From a Laughable Anachronism to a Civilizing Mission: French Colonization, 1830–71

IF 0.2 4区 文学 0 LITERARY THEORY & CRITICISM DIACRITICS-A REVIEW OF CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM Pub Date : 2021-07-08 DOI:10.1353/dia.2020.0011
Dan Benson
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Abstract

Abstract:This essay analyzes the changing temporality of colonization in the French context from the 1830s to the 1880s. Notably, Benson shows how Algerian colonization was considered an "anachronism" for many journalists, politicians, historians, and economists for much of the nineteenth century. Algerian colonization was seen as both occurring too late in history—since it began in 1830, long after the first major period of France's colonial expansion into the Americas—and too early, starting before France's expansion into Africa in the 1880s. Indeed, it was only after the founding of the French Third Republic (1870–1940) that colonization finally "caught up" with the ideology of the French state. Colonization was then conceived as the marker of French nationhood, an official element of republican ideology, necessary to establish the legitimacy of the fledgling democracy. Paradoxically, France's colonial history became the very thread that tied the new republic to tradition, while colonization itself was refashioned into a new and "modern" policy of progress. Benson concludes by relating his discussion to Massimiliano Tomba's notion of state temporality and Jacques Rancière's analysis of the historian's truth. Both the state and the historian need to reject anachronisms in order to control access to the truth of the past and the present, foreclosing possibilities for the (postcolonial) future.
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从可笑的时代错误到文明使命:1830-71年的法国殖民
摘要:本文分析了19世纪30年代至80年代法国殖民时期的时代性变化。值得注意的是,本森展示了在19世纪的大部分时间里,许多记者、政治家、历史学家和经济学家认为阿尔及利亚殖民是“不合时宜的”。阿尔及利亚殖民被认为在历史上发生得太晚了——因为它开始于1830年,在法国向美洲殖民扩张的第一个主要时期之后很久——而且太早了,在19世纪80年代法国向非洲扩张之前就开始了。事实上,直到法兰西第三共和国(1870-1940)成立后,殖民主义才最终“赶上”了法国的意识形态。当时,殖民被认为是法国国家地位的标志,是共和意识形态的官方元素,是建立初生民主合法性的必要条件。矛盾的是,法国的殖民历史成为将新共和国与传统联系在一起的主线,而殖民本身则被重新塑造成一种新的“现代”进步政策。本森最后将他的讨论与马西米利亚诺·托姆巴的国家时间性概念和雅克·朗西特对历史学家真相的分析联系起来。国家和历史学家都需要拒绝时代错误,以控制对过去和现在真相的了解,排除(后殖民)未来的可能性。
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DIACRITICS-A REVIEW OF CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM
DIACRITICS-A REVIEW OF CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM LITERARY THEORY & CRITICISM-
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0.80
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期刊介绍: For over thirty years, diacritics has been an exceptional and influential forum for scholars writing on the problems of literary criticism. Each issue features articles in which contributors compare and analyze books on particular theoretical works and develop their own positions on the theses, methods, and theoretical implications of those works.
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