When: Friday, 20 September, 2–3pm
Where: 407 Babel Building, The University of Melbourne Parkville Campus
Professor Julie Kalman, Monash University
“The Asterix Series as National Myth in Postwar France“
In October 1967, there was a first in France: the Floralies internationales. Lasting six months and located outside Orléans, this was the largest, and longest flower show to be held in the country. An equal first took place just across the river from the show. This was the first theme park ever built in France: a Gaulish village, Floralix. Visitors could see a chief’s house, a covered market, a bard’s house on stilts, as well as a Roman camp. At the entrance to the village, an imposing statue of a little moustachioed Gaul welcomed visitors. The inscription on the plinth read: “To Asterix, with gratitude, Floralix”. Floralix is just one example of the many ways the Asterix series seized the national imagination from the 1960s. It remains the most successful publishing story in French history. From the publication of the first volume in 1961, to the end of that century, 320 million Asterix books were sold in France. This paper will explore the significance of this success: how the Asterix series became the national myth in the post-war, but also, how its rise was a reflection of and facilitated by France’s trente glorieuses.
Presenter
Julie Kalman is Professor of History at Monash University. She is a cultural historian, interested in histories of nationalism in French, Jewish, and Australian contexts. She has published on the effects of Jewish emancipation on the non-Jewish world, ranging across French, British, and Mediterranean settings. She has also published on the history of migration to Australia, and the Eurovision Song Contest. Her most recent book, The Kings of Algiers: How Two Jewish Families Shaped the Mediterranean World during the Napoleonic Wars and Beyond, was published in 2023 by Princeton University Press.