Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Searching for ‘Contact Zones’ in France’s War

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Ego-histories of France and the Second World War

Part of the book series: The Holocaust and its Contexts ((HOLC))

  • 205 Accesses

Abstract

Hilary Footitt’s ego-history recounts a journey across national and disciplinary borders in an attempt to find the in-between ‘contact zones’ of France’s Second World War experiences, bringing together en route the separate Anglophone and French narratives of 1943–1946. Paxton’s seminal book proved the impetus to examine Anglo-Saxon involvement in France, confronting French narratives of the period with the archives of foreigners outside. As the study progressed, it became clear that her real interest lay in what happened ‘on the ground’ of war, in the transfer of power between often quite junior Allied soldiers and French civilians, and in the ‘cultural hybridity’ of war. Approached through a combination of linguistics and ethnography, the words and experiences of participants could give life to these transnational ‘contact zones’.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Audio and video recordings from this project are now held by the Imperial War Museum, London.

  2. 2.

    Milovan Djilas, Conversations with Stalin (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1962), quoted in Footitt and Simmonds (1988, ix).

  3. 3.

    See www.reading.ac.uk/languages-at-war/.

  4. 4.

    National archives, Kew, FO 1110/290, Murray to Marchant, British Embassy Paris, 31 March 1950.

References

  • Apter, Emily. 2006. The Translation Zone. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Baker, Mona. 2006. Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barkawi, Tarak. 2006. Globalization and War. Lanham: Bowman and Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bastable, Jonathan. 2004. Voices from D-Day. Newton Abbot: David and Charles.

    Google Scholar 

  • Black, Jeremy. 2012. War and the Cultural Turn. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brinkley, Douglas, and Ronald J. Drez. 2004. Voices of Valor: D-Day, June 6, 1944. New York: Bulfinch Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Comité d’Histoire de la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale. 1976. Actes du Colloque international sur la Libération de la France. Paris: CNRS.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dening, Greg. 2004. Beach Crossings: Voyaging Across Times, Cultures and Self. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dening, Greg. 2010. Mr Bligh’s Bad Language: Passion, Power and Theatre on the Bounty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Diamond, Hanna. 1999. Women and the Second World War in France, 1939–1948: Choices and Constraints. Harlow: Longman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Footitt, Hilary. 2004. War and Liberation in France: Living with the Liberators. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Footitt, Hilary. 2013. “A Hideously Difficult Country”: British Propaganda to France in the Early Cold War. Cold War History 13 (2): 153–169.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Footitt, Hilary, and John Simmonds. 1988. France, 1943–45. The Politics of Liberation Series. Leicester: Leicester University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Footitt, Hilary, and Michael Kelly. 2012. Languages at War: Policies and Practices of Language Contacts in Conflict. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Footitt, Hilary, and Simona Tobia. 2013. WarTalk: Foreign Languages and the British War Effort in Europe, 1940–47. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Foulon, Charles-Louis. 1975. Le pouvoir en Province à la Libération: les Commissaires de la République, 1943–1946. Paris: A. Colin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greenblatt, Stephen (ed.). 2010. Cultural Mobility. A Manifesto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hervé, Pierre. 1945. La Libération trahie. Paris: Grasset.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hitchcock, William. 1998. France Restored. Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944–54. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Inghilleri, Moira. 2008. The Ethical Task of the Translator in the Geopolitical Arena: From Iraq to Guántanamo Bay. Translation Studies 1 (2): 212–223.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jenson, Jane. 1987. The Liberation and New Rights for Women. In Behind the Lines. Gender and the Two World Wars, ed. Margaret R. Higonnet et al., 272–284. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keegan, John. 1982. Six Armies in Normandy: From D-Day to the Liberation of Paris, June 6th–August 25th, 1944. London: Cape.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kramer, Steven. 1975. La Stratégie Socialiste à la Libération. RHDGM 98: 77–90.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kriegel, Annie. 1970. Les Communistes français. Paris: Seuil.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lagrou, Pieter. 2000. The Legacy of Nazi Occupation: Patriotic Memory and National Recovery in Western Europe, 1945–1965. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lecoeur, Auguste. 1955. L’Autocritique attendue. Saint-Cloud: Girault.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lévy, Claude. 1974. La Libération: Remise en ordre ou Révolution? Paris: PUF.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lilly, Robert J. 2003. La Face cachée des GI’s. Les viols commis par des soldats américains en France, en Angleterre et en Allemagne pendant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale. Paris: Payot.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murdoch, Iris. 2002. A Word Child. London: Vintage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nehring, Holger. 2004. “Westernization”: A New Paradigm for Interpreting West European History in a Cold War Context. Cold War History 4 (2): 175–191.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Paxton, Robert O. 1972. Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order 1940–1944. New York: Knopf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peschanski, Denis. 2002. La France des camps d’internement, 1938–1946. Paris: Gallimard.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pessoa, Fernando. 2010. The Book of Disquiet, trans. Margaret Jull Costa. London: Serpent’s Tail.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pratt, Mary Louise. 2008. Imperial Eyes. Travel Writing and Transculturation. London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rampton, Ben, K. Tusting, J. Maybin, R. Barwell, A. Creese, and V. Lytra. 2004. UK Linguistic Ethnography: A Discussion Paper. http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fss/organisations/lingethn/documents/discussion_paper_jan_05.pdf (accessed 4 September 2017).

  • Rousso, Henry. 1990 (1987). Le Syndrome de Vichy de 1944 à nos jours. Paris: Seuil.

    Google Scholar 

  • Salama-Carr, Myriam (ed.). 2007. Translating and Interpreting Conflict. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spielberg, Steven (dir.). 1998. Saving Private Ryan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stahuljak, Zrinka. 2000. Violent Distortions: Bearing Witness to the Task of the Wartime Interpreter. TTR 13 (1): 137–151.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tinker, Greg. 2013. The Cultural Memory of the Second World War: D-Day Veterans and Commemoration in Britain. Unpublished thesis, Reading University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Werner, Michael, and Bénédicte Zimmermann. 2003. Penser l’histoire croisée: entre empire et réflexivité. Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 57 (1): 7–36.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wieviorka, Annette. 1992. Déportation et génocide: entre la mémoire et l’oubli. Paris: Plon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Willard, Germaine Victor, François Hincker Joannès, and Jean Elleinstein. 1972. De la Guerre à la Libération, la France de 1939 à 1945. Paris: Éditions sociales.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Reading, Reading, UK

    Hilary Footitt

Authors
  1. Hilary Footitt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hilary Footitt .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Manuel Bragança

  2. University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom

    Fransiska Louwagie

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Footitt, H. (2018). Searching for ‘Contact Zones’ in France’s War. In: Bragança, M., Louwagie, F. (eds) Ego-histories of France and the Second World War. The Holocaust and its Contexts. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70860-7_8

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70860-7_8

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-70859-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-70860-7

  • eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation