Selected from papers given at the first annual conference of the Society of Dix-Neuvièmistes
the nineteen essays in this volume contribute diversely towards a revision and a
reconceptualisation of nineteenth-century France. Many adopt interdisciplinary methodologies
attentive to the interplay between literature history art popular and high culture politics
and science. The wide-ranging discussion of issues such as identity alterity commemoration
cultural history tensions between centre and margins mimesis and representation suggest that
no simplistic snapshot of this century is possible. Opening with a section on the modernity of
the nineteenth century the volume continues with sections on cultural transfer war readings
and re-readings and concludes with two essays on questions of identity. The critical
reappraisals put forward here offer us various insights into directions in which
nineteenth-century French studies are heading at the turn of another new century.
