Round and Square: French history

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Showing posts with label French history. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

French Bulldog Puppy—Annales Historiography

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One year ago on Round and Square (27 February 2012)—Divinatory Economics (5)

[a] French Musings PD

I don't know who you are,
but I will find you...[1]

...and tell you that I have been occupied for all of my academic life by study and admiration for the Annales school of historiography. Oh, yes, it's French.

Some say it is soooo "twentieth century." They are correct, of course, but that doesn't change its endlessly fascinating production and the scores of brilliant scholars who sought to understand "the past" in a profoundly different way than before.

[1] I like Liam's opening, and he gave me a year's supply of biscuits to use it for the rest of the month.

[b] Sooooo Thirteenth Century RF

[Originally posted on May 27, 2014]

Friday, February 22, 2013

French Bulldog Puppy—History Speaks

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One year ago on Round and Square (22 February 2012)—Seinfeld Ethnography: Dog Medicine

[a] French Musings PD

I don't know who you are,
but I will find you...[1]

...and tell you that one of my "favorite" historians is Fustel de Coulanges.

[b] Bridges to the past RF

He was a nineteenth century icon, and was known for his stirring lectures. The best anecdote in the history of...history...teaching...is this.

After a particularly stirring lecture, Professeur de Coulanges paused (soaking in the cheers of a wildly enthusiastic audience) and said the following:

Do not applaud for me. It is history that speaks through me.

Preposterous (and wonderful, its own peculiar and historiographically flawed way).

[1] I like Liam's opening, and he gave me a year's supply of biscuits to use it for the rest of the month.

[c] L'Histoire RF

[Originally posted on May 22, 2014]

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

French Bulldog Puppy—Émile Zola

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One year ago on Round and Square (20 February 2012)—Kanji Mastery: Radical 139 (Color)

[a] French Musings PD

I don't know who you are,
but I will find you...[1]

[b] B-Z RF

...and tell you that the other great nineteenth century French "ethnographer" is Émile Zola. Like Balzac, but five decades later, Zola documented life in such detail that it is still vivid for us today. His accounts of mining life in Germinal terrify me to this day.

Channeling Balzac, Zola set out to detail life in the Second Republic in such detail that it would be a lasting monument to life in his day. His account of a family (in twenty volumes), Les Rougon-Marquart is appropriately subtitled Histoire naturelle et sociale d'une famille sous le Second Empire—A Natural and Social History of a Family Under the Second Republic.

So all you have to do to understand French life in the twentieth century is read, read, read (from B to Z). Start an account with Pléiade—or find a good library—and get to work.

[1] I like Liam's opening, and he gave me a year's supply of biscuits to use it for the rest of the month.

[c] Mastery RF

[Originally posted on May 20, 2014]

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

French Bulldog Puppy—Honoré de Balzac

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One year ago on Round and Square (19 February 2012)—Hurtin' Country: Rose Garden

[a] French Musings PD

I don't know who you are,
but I will find you...[1]

[b] Tomes RF

...and tell you that one of the greatest ethnographers of the nineteenth century was Honoré de Balzac. Yup. If you read (as I do) the Pléiade edition of La Comédie Humaine, you know that this chap was way ahead of William Edgar Geil and Bronislaw Malinowski.

There are a whole bunch of Tome(s) there. Brilliant, all twelve.

And if you have only read Le Père Goriot, you have a whole (anthropological/literary) education in front of you.

[1] I like Liam's opening, and he gave me a year's supply of biscuits to use it for the rest of the month.

[c] Honoring Balzac RF

[Originally posted on May 19, 2014]