...

...

Monday, November 30, 2020

Rouen : concours blanc agrégation

 


Bonjour à toutes et tous.

Le concours blanc est maintenu, les 10, 11, 12 et 14 décembre prochain. L’ordre des épreuves est conforme à celui du concours (avec la pause dominicale en plus). Les sujets seront déposés sur UniversiTICE* le matin-même avant 9h ou la veille au soir. Les copies seront à envoyer aux collègues concernés, tapées directement ou scannées si manuscrites (en format pdf et non image jpg). Une séance de correction du concours aura lieu le 20 janvier de 15h à 18h.

 

Ordre et nature des épreuves (concours interne surligné en jaune)

Jeudi 10 décembre 9h – 16h Dissertation  7h en français (anglais pour l’interne)**

Vendredi 11 déc 9h – 15h  commentaire en anglais

Samedi 12  9 – 15h Linguistique

Lundi 14  9h – 15h Traduction (thème, version) 6h externe / 9h – 14h, soient 5h pour l’interne, (thème, version et question de traductologie)

 

*Page de Laura Goudet, cours d’agrégation, pour l’épreuve de Linguistique

Page d’Anne-Laure Tissut, cours de version, pour les autres épreuves.

**Si la dissertation porte sur le programme de littérature, le commentaire porte sur celui de civilisation et inversement. 

Sunday, November 29, 2020

*Agrégation anglais 2021 La BBC et le service public de l'audiovisuel. Post 45: Tension between the BBC and the government

 This documentary looks at three moments of tension : the General Strike of 1926, the Thatcher years, and the Iraq war when Tony Blair was Prime Minister.The first two are within our time period. It is only half an hour, and very clearly presented. It is rather critical of the BBC.


Battle for the BBC | The Listening Post - YouTube


These moments of tension are not so common. 


The documentary gave rise to a follow-up debate, including the views of some who think that the tensions between the BBC and ministers do not change the fact that the two generally defend the establishment. A number of proposals for changing the way the BBC is organized and financed are discussed.

https://youtu.be/74qcsksuqtU


Friday, November 27, 2020

History of the BBC 1922-1995. Video chapter 6, commissions of enquiry 2

 After the Second World War, regular commissions of enquiry worked on the future of BBC broadcasting, both radio and television. They were appointed by government, but had something of a bipartisan content. Their recommendations were very influential indeed.


https://youtu.be/7rV8WjmaKWY

Thursday, November 26, 2020

Agrégation Rouen emploi du temps semestre 2


Comme vous le savez, afin de freiner le virus, les cours auront lieu en distanciel, comme on dit, jusqu’en février au moins. Voici l’emploi du temps du deuxième semestre. Il reste quelques heures à rajouter, et il y aura sans doute d’autres modifications mineures, mais vous trouverez toujours la version la plus à jour en cliquant ici: http://www.jcmullen.fr/1120edt2.pdf

Les cours en distanciel permettent parfois aux enseignants de modifier la date et l’horaire de leur cours. Tant que la plage horaire concernée n’est pas occupée par un autre cours, il n’y a pas de souci.

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Agrégation anglais 2021 La BBC 1922 -1995. Post 43 The early days of the BBC

 Fascinating podcast on the BBC in its early days.

https://youtu.be/gqnNT4CabT0

Cours à distance:

 Vous aurez compris que les cours 100% à distance vont continuer au moins jusqu'en février. Je sais que c'est souvent pénible et très compliqué. Je suis pourtant convaincu que, au niveau actuel de 571 morts par jour en France et 10 000 par jour dans le monde, que c'est mieux ainsi. Il ne s'agit pas seulement de vous protéger, mais surtout de protéger le voisin de la mère de la colocataire de votre camarade de classe. C'ets comme cela que marche les vaccins. Il faut être patient - il y aura de bons vaccins, mais pour l'instant...

Cours de thème à 10h30


Tuesday, November 24, 2020

L3 week nine video chapters

 You will find here chapter 15, on British cinema in the 1940s and 1950s

https://youtu.be/jXSs10TkzhA 


And here is chapter 16 on the following period

https://youtu.be/DuR7BlCZlbg 


Finally, here is the short video about diversity in British period films

https://youtu.be/VnfQZLhdeDU 


Short summary BBC history

 If you need a short summary to remind yourselves

AUNTIE BEEB: The Fascinating History of the BBC (anglotopia.net) 

L3 class Rouen at 11.30 am.


Monday, November 23, 2020

M1 MEEF Inclusion, diversité, et la position des femmes

 To get a clear idea of some of the aspects of women's progress in the UK in the last century or so, you could read some of the articles from this issue of the Revue française de civilisation britannique.


https://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/1748

Saturday, November 21, 2020

Heritage cinema - documents for this week's L3 class. please read them before the class.

 Document 1



Interpretation of Heritage Films. Extract from The British Heritage and Colonial Film Sylvia Brand (2000)

Films of the recent heritage cycle can be read in a variety of ways. For Higson most of them seem to deal in nostalgia for an old England (Higson 1996: 238). Nostalgia is always in effect a critique of the present, which is seen as lacking something desirable situated out of reach in the past. An escape from the troubled present into the imaginary stability and grandeur of the past.

Although at the level of narratives the films note an instability, the flux in identity, the hybrid quality of Englishness, at the level of image this narrative instability is overwhelmed by an alluring spectacle of iconographic stability, providing an impression of an unchanging, traditional, and always delightful and desirable England. (Higson 1996: 239)

Tana Wollen sees the main function of heritage films in their production of a national identity. Social difference and the possibility of making connections across social boundaries, are replaced by social deference, everyone has his allotted place. We are presented with an upper-class version of the national past, secured in images of exclusive and private heritage property which depict England as once more great. We are situated in the privileged position of an idealized English identity from which the outside world is viewed from above and without engagement. In the end everyone standing outside this imaginary English unity (members of the working class, foreigners) are proved to be in a way either savage or untrustworthy (Craig 1991: 13) .

The feeling of nostalgia and national identity produced by the heritage film show us that the present popularity of these fantasy visions of an England gone by suggests that they do address very real desires: "they configure a social world entirely of human making, where individuals have the luxury of being in charge of their own destinies, where material well-being, copious leisure time, and, most important, authentic-seeming community all coexist together" (Hipsky 1994: 106).


Finally we shouldn′t forget that these films have other sources of enjoyment beside creating a nostalgia for an idealized old England and a national identity. The heritage films delight the audience in a way Hipsky calls "quite refreshing" in contrast to most other commercial film productions. This includes their humour and irony and elements of romance and melodrama. They do not depend on sensationalism of sex or violence. They portray individual conflicts of identity quite convincingly and provide real characters, often very well acted. The heritage films capture the paradoxes of modern love and sexuality and they point up hypocrisies of traditional bourgeois and upper-class social conventions. (Monk 1999)

Critical Attempt

One of the key terms in the discourse of heritage film is authenticity. Tana Wollen states that although the screen cannot possibly show everything `as it really was′, the popularity of the heritage films lies, apart from their narratives and characterizations, in their claims to historical authenticity ..." (Wollen 1991: 187). Also Higson agrees that heritage film productions intend to establish the adoption of the heritage property as an authentic reproduction of the original (Higson 1995). Like in documentary film is aiming at the production of a contemporary reality, the heritage film is aiming at a reproduction of what is taken to be pre-existing historical reality.

In his criticism-led approach to national cinema Higson tends to reduce national cinema to the terms of a quality art cinema. In his opinion a culturally worthy cinema should portray a high-cultural and modernist heritage of a particular national state rather than a view which appeals to the desires and fantasies of the popular audience. (Higson ?: 37)

Many authors criticize that heritage films rewrite history, suffering from inauthenticity, excessive religiosity, hard-to-follow details and characters, romantic dream worlds, ostentatious vulgarity, and leaden scripts. Most audiences usually prefer historical films which focus on a romance or an adventure in the foreground, with the historical events serving only as the colourful backdrop. The past is displayed as visually spectacular pastiche, inviting a nostalgic gaze that resists the ironies and social critiques so often suggested narratively by these films. The authenticity of these films to the literary is also fundamentally flawed in the relationship they set up between the historical and the contemporary. We achieve a false sense of consistency by updating memories to accord with our present views, remaining unaware how much our attitudes have changed over time. (Craig 1991: 11)

The films change history to make it fit into frame of unity and wilfully naïve humanism (e.g. Henry Wilcox of the novel must for the film′s sake be made into a more morally mixed character) (Hipsky 1994: 106).

The problem with authenticity is not only concerning the heritage film but the term heritage in general. Heritage is not the same as history. Although heritage uses historical traces and tells historical tales, it relies on revealed faith rather than rational proof.

Document 2

https://enchantedbyfilm.wordpress.com/2015/04/27/british-heritage-films-a-critical-examination-of-the-concept-of-englishness/

 

Week nine



Explorer l'histoire de la BBC 1922-1995

 Une présentation, en 20 minutes, en français, d'une variété d'approches à l'histoire de la BBC.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL8pvDI-bQs


[Mes étudiants à Rouen verront qu'il s'agit d'une version condensée, et en français, de ce que j'ai expliqué plus longuement en cours, en anglais. Cette vidéo  pourrait cependant vous servir pour réviser]

Friday, November 20, 2020

BBC live class Rouen change in time

 Next Wednesday 25th, at 3pm, not 4pm.

JM

Thursday, November 19, 2020

M1 seminar historiography, memory and the First World War

The marking for this seminar was supposed to have been a three-hour exam in January. Because of the new sanitary rules, this will no doubt be replaced by an essay or commentary which you will do at home. You will have 24 hours to do it, and you will be able to consult documents etc. 

More than five consecutive word taken from another source without citing it counts as plagiarism, though, so be careful.

Agrégation anglais 2021 La BBC et le service public de l'audiovisuel 1922-1995 Post 42 The BBC and politics

 Here are two resources from the official BBC website


When the BBC refused jobs for decades for people who were "too left wing":


A summary of a few political crises over the decades:

https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/research/editorial-independence

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

Agrégation Rouen BBC video chapters week two (week eight) videos 3b, 4 and 5

 You will find here the video chapter 3b which looks at the director-generals between 1922 and the 1960s.

https://youtu.be/2_BldNT0NFk 


You will find here the video chapter 4 which looks at the director-generals from the 1960s on.

https://youtu.be/fiBPHXYLKKQ


You will find here the video chapter 5 which looks at the early commissions of enquiry

https://youtu.be/5kSp0VUQSZI



week 8 MEEF : Homework assignment, video chapters, etc

 Your homework assignment is here. You have until 20th December

Just click here

Here is the video chapter on Irish immigration to Britain

https://youtu.be/v8M2-jhQIpE

Here is the video chapter on South Asian immmigration to Britain

https://youtu.be/buQGcqj0QfQ


And here is an article in French about one aspect of how the Irish were considered in England between 1880 and 1920

https://hal-normandie-univ.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02529167/document



Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Week 8 video chapters for L3

 In the live classes today I finished the section on visual art. We are now going to move onto cinema.

Here is chapter 13, the first chapter on cinema https://youtu.be/UugYzcc-NGA 

Here is chapter 14, the second chapter on cinema https://youtu.be/ejhtsCEZ-MA 


Here is the short video about Stik we saw in class. https://youtu.be/sDY8Xz6wBSY 

Here is the short video set in Paris which we saw in Paris https://youtu.be/nvoN8mCqA08 

M2 thème - if you missed it

 http://johncmullen.blogspot.com/2020/10/cours-de-theme-pour-etudiants-m2-tout.html

L3 afternoon group 4pm link

 John Mullen is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.


Topic: L3 afternoon group 



Agrégation 2021 la BBC 1922-1995. Post 41 : video on the World Service

This documentary, available in four parts on YouTube, describes the work of the BBC World Service. It was made in 1982, and is very interesting. It is made by the BBC itself, so naturally rather uncritical, but it allows you to see what the service actually does.

Part One (13 minutes) is here. The other parts are easy to find.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhaWXvOASRY

Monday, November 16, 2020

Week 8 : this week’s classes

 Tuesday 

L3 Popular Culture in Britain since 1945


Morning group:

CORRECTION/ Short Zoom class at 11:30am ( link here shortly before) and then two video chapters I will put online late Tuesday.  Remember your homework assignment is a little further down this blog.

Afternoon group

Short Zoom class at 4pm ( link here shortly before) and then two video chapters I will put online late Tuesday.  Remember your homework assignment is a little further down this blog


Wednesday


M1 MEEF. 

Short zoom class at 9:30am (link here shortly before) and then video chapters I will put online late Wednesday.

In class 1) any questions 2) Homework assignment 3) the practice paper I posted last week (we will continue this next week, too).


Thème agrégation/Master 2

Zoom class 10:30 to 12 noon (link here shortly before). I will try to get your corrected work back to you before this.


Agrégation BBC

One-hour zoom class at 4pm (link here shortly before) and then three video chapters I will put online late Wednesday.

traductologie le 18 novembre

 

N’oubliez pas, les agrégatifs de l'interne, que M Morel donne cours de traductologie, mercredi à 8h30 dans la salle BB  sur la page du cours : https://universitice.univ-rouen.fr/course/view.php?id=9719

Sunday, November 15, 2020

MEEF Inclusions et diversité

 In the British press there are frequently articles with a link to this theme. 

This one from this week speaks of religion and prejudice.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/15/religious-intolerance-is-bigger-cause-of-prejudice-than-race-says-report 

Thursday, November 12, 2020

Agrégation 2021 la BBC et le service public de l'audiovisuel. Post 40: comedy : Yes, Minister

 When studying the history of the BBC it is necessary to watch some programmes in which the humour is frankly outdated and no longer funny to us 21st century types. This episode from "Yes, Prime Minister", though, may still be funny. It is a series in which political and ministerial circles are mercilessly lampooned. The centre of the programme is not a serious political message, although there are some bits of message around.

Just click here



Wednesday, November 11, 2020

Week 8 m1 MEEF

 Two elements to keep you thinking until our next class on the 18th

Firstly, here is an episode of a documentary series about the Irish in England, those who migrated in the 1950s and 1960s.


https://youtu.be/SYgdQG_orwk


Secondly, here is a practice "composition". This is not your homework assignment (that will arrive soon). This is the assignment I gave last year. Please read it and prepare it, looking up references etc. I will be looking at it in live online class.

The PDF is here


The next few weeks will be a combination of live online classes and videos I will make (like the ones of mine you have already seen).

Next week on the 18th, there will be a short online class *at 9.30am* for half an hour or a little more. Please come to the class prepared with any questions you have. After questions, I will explain about your homework assignment. Then I will begin to look at part of the practice composition I have linked to above.

After the class I will put online two video chapters - one on Irish immigration, and one on South Asian immigration.

Week one agrégation BBC class Rouen: links and first three video chapters etc.

 Our next live online class will be Wed 18th 4pm - 5pm.

Each week we will have a one-hour live class, and I will post links to three 30-minute video chapters I am making at home. There will be eighteen chapters in all. The plan is that they all be up by Christmas, but if I should  fall a little behind schedule, I am sure you will understand. These videos will remain online until summer 2021.

Here are the first three video chapters, which deal with the question "What questions need to be asked about the history of the BBC?".


Video chapter one

Video chapter two

Video chapter three


For the live class, I know a few of you could not be present or had poor internet connections. The audio is here (It will be taken down in two weeks)

Audio file

The slides are here (they will be taken down in two weeks)

BBC 1922-1995 Post 39: comedy from 1963 : That was the Week that Was

 The history of comedy is difficult to write: it seems that comedy has become more sophisticated, more inter-textual, more knowing and more fast-paced as the decades went by. You will find here an 8 minute sketch from That Was The Week That Was from the BBC in 1963. At the time this was definitely avant-garde comedy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRZWyfERiCc

Week 7 L3 Popular Culture in Britain since 1945

 Our next short zoom class will be next Tuesday, 17th at 11:30am for the morning class, and at 4pm for the afternoon class. Please come prepared with the question you have.

The videos I made at home this week are here


Chapter 11 (visual art three)  https://youtu.be/F94xDP203X0

Chapter 12 (visual art four) https://youtu.be/ge0eOJnnJX8 

A video on Banksy’s  destruction trick is here https://youtu.be/vxkwRNIZgdY

If you liked Banksy’s sarcastic amusement park, there is a half hour video here


https://youtu.be/VCpYYYzQJ3c 


Marking: the classroom test you would normally have done has been replaced with a homework assignment :


Write a structured essay on the following subject


How have different British artists and British institutions attempted to ensure that visual art is not only for the elite ?


Write 1000 - 1300 words, and send it by email to myself (john.mullen AT THE ADDRESS univ-rouen.fr )by the 10th of December at midnight.







Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Agrégation class Rouen on the BBC

The videos and other resources for this week will be posted here tomorrow morning.

Our next zoom class is Wednesday 18 at 4pm.


BBC agrégation à 17h

L3 afternoon group

Videos etc. here tomorrow morning.


L3 groupe de 11h

The videos and the other things I promised will be here tomorrow morning.


Agrégation 2021. The BBC 1922-1995 and public service broadcasting. Post 38: more key dates

 

Some more important events.

 

I recommend you make up your own timeline of the BBC, where you will place events which you think are key. Here are a few dates taken from the BBC online history feature « on this day ».

 

1953 The day the House of Lords vote their approval  for the introduction of commercial TV

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/26/newsid_4032000/4032711.stm

 

1975 BBC presenter Ross McWhirter assassinated

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/27/newsid_2528000/2528787.stm

 

1983 TV cameras introduced into the House of  Lords (the House of Commons agreed later, but this decision showed a new view of what lawmaking should be, and what broadcasting should be.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/8/newsid_2536000/2536517.stm

 

 

 

Monday, November 09, 2020

Great photographs by a Frenchman in Glasgow

 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-54800689 

Questions of constitution

 

Questions of constitutions.

 

I invited you to send me questions by email and someone sent me a question about constitutional monarchies, parliamentary democracies and anglophone countries. Thank you to them.

They pointed out that some of the expressions used can be a little confusing – what is the difference between a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy, and which epithets apply best to which countries?

 

A constitutional monarchy is a state which has a king or queen, but in which their powers are limited to what is written in a constitution or accepted in an unwritten constitution. This is more or less in distinction with an absolute monarchy. In Britain, before the English Revolution (or as some people call it, the English civil war), the king could impose some taxes on his own initiative, dissolve parliament and rule without it if it suited him, and so on. This was one of the reasons behind the civil war in England, which opposed parliament and king (note that at this time parliament did not represent democracy, which was still considered an extreme idea – parliament was elected by rich people only).

After the republic under Cromwell, the son of the executed king was asked to come back and be king again. However, as one scholar has said « what has been written by the sword cannot be undone by the pen » and so the king came back under very different conditions. He could no longer rule without parliament, and shortly afterwards it was enacted that parliament should decide how much money he received – paying him a salary in effect. This was now a constitutional monarchy, and the fact that the constitution was not a single written document did not change much.

All the countries which Elizabeth is queen of today (including Australia, Canada and New Zealand) are of course constitutional monarchies, as are Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands etc.

 The expression « parliamentary democracy » refers to the fact that the parliament is at the centre of decision making (it may be a bicameral or a monocameral parliament). So, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and many more are parliamentary democracies. In general the head of state in a parliamentary democracy has mostly a symbolic role. The centre of power is the Prime Minister, responsible at least in theory to parliament.

Other democracies like France or the USA are presidential systems. The parliament is important, but the most important decision maker is the president. In these countries the head of state is not a symbolic role.


You will find here an explanation of Britain's unwritten constitution


https://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/articles/britains-unwritten-constitution#:~:text=Unlike%20most%20modern%20states%2C%20Britain,now%20have%20a%20written%20constitution.


And here a recent argument about the subject


https://www.euronews.com/2019/09/07/does-the-uk-need-a-written-constitution


Send me by email other questions you have!

Week 7 : this week’s classes

 

Week 7 : this week’s classes

Every week there will be this summary (on Monday or Sunday) of how the classes will go.

 

Tuesday L3 British Popular culture since 1945

Groupe de 11h

There will be a short zoom meeting at 11 :30am. The link will be posted here an hour before. Prepare the questions you have, which you will be able to put live or in the chat.

Then there will be a couple of my video lectures posted here, which you may watch when you wish.

In the zoom class I will give you the homework assignment which is replacing the classroom test this semester. You have one month to do it.

 

Groupe de 15h30

There will be a short zoom meeting at 4pm. The link will be posted here an hour before. Prepare the questions you have, which you will be able to put live or in the chat.

Then there will be a couple of my video lectures posted here, which you may watch when you wish.

In the zoom class I will give you the homework assignment which is replacing the classroom test this semester. You have one month to do it.

 

Agrégation : La BBC et le service public de l’audiovisuel 1922-1995

The class (17h05 – 18h05) will take place on zoom. Everything will be explained. The link will be posted here shortly before

 

Wednesday classes

Wednesday is a bank holiday this week.

Check the blog during the week, though, as there will be some video links to keep you thinking.

Sunday, November 08, 2020

Writing history, and Trump

 I have been working a lot on what it means to write history, and this article on Donald Trump is a useful contribution.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/09/18/trump-doesnt-understand-history-any-more-he-understands-epidemics 

What the London papers say

 On the day Trump’s defeat was announced 








Saturday, November 07, 2020

Agrégation anglais 2021 La BBC 1922-1959. Post 37: women in the BBC in the 1920s

 Of course, the BBC was massively male-dominated in the 1920s, and of course large numbers of women worked in the home bringing up children and keeping house. But there were also millions of women in work (the percentage of women in work varied greatly from town to town, depending on the availability of work in local factories), and some of them made an impact in the BBC. This article tells a part of their story.


https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36129328

Friday, November 06, 2020

Agrégation anglais 2021 BBC 1922-1995 Post 36 : Opening titles 1960s

 

Agrégation anglais 2021 BBC 1922-1995 Post 36 : Opening titles 1960s

Here are some very short videos with opening sequences from classic BBC shows from the 1960s (although two of them lasted for several decades). They help to grasp something of the atmosphere.

 

Dr Who https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNszKKAtEwU

Z cars https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKiWcTg5cg0

Top of the Pops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su9JwDTVXSA

Wednesday, November 04, 2020

BBC 1922 to 1995 agrégation anglais 2021. Post 35. The Wednesday Play

 This political play by Denis Potter was one of the well known series presented in The Wednesday Play. It was firs5 broadcast in 1965. Supporters of the BBC are generally proud of the series, which helped launch the career of Ken Loach, among others.

https://youtu.be/RD8zuTLfq48 

Week 6 Master 1 seminar on the First World War

 

This is the last class concerning the first world war, and it is entirely  composed of videos which I have filmed and links I am suggesting.

If you have any questions, do send me an email john.mullen at univ hyphen rouen dot fr

 

Here is chapter 10, introducing commemoration. (35 min)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWtFSLdPUFs

Here is chapter 11, looking at local and family pride (35 min)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u6hicBWuck&

Here is chapter 12, looking at activist approaches to commemoration (35 min)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF6V8qwf-Tg&

Here is the short Christmas Truce video mentioned in the classes (4 mins)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWF2JBb1bvM

The hit song from 1918 “Oh, it’s a lovely war” (3 mins)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6RnirpFaZk

Important debate between historians at the British Library. How should we remember the First World War? (90 mins)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvr7UJI47UM

 

  

 

 

Week 6 M1 MEEF Civilisation britannique : Migrations, inclusion, diversité

 

MEEF M1 British civilization class (which would have been at 9 O Clock)

In the next few weeks, some of the classes will be recorded on video (as you have seen in recent weeks). Other classes, or parts of classes, will be live via BBB or zoom.

This week, everything is video, nothing is live. But check here again during the week, because there will be new information on the blog for you.

 

For this week, chapter 9 of my own lectures is here.  

https://youtu.be/XydkFVtog_k

This is an introduction to the question of “migrations, diversité et inclusion” and the concepts and debates which surround these issues in the very specific case of the UK. In this domain, the UK is very different both from France and from the USA (if you are ever tempted to write “le modèle anglo-saxon” stop that immediately : it is nonsense).

 

And here is chapter 10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvWlHNK8bVk

This is the first in a series of chapters examining different minority communities, and giving a very brief sketch of their histories and a look at a few well-known figures from their group. Of course, today, in the UK, this is mostly a question not of immigrants but of grandchildren or great grandchildren of immigrants. I will be looking at Irish and South East Asian and Caribbean. In this chapter I look at Jewish immigration.

 

Literature, Television and cinema have sometimes wanted to explain and portray the experience of minority communities. I recommend you have a look at this “reality TV” series about  the Jewish community in Manchester.

Here is episode one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfVy5uwwktA

 

If you have been following the news, you will have seen M Blanquer saying that there has been a rise in our universities of dangerous approaches, coming from English-speaking countries, to the study of identity or of ethnic minorities. As I imagine you guessed, I do not agree with him, but it is up to you to think about this.

 

Monday, November 02, 2020

Communiqué de l'Association française d'études américaines

 


Communiqué du bureau de l’AFEA en réponse aux propos du ministre de l'Éducation Nationale sur les universitaires:


Le 16 octobre dernier, notre collègue Samuel Paty, professeur d’histoire-géographie au collège du Bois-d’Aulne de Conflans Sainte Honorine, a été assassiné de la façon la plus atroce qui soit pour avoir enseigné un cours sur la liberté d’expression. Jamais un enseignant n’avait été la cible d’un attentat meurtrier dans l’exercice de sa mission. Devant l’horreur de ce crime sans précédent qui frappe l’enseignement en son cœur, le bureau de l’Association Française d’Études Américaines souhaite exprimer sa plus vive émotion, et réaffirme avec Jean Zay que « les écoles doivent rester l’asile inviolable où les querelles des hommes ne pénètrent pas ». Cet attentat ne vise pas que l’éducation secondaire mais l’enseignement dans son ensemble, car il cherche à détruire l’une de nos missions les plus fondamentales, celle de former des esprits libres et d’en aiguiser le sens critique. En tant qu’enseignants-chercheurs, nous exerçons cette mission auprès de nos étudiant.e.s de premier cycle, mais également dans le cadre de la formation de nos futur.e.s collègues des collèges et lycées, auxquels nous sommes lié.e.s par un engagement et un destin communs. Plus que jamais, nous tenons à leur exprimer toute notre solidarité et à les assurer de tout notre soutien.

La sidération et l’effroi que suscite un tel acte rendent d’autant plus intolérable sa récupération indigne par le ministre de l’Éducation Nationale, qui, le 22 octobre sur Europe 1 et devant le Sénat, a prétendu que l’Université était infiltrée par « des courants islamo-gauchistes très puissants [qui] font des ravages » et qui, dans un entretien au JDD publié le 25 octobre 2020, réitère ces accusations sur fond d’ignorance accablante des théories qu’il cite : « Il y a un combat à mener contre une matrice intellectuelle venue des universités américaines et des thèses intersectionnelles qui veulent essentialiser les communautés et les identités, aux antipodes du modèle républicain qui, lui, postule l’égalité entre les êtres humains, indépendamment de leurs caractéristiques d’origine, de sexe, de religion. C’est le terreau d’une fragmentation des sociétés qui converge avec le modèle islamique. »

Cette ingérence du ministre de l’EN dans les débats théoriques et les enseignements est d’autant plus stupéfiante que les universitaires ont une ministre, de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche, dont le silence assourdissant de ces derniers jours est plus qu’inquiétant. On entend d’ailleurs dans les propos de M. Blanquer l’écho délibéré des propos d’Emmanuel Macron qui, d’après Le Monde du 11 juin 2020 avait estimé le monde universitaire « coupable» d’avoir « ethnicisé le débat social en pensant que c’était un bon filon » et accusait les universitaires d’avoir « coupé en deux la République. » Il s’agit donc là d’attaques organisées, du type que l’on attendrait de l’alt right américaine, ou d’un gouvernement d’extrême droite en France, mais certainement pas d’un gouvernement se réclamant d’un esprit républicain.

En tant qu’américanistes, nous souhaitons rappeler au ministre et au président de la République ce que signifie l’intersectionnalité, théorisée par Kimberlé Crenshaw. Il s’agit, aux antipodes de ce que prétendent l’un et l’autre, d’étudier les multiples rapports de domination (rapports de classe, de genre, effets du racisme systémique, etc.). C’est un outil essentiel pour mettre en lumière les discriminations multiples dans une société, y compris lorsqu’elle a pour devise « liberté, égalité, fraternité », la devise n’ayant aucune valeur performative et l’égalité postulée n’étant pas une réalité concrète. C’est parce que l’intersectionnalité vise précisément à déconstruire les identités, à les dé-essentialiser, afin de lutter concrètement contre toutes les inégalités qu’elle offusque Valeurs Actuelles, mais aussi tout gouvernement dont les politiques augmenterait lesdites inégalités.

Les américanistes de l’AFEA, qui ont vocation à étudier le monde américain dans son intégralité et sa complexité, ne se laisseront dicter ni leurs lectures, ni leurs paradigmes théoriques, ni leurs enseignements par quelque gouvernement que ce soit. Les propos visiblement concertés du président Macron et du ministre de l'EN mettent à mal la liberté constitutionnelle qui est celle des universitaires. Il semblerait que le gouvernement actuel s’imagine avoir déjà éliminé ces protections constitutionnelles au moment où il s’attaque, de fait, via la loi de programmation de la recherche (LPR) au statut des enseignants-chercheurs. N’ayant pu venir à bout de leur opposition quasi unanime à son projet, il choisit de les vilipender dans les médias, pratique poujadiste s’il en est.

On appréciera le cynisme d’un gouvernement se prétendant le chantre de la liberté d’expression, et qui, sur fond d’une tragédie qui nous a toutes et tous bouleversés – l’assassinat de Samuel Paty – essaie précisément de museler les universitaires et de faire d’eux des boucs émissaires. Le bureau de l’AFEA continuera de défendre la liberté des enseignants chercheurs américanistes, et au-delà, la liberté d’expression dans notre République, contre toutes les attaques, quelles qu’elles soient.


Agrégation anglais 2021 La BBC et le service public de l’audiovisuel 1922-1995 Post 34 : Revising British history 1950-1995

 

Agrégation anglais 2021 La BBC et le service public de l’audiovisuel 1922-1995 Post 34 : revising British history 1950-1995

 

The BBC responded in myriad ways as it developed :  to government pressure, to elite priorities and to popular demand. The link with the general social and political history is not direct and immediate (BBC programmes did not suddenly change the day Margaret Thatcher was elected). Nevertheless, a feeling for the social and political priorities of different groups in different decades is essential. This means revising your British history of the Twentieth century.

For the period 1950- 1995, you could do worse than watch these three half-hour videos, which I actually made for another completely different class.

 

1950-1968 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxuFAd64vY0&feature=youtu.be

1968-1981 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpva_YfbmwM&feature=youtu.be

1981 onwards   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEJhMiBDWbE&feature=youtu.be

 

 

Sunday, November 01, 2020