Extreme-Occident: French Intellectuals and AmericaUniversity of Chicago Press, 15 nov. 1993 - 307 pages What does "America" mean to French intellectuals? Is it a postmodern ideal situated beyond history and metaphysics? A source of spiritual decadence that threatens the European tradition? Or is it "Extrême-Occident," the Far Western site that gives historical reality to the utopias of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment? Jean-Philippe Mathy offers the first systematic examination of French texts that address the question of America. He shows how prominent French intellectuals have represented America as myth and metaphor, covering the entire ideological spectrum from Maurras to Duhamel, and from Sartre to Aron. The texts themselves range from novels and poems to travel narratives and philosophical essays by Claudel, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Lyotard, Baudrillard, Kristeva, and many others. Mathy deftly situates these discourses on America against the background of French intellectual and political history since 1789. The judgments on American culture that originate in France, he contends, are also statements about France itself. Widespread condemnation of American materialism and pragmatism cuts across deep ideological and political divides in France, primarily because French intellectuals still operate within a framework of critical and aesthetic models born in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance and elaborated in the age of French classicism. Mathy engages issues central to interpreting the American experience, such as the current controversies over multiculturalism and Eurocentrism. Although Mathy deals mainly with French authors, he does not limit himself to them. Rather, he uses a comparative, cross-cultural approach that also takes in accounts of America by Nietzsche, Heidegger, Junger, Gramsci, and other Europeans, as well as American self-interpretations from Emerson and Dewey to Cornel West and Christopher Lasch. Because debates on American modernity have played a crucial intellectual role in France, Extrême-Occident is a major contribution to modern French cultural history. It will be essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the main currents of twentieth-century French thought. |
Table des matières
INTRODUCTION | 1 |
A Historical Perspective | 18 |
THREE | 78 |
The Existentialists and | 104 |
The Cold War of the French Intellectuals | 137 |
FIVE | 157 |
The Body of America | 163 |
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Expressions et termes fréquents
aesthetic Alain de Benoist Ameri America Day American culture American society André anti-Americanism aristocratic Aron artists Atlanticist Bardamu Baudrillard Benoist bourgeois called capitalism celebration Céline century Claudel Cold War communist contemporary counterculture critical critique decadence democracy democratic desert difference discourse dominated economic elites end of history Enlightenment Europe European everything evil fascination France freedom French intellectuals Georges Duhamel Hegel Hegelian human humanistic ideal ideological images individual intelligentsia Jean-François Revel Julia Kristeva Kojève Kojève's Kristeva land liberal literary Marxism mass meaning metaphysical mobility modern moral Morand myths narrative nation nature never numbers opposition past Philippe Sollers philosophical political Polylogue postmodern pragmatism production Puritan radical Raymond Aron reality republic revolution Richard Rorty Sartre Sartre's sense Simone de Beauvoir social spirit symbolic taste texts things thought tion Tocqueville tradition United universal utopia values West Western writers wrote York