Cultural Passengers and Transatlantic Conversation

(4 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This seminar proposes to discover the actors, agents, mediators and networks of American culture in France and to explore the historiographical currents which opened the study of the history of the United States, the literature of the United States and the culture of the United States to a transnational approach. From the involvement of the United States in the First World War 1917 to the withdrawal of NATO forces from French territory 1967, the physical presence of Americans, visiting artists or expatriates and actors in military policy, economic, diplomatic, is accompanied by a growing visibility of American culture in France. Musicians from the Jazz Age in Montmartre, writers from the Lost Generation, African American artists from the Left Bank after the Second World War. The seminar will explore the major movements or groups of artists who contributed to spreading American culture in France and will also be of interest to less visible agents such as cultural services, publishing houses and magazines, literary agents and translators. These sessions will therefore make it possible to propose a reflection on cultural smugglers, a notion which will be defined, illustrated and discussed.