Modern Languages: French Culture

For cooks who love to read -- for travelers who love to eat -- here is an unforgettable odyssey through the world's legendary culinary capitals. Each book includes 145 recipes and full-color photos throughout.

Renowned for her cooking school in France and her many best-selling cookbooks, Anne Willan combines years of hands-on experience with extensive research to create a brand new classic. More than 250 recipes range from the time-honored La Truffade, with its crispy potatoes and melted cheese, to the Languedoc specialty Cassoulet de Toulouse, a bean casserole of duck confit, sausage, and lamb. And the desserts! Crpes au Caramel et Beurre Sal (crpes with a luscious caramel filling) and Galette Landaise (a rustic apple tart) are magnifique. Sprinkled with intriguing historical tidbits and filled with more than 270 enchanting photos of food markets, villages, harbors, fields, and country kitchens, this cookbook is an irresistible celebration of French culinary culture.

Accessories to Modernity explores the ways in which feminine fashion accessories, such as cashmere shawls, parasols, fans, and handbags, became essential instruments in the bourgeois idealization of womanhood in nineteenth-century France. Considering how these fashionable objects were portrayed in fashion journals and illustrations, as well as fiction, the book explores the histories and cultural weight of the objects themselves and offers fresh readings of works by Balzac, Flaubert, and Zola, some of the most widely read novels of the period. As social boundaries were becoming more and more fluid in the nineteenth century, one effort to impose order over the looming confusion came, in the case of women, through fashion, and the fashion accessory thus became an ever more crucial tool through which social distinction could be created, projected, and maintained.

From Maison Chanel on rue Cambon to Jean Paul Gaultier on rue Saint-Martin, the history of French fashion is often closely tied to those of Parisian addresses. With exclusive photographs by Guillaume de Laubier and text by Désirée Sadek, Inside Haute Couture offers a private tour of 10 meccas of French fashion. From the splendor of VIP reception rooms to the privacy of sewing ateliers, the daily lives of the most renowned figures in haute couture are show­cased alongside the skilled artisans and their stunning creations. This book is an unprecedented journey into a world often closed to the public, against a backdrop of an exceptional architectural heritage.

"Is Paris still the capital of Fashion? Challenged by Milan, London and New York, Paris struggles to retain supremacy by providing the ultimate catwalk for design from around the world." "More than just a history of famous designers and changing styles, this book is about fashion as a cultural ideal and a social phenomenon.

More than 700 alphabetically organized entries by an international team of contributors provide a fascinating survey of French culture post 1945. Entries include: * advertising * Beur cinema * Coco Chanel * decolonization * Ecriture feminine * football * francophone press * gay activism * Seuil * youth culture Entries range from short factual/biographical pieces to longer overview articles. All are extensively cross-referenced and longer entries are 'facts-fronted' so important information is clear at a glance. It includes a thematic contents list, extensive index and suggestions for further reading. The Encyclopedia will provide hours of enjoyable browsing for all francophiles, and essential cultural context for students of French, Modern History, Comparative European Studies and Cultural Studies.

These essays, three of them previously unpublished, explore the competing claims of innovation and tradition among the lower orders in sixteenth-century France. The result is a wide-ranging view of the lives and values of men and women (artisans, tradesmen, the poor) who, because they left little or nothing in writing, have hitherto had little attention from scholars.

France entered the twentieth century as a powerful European and colonial nation. In the course of the century, her role changed dramatically: in the first fifty years two World Wars and economic decline removed its status as a world power, whilst the immediate post-war era was marked by wars of independence in its colonies. Yet at the same time, in the second half of the century, France entered a period of unprecedented growth and social transformation. Throughout the century and into the new millennium France retained its former international reputation as a centre for cultural excellence and innovation and its culture, together with that of the Francophone world, reflected the increased richness and diversity of the period. This 2003 Companion explores this vibrant culture, and includes chapters on history, language, literature, thought, theatre, architecture, visual culture, film and music, and discuss the contributions of popular culture, Francophone culture, minorities and women.

What makes fashionistas willing to pay a small fortune for a particular designer accessory -- a luxe handbag, for example? Why is it that people all over the world share the conviction that a special occasion only becomes really special when a champagne cork pops -- and even more special when that cork comes from a bottle of Dom Pérignon? Why are diamonds the status symbol gemstone, instantly signifying wealth, power, and even emotional commitment?One of the foremost authorities on seventeenth-century French culture provides the answer to these and other fascinating questions in her account of how, at one glittering moment in history, the French under Louis XIV set the standards of sophistication, style, and glamour that still rule our lives today.

A comprehensive guide to Bizet's CARMEN, featuring insightful and in depth Commentary and Analysis, a complete, newly translated Libretto with French/English side-by side, and over 30 music highlight examples."

Paris at the turn of the 20th century was obsessed with the interrelations of the arts. It was a time when artists and writers spoke of poetry as music, sounds as colors, and paintings as symphonies. The music of Claude Debussy, with its unique textures and dazzling colors, was the perfect counterpart to the bold new styles of painting in France. Paul Roberts probes the sources of Debussy's artistic inspiration, relating the "impressionist" titles to the artistic and literary ferment of the time. He also draws on his own performing experience to touch on all the principal technical problems for a performer of Debussy's piano music. His many suggestions about interpreting the music will be particularly valuable to performers as well as listeners.

This Companion provides a comprehensive introduction to the life, music and compositional aesthetic of French composer Maurice Ravel (1875SH1937). Leading international scholars offer a powerful reassessment of this most private and elusive musician, examining his work in detail within its cultural context. Marking the 125th anniversary of Ravel's birth, the volume explores the full range of his work--piano repertory, chamber works, orchestral music, ballets, songs and operas--and concludes by analyzing the performance and reception of his music, including previously untranslated reviews.