 | Bande de Filles: Girlhood Identities in Contemporary France Few films in the twenty-first century have represented coming-of-age with the beauty and brutality of Bande de Filles (or Girlhood ). This book provides an in-depth examination of Céline Sciamma's film, focusing on its portrayal of female adolescence in contemporary Paris. Motivated by the absence of black female characters in French cinema, Sciamma represents the lives of figures that have passed largely unnoticed on the big screen. While observing the girls' tough circumstances, Sciamma's film emphasises the joy and camaraderie found in female friendships. This book places Girlhood in its cinematic as well as its sociocultural context. Pop music, urban violence, and female friendships are all considered here in a book that draws out the complexity of Sciamma's deceptively simple portrayal of coming-of-age. Thoughtful, concise, and deeply contemporary, this book is perfect for students, scholars, and general readers interested in youth cultures, European cinema, gender, and sexuality. Frances Smith Foster is an educator, writer, editor, and scholar. Since 1994, Foster has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in African American literature at Emory University. She is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of English and women's studies where her courses have focused on women's writings and the narratives of slaves, as well as the role of Afro-Protestantism in African American cultural life. Foster is a charter member of the Womanist Studies Consortium, an interracial affiliation of scholars that supports feminist research on women of color. Foster has published Written by Herself: Literary Production by African American Women, 1746-1892 and Minnie's Sacrifice, Sowing and Reaping and Trial and Triumph: Three Rediscovered Novels by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. She served as editor of The Norton Anthology of African American Literature and The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. (Bowker Author Biography) |
