This book encourages a reappraisal of belle époque France using as a point of entry the author, performer, and cultural icon Colette (1873-1954). In achieving the transition from Angel in the House to New Woman, women like Colette called upon the intellectual resources supplied to them by the new secularizing campaigns of the 1870s and 80s to help make legible their position in the new order. The book is divided into two parts—the first dealing with the educational and political culture of Colette’s childhood in the 1870s and 80s, the second exploring belle époque cultural milieus in which a markedly republican aesthetic took hold. By way of an investigation of republican pedagogical culture, music-hall performance, women’s physical fitness, girls’ school novels, and working-class performing arts initiatives, I consider the unintended cultural effects of the French Third Republic’s secularization campaign, particularly in the sphere of popular entertainment, and probe the startling connections between republican values of labor and physical fitness, and the aesthetic and social innovations of this same period. Combining microhistory and social history with textual analyses of literature and performance, Colette’s Republic demonstrates that performing women participated in and drove forward a significant shift in French popular culture at the turn of the century.
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Reviews
“Tilburg’s thoughtful work deserves a broad audience of historians interested in the sizable historiography in modern French culture and its gendered implications. It addresses many … critical issues… [and] is thus a valuable addition to a growing body of scholarship about republicanism, women, and popular culture in the long French fin de siècle.” · James Smith Allen, The Journal of Modern History
“ [A] thoroughly readable volume…at once a fine, nuanced work of cultural history, and an illuminating reflection on Colette.” · Diana Holmes, French Studies
“With poetic flair and incredible articulateness, [Colette’s Republic] has emerged onto the already inundated scene of fin de siècle French cultural studies, fresh and delightfully complex…this is no straightforward biography of Colette…Undoubtedly a must-read for scholars of fin de siècle French Studies. · Tania Anne Woloshyn, Gender & History
“While building on the work of [other scholars], Tilburg makes her own significant contribution to the field by combining a study of Colette’s life and career with an analysis of the political culture of republicanism. Her sources are varied and the style is highly readable. The result is a lively and rich portrait of Belle-Époque France.” · Venita Datta, H-France
“… a finely crafted study…The wealth of her scholarly evidence aside, Tilburg develops [her] arguments with magisterial care, resulting in a book that deserves the attention of all students of contemporary French history. Highly recommended.” · Choice
“This intelligent, imaginative cultural history… has much to teach us about a period, a person, the dynamic relations between them, and the reverberations of that dynamic into the present.” · Carol Rigolot, The French Review
“[The author] revises a scholarship that frequently insists upon Colette’s exceptionalism and provides a nuanced and engaging portrait of Colette and of the Third Republic.” · Holly Grout, French Politics, Culture & Society
