The notion of «exposure» underlies much modern thinking about identity, representation, ethics, desire and sexuality. This provocative notion is explored in a collection of essays selected from, and inspired by, the proceedings of a conference held in the Department of French at the University of Cambridge in 2002. The authors engage with exposure as both object and mode of representation in a range of cultural media: literature, critical theory, visual art and film. They analyse a variety of works from the medieval, early-modern, and modern periods, examining not only canonical texts such as Montaigne¿s Essais but also lesser-studied works such as the psychoanalytic theory of Didier Anzieu, the photomontage self-portraits of Claude Cahun, and the novel La Nouvelle Pornographie by Marie Nimier. This volume thus both illustrates and, more importantly, interrogates the richness of the term «exposure», in a way that is stimulating for students and researchers alike.

Contents: Marc Lafrance: Exposing the Body: Didier Anzieu and the Psychoanalysis of Skin - Rakhee Balaram: Blood, Sweat and Tears: Exposing the Limits of the Body in écriture féminine - Elza Adamowicz: 'Sous ce masque, un autre masque': Claude Cahun's Photomontages - D. C. Andersson: 'Th' Expense of Spirit in a Waste of Shame': Exposures of the Self in Montaigne - Rima Devereaux: Exposing Narratives: Truth, Crime and the Body in Marques de Rome - Simon Kemp: Unmasking the Detective-Murderer in the Novels of Alain Robbe-Grillet - Simon Gaunt: Exposing the Secrets of the Heart in Medieval Narrative - Mary Anne Franks: Controlled Exposures: Coubert's L'Origine du monde and the Woman-Thing - Libby Saxton: Through the Spy-Hole: Indecent Exposures on Screen - Cathy Wardle: Exposing Female Desire: Narrative, Romance and Pornography in Marie Nimier's La Novelle Pornographie - Alain Viala: What the Theatre Exposes.