From The Editor's Desk

Seventy-five years! A diamond jubilee! That is what we are celebrating in this Special Issue of the French Review. In fact, we are celebrating two diamond anniversaries: that of both the American Association of Teachers of French and its official journal, the French Review. It only happens once, and here we are. Our association and journal began in 1927, in the midst of the Roaring Twenties-the "années folles"-as the French called them. The period was also the time of the Jazz Age, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Lost Generation. So we are in excellent company. Since diamonds are bright and sparkling, it seemed to me that our cover should sparkle. And no one sparkled more than Josephine Baker, who first traveled to Paris in 1925 along with Sidney Bechet and La Revue Nègre after starring on Broadway. By 1927 Josephine owned her own club, Chez Josephine, and a French journalist, Pierre Coiselet, described her entrance: "Midnight. A sea of bare shoulders and dinner jackets in a red, cream and gold décor. Pearls and ear-rings out of an Arabian Night . . . drinking, eating. There is an air of despair: the flesh is weak. Jazz music howls and wails. . . . All of a sudden something shimmers through the room. Applause, shouts, commotion: Josephine Baker has just made her entrance" (Qtd. From Tyler Stovall's Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1995: 55). Not only did we share our entrance with Josephine Baker in 1927-we also share some of her ideals in appealing to an international community committed to mutual understanding, something she undertook in her concept of the Family of Man and creation of an international community composed of children of different nationalities and all races (the Rainbow Tribe) in the 1950s at her château, Les Milandes, in the Périgord.

To help you enjoy the party, we have included a reprint of an essay by Charles A. Downer, the first President of the AATF, who introduced the organization in the inaugural issue of the French Review in November of 1927. The first twenty-five years of the AATF are presented by Julian Harris, another former President, in a message first published in April 1953. Former President Jacques Hardré's recapitulation of the next twenty-five years is reprinted from the March 1978 issue. Finally, Fred M. Jenkins and Jayne Abrate, former and current Executive Directors, bring us up to date on the last twenty-five years. But our moveable feast does not end there. There are also messages and reflections from eight other Presidents, including our current President, Jean-Pierre Piriou. Additionally, we have a remembrance of the Société Honoraire de Français from its Executive Director of nearly thirty years, Stephen J. Foster, and a piece on the "Creative Works" rubric from Gervais E. Reed, Assistant Editor for Creative Works for the past ten years. We close this section with a remarkable "insider's" view of our organization by April K. Walsh, who has served over twenty-five years as Administrative Assistant to the AATF.

We are especially grateful to have received messages of congratulations from the Ambassadeur de France aux Etats-Unis, Son Excellence François Bujon de l'Estang; from the Directeur général de la Coopération internationale et du Développement, Ministère des Affaires étrangères de France, Bruno Delaye; from the Ministre d'Etat aux Relations internationales, du Québec et Ministre responsable de la francophonie et Ministre responsable de l'Observatoire de la Mondialisation, Québec, Louise Beaudoin; and from the Président de la Fédération Internationale des Professeurs de Français, Dario Pagel.

Even though dessert is offered you first, we still present a wide selection of articles as a main course, reflecting several of the many realms of French and Francophone literature, pedagogy, and society and culture. The first selection, a reprint of Melva Lind's "A Dean of Women Looks at Foreign Language Study," originally published in February of 1952, is a healthy reminder of the humanistic values served by the French language and the perspectives those values offer to those who undertake to study French in a serious way. Kathryn St. Ours takes up the classic La Symphonie Pastorale by Gide and shows us how to teach it to intermediate level students. Edward C. Knox investigates how the New York Times continues to offer a stereotypical view of the French, and S. Pascale Dewey reminds us that the French franc has been displaced by the euro, perhaps a sign of a coming reformulation of French identity within the New Europe. Brigitte E. Humbert looks at La Religieuse of Diderot and Laclos's Les Liaisons dangereuses and their filmic versions to enhance our teaching of them. Laurence M. Porter offers us a magisterial état présent of nineteenth-century French Studies, and Michael O'Riley underscores the importance of Francophone literature in the post-colonial period in "Translation and Imperialism in Assia Djebar's Les Nuits de Strasbourg."

It is fascinating to see how continuity accompanies change over the seventy-five years of the AATF. Therefore, it is no surprise to find that many of our "Reflections" take up the question of downturns in membership and language study generally, leading me to conclude that this is a cyclical phenomenon which we must deal with on an on-going basis. There are also pleasant surprises. Julian Harris comments, for example, that spoken French was taught as early as 1928 in the United States. For my part, I am delighted to note that the entire Winter Olympics were presented in both English and French, signaling the continuing important role of French as a truly international language to millions of viewers world-wide.

In closing I want to take up a remark made by former AATF President Rebecca Valette in her essay. She quotes another former President, Georges Joyaux, a wonderful man who shared my predilection for Georges Brassens. Joyaux said "Tout le monde est important!" in reference to the AATF and its membership. There is no question about the truth of this statement, and our seventy-fifth anniversary celebration brings it home even more forcefully. Just consult the tables in this issue to see how many people have been involved in our organization in a myriad of ways. Then go beyond this to consider every member in every classroom and at every chapter meeting. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of people over the seventy-five years of our existence, and they have provided the meat to the bones of our history. With this in mind I want to thank the hundreds who have served as Review Editors, Assistant Editors, Advertising Managers, and Managing Editors for the French Review during the life of the journal. I have calculated that the current editorial board has contributed somewhere on the order of 400 years of service-and without monetary reward. This kind of dedication is remarkable, but without it the French Review could simply not exist.

I want to offer special thanks to two of my predecessors, Sterling Haig, who set a particularly high standard for the French Review, and Ronald W. Tobin, who maintained that standard and brought further recognition to the journal. I also thank James P. Gilroy, Managing Editor during my first "mandat," and Clyde Thogmartin, our current Managing Editor, who has done a masterful job of editing the current, impressive and imposing volume. No one but those who have carried out this Herculean task know both its unending demands and ineffable pleasures. J. Moss Hartt, Director of Communication Services at Montana State University, helped me find our cover photo in the Bettmann Archive, and Ronnie Moore, our typesetter extraordinaire, has put it all together.

Finally, thanks to you our readers, who always demand the best of both the AATF and the French Review. It is a pleasure and an honor to celebrate this seventy-fifth anniversary banquet with you. Do plan to attend both the AATF convention and our banquet in Boston.

Christopher P. Pinet