Cherchez la femme: Women and Values in the Francophone World (review)

Despite the diversity of subjects and essays broached in this new collection of essays, the editors succeed in finding cohesion through the (admittedly broad) motif of values. While cultural values have traditionally been determined by men, a deep examination of writings by and/or about women reveals transgressions of these patriarchal standards. Fülöp and Angelo organize these essays into four categories: "Feminisms: Value and Theory," "Incarnating and Establishing Values," "Writing (and) the Body: Corporeal Values," and "Life Writing and the Other: Values of Identity." Within each of these categories are several essays with seemingly disparate subjects. For example, the section entitled "Feminisms: Value and Theory" includes essays on Rachilde (Adeline Soldin) Natalie Clifford Barney (Chelsea Ray), Virginie Despentes (Michèle Schaal), Déwé Gorodé (Raylene Ramsay) and one on media response to the deaths of three Haitian feminists in the 2010 earthquake (Katie Billotte). Thus, as readers, we traverse France from the end of the 19^th century through the early decades of the 20^th century, as well as current-day New Caledonia and Haiti. The experiences and writings of these women are as diverse as the epochs and cultures from which they emerge. The multicultural and multifaceted call for social justice and women's rights evoked in these essays oppose any notion of a universal definition of feminism.

Several essays in this anthology examine stereotypical depictions of women in various eras of popular culture. An essay on Nineteenth-Century French oratorios (Sarah Ruddy) examines specifically those of the suffering woman and the mater dolorosa in religious musical works. Marcelline Block compares the representations of the legend of Queen Semiramis by Christine de Pizan and Paul Valéry. Scholars of contemporary French and Francophone literature will appreciate that the majority of authors treated in these essays are 21st-century writers about whom relatively little has been written, such as contemporary photographer and poet Béatrice Bonhomme (Genevieve Guetemme), who in fact is herself a contributor here of an essay on poet Marie-Claire Bancquart. Although the majority of authors and texts studied here are situated within France, there are several forays beyond the Hexagon, specifically to New Caledonia and Haiti (as mentioned above), Algeria (in a discussion on Assia Djebar's autobiographical writing in an essay by Laurie Corbin) and Quebec (Lucie Lequin's essay on "un certain théâtre de l'obscène" in four recent novels by Ying Chen, Nelly Arcan, Marie-Sissi Labrèche and Catherine Mavrikakis).

The numerous and varied intertextual references to other women authors and theorists throughout this collection offer a response to the famous question posed by Luce Iragaray, whose own name and ideas are scattered throughout the book Quand nos lèvres se parlent: "Comment parler pour sortir de leurs cloisonnements, quadrillages, distinctions, oppositions: vierge / déflorée, pure / impure, innocente / avertie . . . Comment nous désenchaîner de ces termes, nous libérer de leurs catégories, nous dépouiller de leurs noms. Nous dégager, vivantes, de leurs conceptions?" Women have always asserted their own value systems into their art and their lives, and the exploration of women's writings throughout time and across the globe reveals the richness and diversity of our experiences.