Joan DeJean
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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| Professor Joan DeJean is Professor of French in the Department of Romance Languages. Her areas of research include 17th- and 18th-century [[French literature]], the history of [[women's writing]] in France, the [[history of sexuality]], the development of the novel, and the cultural history of late 17th- and early 18th-century France. She is the author of more than five books, including ''Ancients Against Moderns: Culture Wars and the Making of a Fin de Siècle'', which was a finalist for the prestigious [[James Russell Lowell Prize]] of the Modern Language Association in 1998. | Professor Joan DeJean is Professor of French in the Department of Romance Languages. Her areas of research include 17th- and 18th-century [[French literature]], the history of [[women's writing]] in France, the [[history of sexuality]], the development of the novel, and the cultural history of late 17th- and early 18th-century France. She is the author of more than five books, including ''Ancients Against Moderns: Culture Wars and the Making of a Fin de Siècle'', which was a finalist for the prestigious [[James Russell Lowell Prize]] of the Modern Language Association in 1998. | ||
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| - | == ''The Reinvention of Obscenity : Sex, Lies, and Tabloids in Early Modern France'' == | ||
| - | From the Inside Flap | ||
| - | :How and when did obscene words come to be considered obscene? How did the modern definition of "four-letter" words become accepted? These are some of the questions explored in ''The Reinvention of Obscenity''. Joan DeJean shows how radically the modern conception of obscenity differs from that operative in antiquity, when obscene literature was produced exclusively for an elite male audience. [[Obscenity]], DeJean argues, was reinvented when writers began to focus on two subjects previously unimagined: [[female genitalia]] and compulsory [[heterosexuality]]. The story of obscenity's reinvention is also that of the birth of modern [[censorship]], [[mass-market]] [[print culture]], and even [[tabloid]] journalism. DeJean's principal example is the career of the first truly modern writer, [[Molière]], who cannily exploited the obscene to revolutionize the conditions of authorship. | ||
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| - | :First sentence: "The trial of the poet Theophile de Viau in 1623 is a milestone both in the reinvention of obscenity and in the history of censorship..." | ||
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| - | [[SIP]]s: transgressive literature, modern obscenity, modern obscene, secular censorship, primary obscenities (more) | ||
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| - | Book Description | ||
| - | :The concept of obscenity is an ancient one. But as Joan DeJean suggests, its modern form, the same version that today's politicians decry and savvy artists exploit, was invented in seventeenth-century France. | ||
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| - | ''The Reinvention of Obscenity'' casts a fresh light on the mythical link between sexual impropriety and things French. Exploring the complicity between censorship, print culture, and obscenity, DeJean argues that mass market printing and the first modern censorial machinery came into being at the very moment that obscenity was being reinvented--that is, transformed from a minor literary phenomenon into a threat to society. DeJean's principal case in this study is the career of Moliére, who cannily exploited the new link between indecency and female genitalia to found his career as a print author; the enormous scandal which followed his play L'école des femmes made him the first modern writer to have his sex life dissected in the press. | ||
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| - | Keenly alert to parallels with the currency of obscenity in contemporary America, The Reinvention of Obscenity will concern not only scholars of French history, but anyone interested in the intertwined histories of sex, publishing, and censorship. --via Amazon.com | ||
| ==References== | ==References== | ||
| * DeJean, Joan. ''The Essence of Style: How the French Invented Fashion, Fine Food, Chic Cafés, Style, Sophistication, and Glamour.'' New York: Free Press, 2005 ISBN 0743264142 | * DeJean, Joan. ''The Essence of Style: How the French Invented Fashion, Fine Food, Chic Cafés, Style, Sophistication, and Glamour.'' New York: Free Press, 2005 ISBN 0743264142 | ||
Revision as of 15:55, 24 April 2007
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- "The trial of the poet Théophile de Viau in 1623 is a milestone both in the reinvention of obscenity and in the history of censorship..." --The Reinvention of Obscenity : Sex, Lies, and Tabloids in Early Modern France (2002) - Joan DeJean ISBN 0226141403
[1] [Apr 2007]
Professor Joan DeJean is Professor of French in the Department of Romance Languages. Her areas of research include 17th- and 18th-century French literature, the history of women's writing in France, the history of sexuality, the development of the novel, and the cultural history of late 17th- and early 18th-century France. She is the author of more than five books, including Ancients Against Moderns: Culture Wars and the Making of a Fin de Siècle, which was a finalist for the prestigious James Russell Lowell Prize of the Modern Language Association in 1998.
References
- DeJean, Joan. The Essence of Style: How the French Invented Fashion, Fine Food, Chic Cafés, Style, Sophistication, and Glamour. New York: Free Press, 2005 ISBN 0743264142
