Parcours de femmes: Twenty Years of Women in French (review)

Parcours de femmes is a collection of seventeen papers originating in the Tenth Biennial Women in French Conference held in Leeds in 2008. As the Preface sets out, it is a milestone publication marking twenty years of the Women in French network, and its contents represent both the journey of women in French Studies during the last two decades and the trajectories taken by contemporary women authors, filmmakers, artists, and politicians in France and the francophone world. The volume is divided into four discrete sections, with varying numbers of chapters; although this does not result in an entirely balanced weighting, the overall cohesion of the collection is not affected unduly. Each section begins with a brief introduction, which helps to situate the separate chapters within a broader intellectual framework; by referring successively back to previous sections, these introductions serve to emphasize the book's own trajectory. The chapters themselves range from useful analyses of the parcours of women's biography (Siân Reynolds) and two women's libraries (Caroline Verdier), to the appearance of women in the popular press (Jane Chapman) and in politics (Manda Green), to a sobering account of female homelessness in France (Estelle Soudant-Depelchin). The collection also offers close readings of literary texts (Imogen Long, Gabrielle Parker, Elise Hugueny-Léger, Nicole Thatcher, Dawn M. Cornelio, Jurate Kaminskas), overviews of women's writing in specific cultural contexts or at particular historical moments (Amaleena Damlé, Florence Tilch), or travelling beyond the borders of the French-speaking world (Joy Charnley, Angela Kershaw), as well as welcome interventions on women filmmakers (Michelle Royer) and on Ségolène Royal's 2007 presidential candidacy (Maggie Allison). The literature studied ranges from autobiography and the journal to travel writing and fiction, from France, Switzerland, Canada, North Africa, and Asia. This variety ensures that the contents of the book, which are slightly biased towards the literary, are still broad-ranging. Connections are drawn between several of the chapters: as well as its obvious links within the thematic sections of the book, the chapter on female homelessness resonates with sections of the chapters on women filmmakers and on women in the press; Charnley and Kershaw each consider Swiss travel writer Ella Maillart and her journeys to the Soviet Union; Allison's chapter on Ségolène Royal complements Green's work on the Assemblée Nationale. These connections, as well as the quality of the analysis in many of the individual chapters, are what constitute the collection's strength: rather than a series of disparate interventions, the volume can itself be read as a kind of parcours. Opening up notions of visibility, as well as women's trajectories through public space, geographical space, and literature, this book represents a milestone of more than just the twentieth anniversary of the highly (and deservedly) successful Women in French network; it also offers a snapshot of where women and women's issues stand in the French-speaking world at the end of the first decade of the new millennium.