France in Flux: Space, Territory and Contemporary Culture

One of the most notable themes of French literary and visual culture since the 1980s has been a preoccupation with the look and feel of metropolitan France. Numerous writers, filmmakers and photographers have been drawn to articulate France’s contrasting spatial qualities, from infrastructural installations such as roads, rail lines and ports, to periurban residential developments and rural enclaves. In doing so, they explore how the country’s acute sense of national identity has been both asserted and challenged in topographic terms. This collection of essays investigates how the contemporary concern with space in France has taken shape across a range of media, including film, photography, television and literature, and examines what it reveals about the state of the nation in a post-colonial and post-industrial age.