French Literature Reviews - 2026

Tangence, Anniversary Issue
Other Literary Studies

Anniversary Issue
Tangence in Other Words: Nine Emblematic Articles for a Double Anniversary (217 p.)
Special Issue

This special issue marks the double anniversary of the journal, which in 2006 celebrated its 25th year (founded in 1981 as Urgences before becoming Tangence) and its 20 years of association with the academic community (published by the Department of Literature at the Université du Québec à Rimouski since 1986, and co-published by the Department of Literature and Social Communication at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières since 2000). This special edition brings together a curated selection of emblematic articles.

Any such selection, even when collective and made in good faith, remains inherently subjective. Nevertheless, the collection of texts presented here offers a fairly faithful portrait of the journal, highlighting its evolution into a scholarly publication committed to a broad, interdisciplinary perspective. This openness is evident nationally and internationally (ranging from the European Republic of Letters to transcultural Francophone literatures), diachronically (from the 16th-century Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois to postmodernism), and disciplinarily (with most studies situated at the tangential intersection of diverse fields of knowledge).

We invite our readers to join us in wishing Tangence a long and prosperous life, and in reaffirming its core mission: exploring the intersections of literature with the arts and philosophy, as well as the humanities and the exact sciences. By doing so, the journal encourages us to rethink literature beyond the narrow confines of a single nation or theoretical discipline, fostering a synthesis of knowledge through shared reflection.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Tangence in Other Words: Nine Emblematic Articles for a Double Anniversary
Marc André Bernier, André Gervais, Lucie Guillemette, and Claude La Charité

The Time After History and Postmodernism
Pierre Ouellet
(no. 39, March 1993, pp. 112–131)

Paulin Gagne, the Poet Who Made People Laugh at Him
Pierre Popovic
(no. 53, December 1996, pp. 76–101)

The Perception of Resemblances: Threaded Metaphors in Poussin's Daphne and Apollo
Clélia Nau
(no. 69, Summer 2002, pp. 27–54)

Expressing and Reading Exile in African Literature
Justin K. Bisanswa
(no. 71, Winter 2003, pp. 27–39)

Transatlantic Cultural Transfers and the Circulation of Knowledge in Popular Cultures: The Case of Benjamin Franklin's Almanacs
Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink
(no. 72, Summer 2003, pp. 27–40)

Diderot and the Weather: Portrait of the Writer as a Meteorologist
Thierry Belleguic
(no. 73, Autumn 2003, pp. 9–37)

Transcultural Memory as the Foundation of the African Subject in Mudimbe and Ngal
Josias Semujanga
(no. 75, Summer 2004, pp. 15–39)

Speaking of Oneself, Speaking to the Other: Marguerite de Valois and Her Interlocutors
Éliane Viennot
(no. 77, Winter 2005, pp. 37–59)

Towards a Proper Memory of 18th-Century Canadian Archives
Bernard Andrès
(no. 78, Summer 2005, pp. 9–19)

Appendices
Questions of Urgencies
The Editorial Board of the Journal
(no. 1, 2nd quarter 1981, pp. 3–4)

Introduction to Tangence
Robert Dion and Élisabeth Haghebaert
(no. 35, March 1992, p. 5)

History of the Journal: The "Eras" of Urgences/Tangence
André Gervais

Academic journals in the humanities frequently use milestone anniversary issues to reflect upon their institutional evolution, editorial trajectories, and disciplinary scope. Founded initially under the title Urgences before adopting its current name, Tangence established formal ties with university departments to foster collaborative scholarship within the academic community. Such retrospective collections typically gather previously published contributions that mirror the shifting methodological orientations of a periodical over decades of publication, capturing how editors curate their scholarly heritage for both contemporary readers and institutional archives.

This special anniversary issue presents a curated selection of nine emblematic articles alongside historical appendices documenting the journal's trajectory from its inception. The contents reflect an interdisciplinary editorial outlook spanning diverse periods and geographies, ranging from sixteenth-century memoirs and eighteenth-century letters to postmodernism, African literatures, and transatlantic cultural transfers. Readers interested in the history of Francophone academic publishing and interdisciplinary literary studies may find this commemorative volume a relevant overview of scholarly inquiry at the intersections of literature, philosophy, and the arts.