Web round-up #3: some unpleasant MPs, the return of ‘primitive art’, the British identity debate continues and some very tasteless sweets

French politics
- Azouz Begag marks his distance from Sarkozy [Le Monde 16/01/07]
- Whilst it seems fairly self-evident that new electors have been signing up in the suburbs in the hope of being able to vote against Sarkozy it seems unlikely that they will be supporting Le Pen, as the FN leader suggests [Le Monde 14/01/07]
- [...]

Handley Stevens DPhil

The real reason for my trip to the UK… Congratulations!

Teaching ‘Britishness’: history or citizenship?

The incoherent and catastrophic state of the history curriculum in Britain is not news to anyone. This for example is what Ofsted said in its 2005 report [link]:
Too often, the focus in school history is on developing pupils’ and students’ in-depth knowledge of specific topics; this is at the expense of an overview of history [...]

French museums on the radio

All next week on “La fabrique de l’histoire” a series of programmes about the history of museums in France:
Le lundi :
 Jean-Hubert Martin, Directeur de la Kunsthalle de Berne, du Musée national  d’art moderne du Centre Pompidou, du Musée national des arts d’Afrique et  d’Océanie, il a été enfin directeur du Museum Kunst Palast de Düsseldorf, [...]

Books round-up #2: colonialism, new texts in museum studies and a disappointing novel

On France and the colonial past
- Dorlin, Elsa. La matrice de la race: généalogie sexuelle et coloniale de la nation française (La Découverte, 2006).
This book was recently discussed on France Culture [link]. What’s particularly interesting is that it seems to suggest the possiblity of an understanding of identities and stereotypes constructed at the intersection of [...]

Fiction and material culture: so many stories to tell

Tavistock Square in the snow, 24 January 2007
I am currently back in London for a week, seeing my supervisors and making sure they’re happy with my plans for writing up (they are, which is a relief).
I had intended to spend this week catching up on some reading and maybe drafting an article based on a [...]

‘The Just’ enter the Pantheon: the last act in Chirac’s ‘memory policy’?

One of the first things Jacques Chirac did when he became President in 1995 was to mark himself out from his predecessor, Mitterrand, by publicly acknowledging the role of the French state in the deportation of Jews during the second world war. Since then he has pursued an active ‘memory policy’ not just with regard [...]

The Attic: Leicester PhD students’ blog

I’ve just discovered this group blog by the PhD students in Museum Studies at Leicester University. It’s a good mix of academic content and PhD support, as well as listing calls for papers and that kind of thing. And in the absence of departmental colleagues of my own – the consequence of being torn between [...]

De la question sociale à la question raciale ? Debate with Didier and Eric Fassin

Last night I attended a discussion about this new book (De la question sociale à la question raciale ?, La Decouverte, 2006). The event took place in the very grand ’salle des mariages’ of Mairie du 4eme; on velvet upholstered benches, beneath the obligatory bust of Marianne and the portrait of Chirac, with gale-force winds [...]

Museum news #1: is Europe ‘ripe’ for Museums?

- Forthcoming UNESCO conference: “Mémoire et universalité : de nouveaux défis pour les musées” (05/02/07).
- I’ve also found some interesting articles in the UNESCO journal Museum International . See especially 232 (special issue on Museums and Cultural Policy) and 227 (Cultural Diversity and Heritage).
- Community memories: a Canadian virtual museum project. It’s interesting that collective [...]