Jean Fornasiero

Explorations and Encounters in French

With a title derived literally from the explorations of the French in the Pacific and metaphorically from classroom encounters with another culture—both of which form important subsections to the volume—Explorations and Encounters in French actively seeks to unite those fields of enquiry sometimes seen as separate, namely, culture and language. The essays selected for inclusion in Explorations and Encounters in French bring together many of the current research strands in French Studies today, tapping into current pedagogical trends, analysing contemporary events in France, examining the Franco-Australian past, while reviewing teaching practice and the culture of teaching. Collectively, the essays reflect the common engagement with language, culture and society that characterizes the community of French teachers and scholars in Australia and abroad.

L'Ile mystérieuse dans le maelström de l'Histoire

Grâce a l’intensite du travail critique qui s’est exerce ces dernieres annees sur l’œuvre de Jules Verne, certains debats concernant le lectorat ou le statut des Voyages extraordinaires sont aujourd’hui – et heureusement – tout a fait depasses. Et pourtant, si tous s’accordent pour saluer la poesie et la portee de cette immense œuvre romanesque, l’unanimite est loin d’etre acquise sur les questions relatives aux opinions de Verne et a l’interet que porte le romancier a l’histoire ou a la vie politique de son temps. Terrain glissant s’il en est, surtout lorsqu’il s’agit de situer Verne, par personnages interposes, ou en citant les propos de l’auteur, dans une mouvance politique trop precise. Comme les nombreuses biographies et la correspondance n’ont revele aucune faille importante dans “la facade bourgeoise” derriere laquelle s’abrite le romancier, toute tentative pour lier l’homme aux elans contestataires de ses personnages semble perdue d’avance. Malgre la seduction operee autrefois par les intuitions de Marcel More, les commentateurs preferaient

The Baudin Expedition in Review: Old Quarrels and New Approaches

The Baudin expedition (1800–1804) was the third French scientific voyage to New Holland, after those of La Pérouse and d’Entrecasteaux. It was led by Nicolas Baudin, a seasoned botanical voyager, who set out in command of the Géographe; its second-in-command was Captain Emmanuel Hamelin in the Naturaliste. Commissioned by Napoléon, the expedition was organized on a grand scale and consequently generated a wealth of written material in the form of sea journals, letters written to and from members of the expedition, reports and official documents, but also left an important iconographic record, in the form of charts, maps and drawings. While the expedition’s return, and its reputation, were obscured by its internal dissensions, as by the events of the Napoleonic wars, the voyage nonetheless yielded rich results: its naturalists brought large numbers of zoological and botanical specimens to the collections of the Muséum d’histoire naturelle in Paris, as well as providing live plants and animals for the gardens and menageries of the Muséum and of Malmaison. In spite of this impressive bounty, it is only in recent years that the voyage has begun to receive the attention it deserves for the long-term contribution it made to science and to the history of early Australian exploration, too long dominated by the English conquest story, and particularly by the competing claims for superiority made on behalf of the contemporaneous Australian voyage of Matthew Flinders. Indeed, establishing an accurate record of events has been a long and difficult process, and not only because of the accusations made by the English that the French explorers had plagiarized Flinders’s charts or claimed his cartographic achievements on the south coast as their own. The French authorities were also anxious to forget about an expedition that had brought them neither glory nor diplomatic advantage. In these conditions, the surviving expeditioners were hard pressed to protect their interests and their careers, not to mention the expedition’s

Matthew Flinders through French Eyes: Nicolas Baudin’s Lessons from Encounter Bay

ABSTRACT The encounter between Nicolas Baudin and Matthew Flinders off the south coast of New Holland in April 1802 has attracted considerable attention. For many, it has come to symbolise the triumph of the spirit of international scientific cooperation over national rivalries and personal ambitions. Scholarly analysis of the complexities of the encounter moment itself has, however, served to modify this idealised image. The injustice subsequently done to Flinders by François Péron and Louis de Freycinet, who failed to acknowledge his discoveries on this coast in the published account of the French voyage, has also generated much discussion. The impact of the encounter on Baudin and his men, on the other hand, has not been subjected to the same scrutiny. Through a close examination of the archival documentation, this essay offers the French perspective on Matthew Flinders and highlights the ramifications for the Baudin expedition of this fateful meeting with him.

If I say If: The Poems and Short Stories of Boris Vian

edited by Alistair Rolls, John West-Sooby and Jean Fornasiero; translations by Maria Freij and Peter Hodges

Translating Nice Try into Bien joué

Notwithstanding its universal appeal, crime fiction frequently emerges as a vehicle for the expression of national identity. However, since the global readership of crime novels inevitably leads to their translation into other languages, the question arises as to what then happens to the national or cultural identity they project. Taking as a case study one of Shane Maloneys Murray Whelan novels, this article proposes a comparative analysis of the original text in Australian English and its French translation. It aims to identify the strategies used by the translators when confronted with the task of translating for a French readership the culturally specific features that characterize the novels Melbourne setting, focusing on three fundamental dimensions: the spatial, the sociological and the cultural.

Les Financiers de l'utopie: réalités et représentations du mécénat quarante-huitard

Title in English : The financiers of utopia: the realities and representations of patronage for the generation of 1848

Aux origines du roman criminel: Eugène Sue et les mystères de la Seine

English title: The origins of the Roman criminal: Eugene Sue and the mysteries of the Seine