This thesis examines the representation of society in British and French cinemas of the 1980s. In this comparative study, the choice of this particular decade was motivated by the coming to power of the Conservative Party in Britain and the Socialist Party in France. Since the two governments adopted 'extreme' policies increasing the strengths and weaknesses traditionally found in their film industries, British cinema struggled even harder while French cinema enjoyed a strong financial support from the state. A significant feature of these two national cinemas in relation to films about society was the predominance of the realist vein in Britain and the comedy genre in France. This generic discrepancy was highly influential in the way the two national cinemas referred to social issues in the 1980s and most scholars have argued that British cinema widely discussed the state of its society whereas, on the whole, French cinema avoided to do so. What this research hopefully demonstrates is that, despite different generic approaches, British and French cinemas equally contributed to depict their contemporary societies. To analyse how these two societies were represented on screen, three main areas are studied thematically: first people in power (public institutions and individuals), second the world of work, and third the family. After a brief summary of social issues in Britain and France in relation with the aforementioned themes, discussions of their filmic representations are based on the films themselves, the textual analysis of films taken as case studies and their critical reception. I will argue that in the 1980s, British cinema offered the overall image of a class-bound society where individuals - living side by side - were unable to escape their social fate. The paradox of this cinema made by a majority of left-wing filmmakers was that ultimately it favoured a rather traditional view of society. By contrast, my research shows that the idea of friendship and solidarity prevailed over economic and social hardship in French cinema. Although this depiction of society was largely consensual, it nevertheless opened the debate for social alternatives.

This dissertation focuses on the intercultural relations between the French-speaking and Dutch-speaking world in Holland in the first half of the fifteenth century. After a turbulent war of succession between the claimants Jacqueline of Bavaria and her uncle John the Pitiless, the counties of Holland, Zeeland and Hainault were incorporated into the largely francophone Burgundian empire. It has been suggested that this event marked the end of a flourishing period of cultural production in the Dutch vernacular at the court of Holland. However, as it seems, throughout the fifteenth century translations of French texts were produced for regional and local administrators. Possibly, the Burgundian regional government of Holland, which consisted of foreign as well as indigenous noblemen, may have played an important role in the dissemination of these texts. In this thesis, the subject is addressed by means of the contextualisation of the Middle Dutch version of Jean Froissart’s Chroniques. An analysis of documentary sources suggests that the comital residence at the Hague is best characterised as a multicultural environment inhabited by both bilingual and monolingual individuals. The results of an analysis of the variant readings in the French manuscripts of the Chroniques as compared to its Dutch counterpart show that the French manuscript which served as a model for the translation was probably produced between 1410 and 1418 by the Parisian libraire Pierre de Liffol. A comparison of the translated and original text shows that the translator wants to provide his readership with a text that is optimally intelligible and relevant to their context. Gerijt Potter’s modifications show that his intended audience was familiar with the habits of European courts and had a considerable geographical horizon. Because of the presence of doublets, repetitions and French loans, Potter’s style of writing resembles the official style of the comital chancery. However, a similar style is also found in other late fourteenth and early fifteenth-century translations. In The Hague the translation was probably dispersed (be it on a small scale) among members of the council and their contacts among the high nobility of Holland. Through the intensive contact between the regional councillors and members of local administration, the translation of the Chroniques became available to an audience in the cities.

This thesis analyses the gendered choices made by bourgeois French women as creators and consumers of art, décor, fashion and feminism during the Third French Republic 1870-1914. Specifically, it examines the extent of female agency and individuality in fashioning a self-image, and how this issue relates to the limitations on women’s exercise of professional and political choice. The first of three core chapters (Chapter 2) establishes that women were able to construct a self-image as a creator and/or consumer of art, décor and fashion but this ability was limited by both the gendered discourses inherent in the French art world and, more widely, by the ideals of womanhood prescribed by bourgeois social mores. Subsequently, the complex and potentially confusing nature of the conflicting textual and visual images that bourgeois French women were exposed to as creators and consumers is discussed in Chapter 3, and exposes the many tensions and contradictions in their aesthetic roles. Finally, the correlation between female agency, aesthetics, and participation in the feminist movement is examined in Chapter 4 leading to the eventual conclusion that an increasing emphasis on physical appearance and aestheticism meant that few French women chose to fully discard domesticity and traditional notions of femininity in favour of a career and/or feminism. Instead, many gravitated towards less radical and publicly visible forms of feminist action whilst others renounced feminism entirely. By illustrating the importance of aesthetics in the personal, professional and political lives of bourgeois French women, this thesis brings to the discipline an ability to interconnect the study of cultural representations with more detailed evidence from women’s everyday lives. Furthermore, it will contribute to the history of female agency, individuality and political power by providing a richer, more informed picture of just how women in the Third Republic were shaped by aesthetics.

This study examines the manifestations of French humanism in sixteenth-century intellectual culture, through an analysis, for the first time, of the entirety of the works of Pierre Boaistuau. An eminent French humanist writer, on whose life little information exists, Boaistuau emerges far more prolific than any previous study has hitherto recognised. Thus, on a first level, his case offers the opportunity for an exploration of the developments of French print culture at the time. In addition, careful examination of the contents of his widely circulated works sheds new light on the ways humanist themes and values were incorporated into contemporary literary production, and were used for different purposes which surpassed the mere celebration of ancient learning. Boaistuau employed seven genres in order to compile seven books of different natures, all of them however grafted onto a humanist framework. Associated with narrative fiction, Renaissance philosophy, political theory, the study of history, and natural philosophy, his works demonstrate how the classical past and the humanist values of virtue, erudition, and self-discipline were used in a variety of ways in mid sixteenth-century France: for promotion of a moralising message, praise of the French monarchy, bolstering the Catholic faith, and enhancing the understanding of the natural world.

Climate change disproportionately threatens alpine river ecosystems due to the strong connections between cryosphere, hydrology and physicochemical habitat. Our general understanding of how these systems will respond to warming is, however, based on conceptual models derived from studies undertaken at relatively small spatial scales. This research utilizes: (i) field data collected from five glacierized river basins in the French Pyrénées; (ii) field based experimentation; and (iii) climate/hydrological modelling, to improve understanding of alpine river ecosystem change. Despite a linear, harsh-begin, physicochemical habitat gradient running from high to low meltwater (snow and ice) contribution, observed benthic macroinvertebrate community level metrics were unimodal (i.e. mid-meltwater peak). Community assembly processes shifted from niche filtering/stochastic (trait convergence) at high meltwater sites, to limiting similarity/stochastic (trait divergence) at low meltwater sites. Benthic macroinvertebrate community structure, feeding interactions and body size spectra were altered when invertebrate predator range expansion was experimentally simulated. Empirical observation (space for time substitution) and statistical modelling both suggest an increase in reach scale diversity (alpha) is likely as glacier cover is lost. However, a reduction in habitat heterogeneity is likely to lead to biotic homogenization (reduced beta diversity) as a specialist high meltwater community is replaced by a more generalist community. The need to consolidate monitoring strategies is highlighted and functional trait profiles are suggested as useful bio-monitoring tools for detecting future change.

The thesis is divided into two main parts. The first part deals with the theatre in general, the second with the Comedie-Francaise in particular. The first chapters explain the reasons for the immense popularity of the theatre in Paris during the years of occupation, how the theatre was organised and how racial policies and material difficulties affected productions. Relations between the theatre and the press are examined in some detail as are those plays which either supported the ideals of the ''Revolution Nationale" or attacked them; reference is also made to the important part that the theatre played in prisoner-of- war camps, the effect that censorship had on certain plays, and how popular Joan of Arc was with both the Germans and the French as a theatrical heroine. The second part opens with a brief history of the Comedie-Francaise during other wars, an explanation of the role that the public expected of their national theatre up to the time of invasion, details of changes in the theatre's repertoire as a result of the declaration of war and an examination of the attitudes of two administrators, Copeau and Vaudoyer, to the invaders. The following chapters deal with the more important productions which were put on at the theatre during the occupation, and in Particular with plays by Montherlant, Cocteau and Claudel. The conclusions drawn are that although the theatre was important to Parisians during the years 1940 - 1944, there is no real case to be made for a theatre of resistance or collaboration, and that the Comedie-Francaise was not significantly affected by the German invasion.

This is a comparative study of two countries, England and France, two county towns, Warwick and Draguignan, and two families of the trading-manufacturing sort. It argues that, during the period around 1780-1820, the acquisition of a certain form of education, which included an emphasis on fluent reading, writing, and grammar. preferably Latin grammar, became as important as the acquisition of capital. This cultural capital gave its new owners a self-perceived distinction which allowed them to consider themselves and to be considered by others as different. Even if local, regional, and national differences are taken into account, this comparative study shows that this new perception developed as a transnational phenomenon, a form of culture sallS jrolltieres, even during the times of enmity and almost uninterrupted wars between Britain and France which characterise this period. This process had begun earlier in the eighteenth century, when the idea of a public opinion and its premise of equal interaction amongst its proponents was 'invented'; but it was facilitated by the French Revolution with its legacy of the notion of equality, and therefore of the importance of communication in forging democracy. The written word was the chosen means to achieve this. It is argued that this distinctive culture, in the production and consumption of which women played a considerable part, gave voice and a social and political consciousness to those who began to see themselves as the 'middle class'.

This thesis is a critical introduction to the ideas and public influence of French child psychoanalyst Françoise Dolto (1908-88). In the late twentieth century Dolto was a figure of significant cultural importance in France, seen as the country’s leading authority on child psychology. The thesis approaches her career from the perspective of social and cultural history. It historicises Dolto’s resonance with wider French society, explains the intellectual genealogy of her ideas, and explores the societal implications of her fame. It constitutes a substantial contribution both to the history of psychoanalysis ‘beyond the couch’, and to the socio-cultural history of twentieth-century France. The thesis covers a relatively long historical period, and a wide range of topics including child-rearing, education, autism, radical psychiatry and broadcasting history. This span is justified by the length and breadth of Dolto’s career and by the consistency in her ideas over time. The thesis contends that fundamental tenets of Dolto’s thinking were rooted in the intellectual and political climate of interwar France – specifically debates over the social roles of women, children and the family in the 1930s. Dolto’s stances were ‘permissive’ in that they opposed intransigent authoritarianism in child-rearing, education and religion; and patriarchal in that Dolto upheld paternal primacy and familles nombreuses, and often argued against extending women’s rights. The thesis proceeds in two parts. Part I, ‘Becoming Dolto’, focuses on the intellectual, personal and historical background to her emergence as a public figure. It situates Dolto as a product of the interwar haute bourgeoisie and of intellectual trends towards holism and technocracy associated with the anti-Republican Right of the 1930s-1940s. Part II, ‘Taking Psychoanalysis Public’, explores the settings in which Dolto popularised her ideas and her impact on popular opinion and state institutions. It mines the archive of letters to Dolto’s radio programmes to show how her ideas interacted with the concerns of the 1970s French public. It demonstrates her impact on contemporary children’s centres and on the treatment of autism in France into the twenty-first century.

This thesis aims to make an original contribution to knowledge by looking at the phenomenon of resistance in the French region of Upper Normandy between 1940 and 1944 from a perspective of ‘history from below’, by looking principally at the testimonies of former resisters, and demonstrating a political history of resistance. The introduction defines what is meant by Upper Normandy and justifies its choice as a region for this study, before analysing both the historiography and the epistemology of resistance, both locally and nationally, and then giving a justification and an analysis of the methodology used. The main body of the thesis is then divided into four chapters. Chapter one looks at resistance that was designed to revolutionise society, by looking at Communist resisters and the idea of the grand soir, as well as the sociological origins of these resisters, and how this influenced their resistance action. Chapter two looks at more gradualist forms of resistance, which were conceived to slowly prepare for an eventual liberation and the struggle against Vichyite hegemony, arguing that these resisters formed a ‘resistance aristocracy’, aiming to slowly forge a post-Vichy vision of the polis. Chapter three analyses resistance purely from a patriotic angle, and identifies three different forms of patriotism, before arguing that resistance was part of a process to ‘remasculate’ France after the defeat of 1940, and that these resisters saw their engagement as primarily being one of serving France. Chapter four looks at auxiliary resistance, or resistance actions that were designed to help people, whether they were fleeing persecution or were active resisters, aiming to show that resistance went beyond just organisations and networks, and could be about facilitating other actions rather than direct confrontation. The conclusion then argues for a new understanding of resistance, not as une organisation or even un mouvement, but as a form of la cité, or polis, engaged in creating a new form of polity. It shows that the political history of resistance is a combination of institutional politics and expression politics, and that resistance, even if not necessarily politicised, was political by its very nature.

David Garrioch estimates that in 1789 two thirds of the Parisian population came from other parts of France, yet historians have shown comparatively little interest in how these migrants interacted with the wider Parisian population and the Parisian authorities during the revolutionary period. Migrants were drawn to Paris in search of work opportunities that were unavailable in their own province, or to support their families during the hiatus in the agricultural season or during periods of economic crisis. Using a wide range of source material this thesis explores the experiences of migrants from a variety of French provinces and from Savoy, exploring the different types of migration and the ‘push and pull’ factors behind a move to Paris. It will examine the ‘failed migration experience’ and the challenges faced by migrants on their journey to Paris and in the first few weeks and months of settling in and finding work and accommodation in Paris. Factors behind a successful migrant experience will also be considered, highlighting the importance of the migrant network in Paris and in the provinces in helping the newly arrived migrant become established through the provision of work and accommodation. The thesis will show how provincial and foreign migrants were portrayed in cultural source material from the late Seventeenth to the Nineteenth century. An investigation into contemporary accounts of the personality, physical appearance, family life and work habits of migrants will illustrate how common stereotypes like the ‘petit ramoneur Savoyard’, the ‘Paysan Perverti(e)’ and the ‘vagrant’ were constructed, making migrants stand out from the wider Parisian population. The case study of Fanchon la Vielleuse shows the interaction between cultural and historical representations of migrants and how these could become embedded in the popular mindset. These stereotypes will be a continuing theme throughout the thesis and will provide a context in which it is possible to understand the attitudes of the wider population and the authorities towards migrants. In using police and judicial records from the pre-revolution and revolutionary periods it is possible to compare and contrast such stereotypes with the genuine migrant experience. The thesis will explore the attitudes of the Parisian authorities towards these migrants in the discourses on crime and public safety, charity and poor relief, and the debate on nation, citizenship and identity, tracing both changes and continuities in their approach from the Ancien Regime to the Revolution. It aims to uncover how the Revolution impacted on migration traditions and how migrants responded to this monumental series of events, including an analysis of migrant agendas and their understanding of and response to the Revolution and the changing judicial process. This provokes an examination of the relevance of the Revolution to the ordinary migrant in Paris. Was this a step towards the realisation of a French Nation at the expense of multiple regional identities, or did migrants remain unconvinced by this collective identity?