"Petite planète". Analysis and History of a collection of Portraits of countries

This PhD thesis concern the French book’s collection “Petite Planète” (Le Seuil). It is a part of a larger FWO research project: “La Fabrique des Pays. Les collections de portraits de pays phototextuels (1950-1980)” directed by David Martens (KULeuven) in collaboration with Jean-Pierre Montier (University of Renne 2), François Vallotton (University of Lausane) and Galia Yanoshevsky (Bar-Ilan University). David Martens is also the director of this PhD thesis. The co-direction is assumed by Jean-Pierre Montier. The collection “Petite Planète” contain more than sixty books and was leaded in, on his beginning, by Chris Marker. This collection depict as many countries as there are books. Specificities of this one are a pocket-sized format – rendering it easily consumable by customers – an ironic tone about stereotypes present in other collections of the genre of portrait of countries and a deep focus on political and economic facts of the depicted countries. The main issues are separated on three goals. The first one intends to draw up the history of the collection “Petite Planète”, put it back in its historical context (Cold War, decolonization, globalization, de-industrialization, development of mass tourism, etc.), and in the context of book’s edition, more specifically of others collections of portraits of countries. The second goal is to analyse this collection and the composition of the books themselves. A focus will be placed, on the one hand, on the text (analyse of discourse, stereotypes, …) and, on the other hand, on iconography, especially photography. The analyse of relation between text and photography is the third and last goal. In this perspective, the PhD thesis develop an important interdisciplinary perspective at the crossing of history of the books and of photography, visual studies, discourse analysis, literary history and heritage studies. It will permitted also the comparison with others collections of portraits of countries like the “Albums des Guides Bleus” (Hachette) or the books published by La Guilde du livre (Lausanne). As regards feasibility, this PhD studies will essentially focus on two sources: the collection “Petite Planète” – that is conserved in the library of the KULeuven among others, it is therefore easy to access in its entirety. It also works on the archives of the collection who is preserved and accessible to researchers at the IMEC (Institut Mémoire de l’Édition Contemporaine), situated near Caen in the north of France.