New publications by Isabelle Marc

Article and book review published.

Isabelle Marc has recently published, in French, an article and a review of a book by a co-founder of the Popular Culture Research Network (out of which the Research Group grew).

Isabelle’s article ‘Plaisirs et fictions de la chanson française’ explores French chanson as a form of "middlebrow" culture in contemporary France, legitimised both by cultural institutions and by commercial success. The article analyses chanson in relation to other forms of popular music and describes how its aesthetic features (concision, repetition, narrativity, the use of French language, ellipsis and so on) are essential to understanding its unquestionable success among audiences in contemporary France. Chanson, she summarises, is a form able to overcome the traditional aesthetic divide between high culture and low culture.

Her review of David Looseley’s book on Edith Piaf is available here.