Editor's Preface

Editor's Preface Marijn S. Kaplan As our journal enters its fourth decade after last year's 30th anniversary celebration, I am pleased to observe that it remains highly relevant, engaged in the ever-continuing work of making women's French voices heard. Over time a clear shift has manifested itself towards the analysis of more modern voices and topics and this issue forms no exception to that trend—although earlier voices and topics are quite well represented in this year's book review section. Either way, we can all rejoice in the abundance of women's voices available for analysis in modern times. In addition to its relevance, our journal retains its quality, which comes from having many extremely dedicated scholars—all volunteers—committed to sharing their skills and expertise in order to serve their profession and ensure the excellence of the scholarship we publish. Many editorial board members, anonymous reviewers, and other colleagues were involved in creating the current issue. Before acknowledging them, I would like to recognize Gill Rye who resigned from our editorial board in April after having been a member since 2007. Thank you, Gill, for your many years of service and best wishes for your continued retirement! It has been a great pleasure working with our production editor Cecilia Beach again this year who produces issues like a pro because she is so organized and detail oriented. Cheryl Toman was reappointed as Book Review Editor this year and has gathered another fascinating collection of reviews of books that are likely to pique our scholarly interest. The editorial board and I would also like to express our deep appreciation to Cheryl for the exceptional mentoring and collegiality she demonstrated during the production of this issue. Our thanks go to Evelyne Bornier who served as Advertising Manager since 2020 and resigned from her role this year. She has been replaced by Murielle Djomatchoua. Welcome, Murielle! Finally, thank you to Catherine Montfort who works hard with Project Muse every year to include our journal in the database, offering our scholarship enhanced visibility (and our treasury chest a nice boost). Samia Spencer generously gives out an annual award for the best graduate student essay and its faculty sponsor. The award selection process had been managed by Adrienne Angelo since 2018, but this year Michèle A. Schaal has taken on the role. Welcome, Michèle! Our journal could not survive without the countless hours spent by editorial board members, anonymous reviewers evaluating the scholarship submitted to us, and other volunteers, un grand merci to all of you! This issue contains ten articles spanning a wide range of genres and geographic locations organized in chronological order and by topic. The first three each examine established "classic" pre-mid-twentieth-century French authors, but [End Page 9] from a non-traditional perspective. In "Half-Virgins, Whole Women? Marcel Prévost's Les demi-vierges (1894)," Hope Christiansen demonstrates how the male author Marcel Prévost's paradoxical messages about the figure of the demivierge actually reveal his support for better, more independent lives for women. In an essay entitled "Childhood, Redemption and l'écriture de soi: Colette's La chambre éclairée and La maison de Claudine," Laurel Cummins examines the figure of the child in some of Colette's 1920s texts, tracing how it and its related theme of play contribute to the author's eventual écriture de soi. In her contribution "Simone de Beauvoir's Struggle against Separation: Radical Challenges to Heterosexual Norms in Les inséparables and 'La lesbienne,'" Sophia Millman reads the former text, not published until 2020, in conjunction with the latter, a chapter from Le deuxième sexe, to trace Beauvoir's increasing rebellion against the heterosexual norms that separate women—both privately and collectively. The next group of essays focuses on various francophone contexts and topics. In "Alys Robi (1923-2011), chanteuse du Québec et féministe avant l'heure" Simone Grossman analyzes how Chantal Ringuet rewrites the history of her great aunt, Alys Robi, a famous singer from Quebec in the 1940s who was institutionalized for resisting patriarchal conventions. Heidi Shaker transports us to Rwanda in an essay that needs...

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.