Introduces the reader to the rich film production of the French-speaking countries outside France, commonly called Francophonia, comprised of Belgium, Switzerland, Quebec, the Caribbean, the Maghreb and many sub-Saharan countries. Brings together films that might otherwise be divided by questions of race, gender, genre, period or national boundary. Individual countries, film-makers and films are treated separately in order to emphasise their specific identities or those which are represented in their films. Provides detailed analysis of key films within the historical context allowing for...

Robinson Crusoe explores Defoe's story, the legend it captured, the universal desire which underlies the myth and a range of modern re-writings which reveal a continued fascination with the problematic character of this narrative. Whether envisaged as an heroic rejection of the old world order, a piece of pre-colonialist propaganda or a tale raising archetypal problems of 'otherness' and 'inequality', the mythic value of Crusoe has become a pretext over many centuries for an examination of some of the fundamental problems of existence. This collection of essays examines, from a wide range of...

What kind of connotation does the word 'father' have in everyday language? How have states and governments defined and manipulated the paternal role? What is a 'father-figure'? What can literature tell us about absent or overbearing fathers? How far is the cultural construct of fatherhood linked to biological paternity, and what is biological paternity? These are some of the questions explored through the chapters in this book, which together offer a fascinatingly complex view of fatherhood across the centuries.