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  • Visualizing Violence in Francophone Cultures ed. by Magali Compan
  • Natalie Edwards
Visualizing Violence in Francophone Cultures. Edited by Magali Compan. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2015. vi + 188 pp.

This book analyses examples of visual representations of violence from across the francophone world. Its seven chapters study a range of visual materials, including graphic novels, documentary, journalism, photography, and plays. Most chapters draw on material from France, with the exception of two that discuss visual narratives from Rwanda and one that compares images from several national contexts. The book also incorporates a historical dimension to the representation of violence by studying materials from the [End Page 135] eighteenth century to the present day. A theoretical introduction would have drawn together these disparate threads and assisted the reader in finding a focus for the chapters that follow. Magali Compan and Madeleine Hron's brief Introduction devotes less than three pages to this, but proceeds to give a helpful overview of the organization of the volume. Part One contains three chapters, which examine the body as the source and recipient of violence. The first studies the Marche des invisibilités, Strasbourg's gay pride parade. While this chapter lacks a sustained theoretical discussion of violence, it offers interesting glimpses into this cultural event. In the following chapter, art historian Lela Graybill provides a fascinating discussion of images of the guillotine. She argues convincingly that such images were designed to produce a coherent narrative to the Revolution and that they underscore the performativity of Revolutionary justice by focusing on the spectator rather than the victim. Part One ends with Compan's lively discussion of a graphic novel from Rwanda, framed by her experiences of teaching the text. Part Two assembles studies of visual approaches to testimony. Alexandre Dauge-Roth's probing analysis of documentaries about the Rwandan genocide explores both the commemoration of catastrophe and the ethical position of the writer/filmmaker. Kevin Robbins's chapter then leads the reader back to France, and to the early twentieth century, with an analysis of the satirical publication L'Assiette au beurre. Robbins provides a well-illustrated analysis of images published in the magazine, arguing that they denounce police corruption in the Métropole and linking this to the Third Republic's colonial armed forces. Anne Rosensweig's chapter, also concerned with early-twentieth-century France, compares two plays by Rachilde. Rosensweig's astute close reading of the plays highlights Rachilde's critique of violence against women, despite the playwright's insistence that she was not a feminist. The final chapter is international in scope, as Hron offers a fascinating history and analysis of sans-frontiérisme, the global humanitarian gaze publicized by Médecins sans frontières. The volume would have benefited from a conclusion to solidify its theoretical position and provide a more compelling argument; nevertheless, this book will be of value to researchers in cultural studies, francophone studies, testimony, and gender studies.

Natalie Edwards
University of Adelaide
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