No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

The crisis in modern foreign languages (MFL) appears to have no end in sight. As I write, my alma mater, Glasgow University in the UK, has just announced plans to cut many of its language programmes. Unless the protests currently being mounted are successful, it will soon no longer be possible to read a degree in German, Italian or Slavonic Studies (including Russian, Polish and Czech) in the west of Scotland. What distinguishes this latest proposal from many which have preceded it is Glasgow's status as a member of the UK's prestigious Russell Group of universities, a collection of 20 institutions in which, according to Jim Coleman's article in this issue, MFL teaching has become increasingly concentrated over recent years. Meanwhile, also in Scotland, the economic crisis is beginning to bite language provision outside the domain of higher education: Scottish councils have just announced that posts for native language assistants-who, through conversation classes, have traditionally offered pupils a glimpse of language learning beyond the constraints of examinations-will be cut by 50% in 2011-12. The move is likely to depress the numbers of students making the transition from studying languages at secondary school to studying languages at undergraduate level. Despite the public commitment of both the UK and Scottish governments to supporting the study of languages-as Hannah Doughty describes in this issue, in Scotland language study has been designated a 'priority subject'announcements such as those above have been met with indifference by the public, which appears to agree with the government's utilitarian thinking on the need for investment in vocational degrees which will directly benefit the economy. Under current policies, science, technology, engineering and mathematics degrees (so-called 'STEM' subjects) are to be supported along with the training of doctors, dentists and so on, whilst it is likely that from 2012 the UK government will phase out funding of the English undergraduate teaching

Since decolonisation, the increase in immigration from France's former colonies in North Africa has prompted metropolitan writers to reconsider conceptions of French society. In their novels, Tournier and Hocquenghem present contemporary France through the defamiliarising eyes of a North African immigrant who serves as a device for the critique of French culture. This article investigates the opposition between the objectifying culture of the West, and the immigrants' desert culture. It argues that this opposition is flawed, and that the division is between actual practices of seeing and the cultural discourses around vision.Depuis la décolonisation, l'augmentation du taux d'immigration en provenance des pays du Maghreb a poussé les auteurs de la métropole à modifier leur vision de la société française. Dans leurs romans, Tournier et Hocquenghem présentent la France contemporaine, vue par un immigré maghrébin au regard défamiliarisant qui sert de vecteur à la critique de la société française. Cet article observe l'opposition entre la culture occidentale réifiante, et la culture des gens du désert, tout en démontrant que cette opposition est fausse et que la division se situe entre le regard effectif et le discours théorique du regard.