French studies : literature, culture and politics

This book highlights the persistent American fascination with the culture, language, and political history of France. The chapters themselves are the fruit of ongoing dialogue between faculty and students from several French Universities and Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. Most of the chapters originated as lectures given either at Xavier University's Paris Seminar on Political Theory or at the Cincinnati campus to American (and, in Paris, French) university students.
While most chapters are short introductions, essentially invitations to students to engage in more detailed study, each section of book is anchored by several longer essays from distinguished scholars, and in fact readers will find contributions from several prominent French intellectuals, including Chantal Delsol, Terence Marshall, Catherine Mayaux, Philippe Cocatre-Zilgien, and Joanna Nowicki. Topics range from the Enlightenment, democracy and constitutionalism, to French philosophy, poetry, language, and cinema, to colonialism, economic policy, environmental issues, church-state relations, and European identity.