Imagining the Popular in Contemporary French Culture

This groundbreaking book is about what 'popular culture' means in France, and how the term's shifting meanings have been negotiated and contested. It represents the first theoretically informed study of the way that popular culture is lived, imagined, fought over and negotiated in modern and contemporary France. Chapter from an impressive line up of contributors cover the public 'invention' of popular culture; music; fiction; film; television and language.This structure allows a wide range of overarching concerns to be explored: the roles of state policy, the market, political ideologies, changing social contexts and new technologies in the construction of the popular. But it also provides a set of specific case studies showing how popular songs, stories, films, TV programmes and language styles have become indispensable elements of 'culture' in France. Deploying yet also rethinking a 'Cultural Studies' approach to the popular, the book therefore challenges dominant views of what French culture really means today.It will reach a wide, international readership in French Studies, Cultural and Media Studies, and disciplines well beyond. Its clarity of style will also make it a readable and useful resource for undergraduates and postgraduates. The book emerges from the pioneering collaborative work of the University of Leeds-based Popular Cultures Research Network, and is written by some of the leading scholars in French cultural studies.