Democratization of Education, Literary Citizenship, and Protest in Post–World War II France

• In Event: (In)Equalities in International Histories of Education

Abstract

This paper rethinks historical narratives of the democratization of French education, the creation of a new ‘literary citizen’ in the 1950s-1960s, and student protests of 1968. I use Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault to reframe the idea of ‘context’ as historical assemblage and normative ‘space-time’ as historical formations, respectively. With Édouard Glissant’s concept of ‘Tout-monde’, reciprocity of relations is not belonging in and to one world but with and to multiple worlds. As an act of resistance, I actuate Glissant’s idea of ‘opacity’ and keep some words in French. Julia Kristeva’s concept of ‘intertextuality’ exams how ideas around the ‘the literary citizen’ circulate in mediums in and out of education. I hope to complicate the conversation around normative historical narratives.

Author

• Britt-Marie Zeidler, University of Wisconsin - Madison