Lisa Downing's comprehensive study of the films of Patrice Leconte, the maverick chameleon of contemporary French cinema, traces lines of continuity and revision through a body of apparently disparate films whose 'messages' often appear both contradictory and controversial. Pursuing a close reading of the recurrent themes, styles, intertexts and techniques which structure Leconte's filmmaking, Downing re-evaluates Leconte's status as an enigmatic artist offering complex and paradoxical commentary on contemporary questions of sexuality, ethics and identity. She indicates for the first time the...

Perversion--its ubiquity in infantile life and its persistence in the psychical and sexual lives of some adults--was a central element of Freud's lifelong empirical and theoretical work. Many psychoanalytic schools and orientations have since revisited the problem of perversion. Some authors have sharpened the definition of perversion by differentiating it from perverse fantasies, so-called near-perversions, and perverse traits, whereas others have sought to re-conceptualize perversion as an erotic form of hatred, a fixated anal object-relation, or a neo-sexuality. The result is that Freud's...

This volume draws contributors from around the globe who represent the full range of approaches to scholarship in nineteenth-century French studies: historical, literary, cultural, art historical, philosophical, and comparative. The theme of the volume - Birth and Death - is one with particular resonance for nineteenth-century French studies, since the nineteenth century is commonly perceived as an age of new life and renovation. It is the epoch that witnessed an efflorescence of industrial and artistic progress, the birth of the individual and the birth of the novel, and the creation of an...

French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault is essential reading for students in departments of literature, history, sociology and cultural studies. His work on the institutions of mental health and medicine, the history of systems of knowledge, literature and literary theory, criminality and the prison system, and sexuality, has had a profound and enduring impact across the humanities and social sciences. This introductory book, written for students, offers in-depth critical and contextual perspectives on all of Foucault's major published works. It provides ways in to understanding...

Catherine Deneuve is indisputably one of the world's most celebrated actresses, both in her own native France and throughout the world. Her career has spanned five decades during which she has worked with the most significant of French auteurs, as well as forging partnerships with international directors such as Bunuel and Polanski. The Deneuve star persona has attained such iconic status as to come to symbolise the very essence of French womanhood and civic identity. In this wide-ranging and authoritative collection of essays by a selection of international film academics and writers, the...

The subject of murder has always held a particular fascination for us. But, since at least the nineteenth century, we have seen the murderer as different from the ordinary citizen a special individual, like an artist or a genius, who exists apart from the moral majority, a sovereign self who obeys only the destructive urge, sometimes even commanding cult followings. In contemporary culture, we continue to believe that there is something different and exceptional about killers, but is the murderer such a distinctive type? Are they degenerate beasts or supermen as they have been depicted on the...

The subject of murder has always held a particular fascination for us. But, since at least the nineteenth century, we have seen the murderer as different from the ordinary citizen a special individual, like an artist or a genius, who exists apart from the moral majority, a sovereign self who obeys only the destructive urge, sometimes even commanding cult followings. In contemporary culture, we continue to believe that there is something different and exceptional about killers, but is the murderer such a distinctive type? Are they degenerate beasts or supermen as they have been depicted on the...

One of the twentieth century s most controversial sexologistsor fuckologists, to use his own memorable termJohn Money was considered a trailblazing scientist and sexual libertarian by some, but damned by others as a fraud and a pervert. Money invented the concept of gender in the 1950s, yet fought its uptake by feminists. He backed surgical treatments for transsexuality, but argued that gender roles were set by reproductive capacity. He shaped the treatment of intersex, advocating experimental sex changes for children with ambiguous genitalia. He pioneered drug therapy for sex offenders, yet...

Contributes to Foucauldian scholarship by contextualizing Foucault's key concepts and identifying current and emerging applications of his work.