its cultural borders. The book subtext tells that the frontier between France and its other worlds is no more an unshakable geographical, political, and cultural limit, but rather a line that has become mobile, fluctuating, and permeable, and across which currents, ideas, sensitivities, and creativity are expressed, bearing testimony to vitality and diversity but also to a cross-fertilization of cultures and societies (re) crossing or meeting at that line. Seen from this latter perspective, the book comes also as an interrogation of the inclusiveness or exclusiveness of the words francophone and Francophonie, and, at an academic level, a mutual exclusion of French and Francophone Studies.

France and its other worlds

Empire Lost

Jean F. O'Barr

Mary Wyer

Micheline R. Malson

Emphasizing work that "frees our imaginations and allows us to conceive new theories, new language, and new questions," the collection seeks to establish the nature of Afro-American women's experiences while providing a theoretical framework for Black feminist thought. In essays that explore the intersection of work and family, socio-historical literature and critiques, and the relation of Black women to community life, contributors to this volume document Afro-American social and personal struggles and strategies. Individual essays examine family roles, job satisfaction, economic status, and women's traditions in the church. An eloquent introduction to the development of Black feminist thought, Black Women in America encourages the discussion of broader issues, such as the treatment of cultural diversity in American higher education.

Elisabeth Mudimbe-Boyi

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