The Cassandra Journalists (1848–1940). (2nd October 2017) - Thérenty, Marie-Ève
ABSTRACT: This article examines the strategies available to women journalists in the nineteenth century. It focuses in particular on the voice of Cassandra adopted by Marie d'Agoult at the time of the 1848 revolution. D'Agoult created a new journalistic model which included three specific features: the assumption of a poetic, prophetic, and apocalyptic voice in order to announce disaster; the explicit invocation of the figure of Cassandra; and a dramatic practice of 'coming out' which meant dropping the disguise of masculinity. For those rare women who, in the wake of d'Agoult, managed to write about politics in newspapers and periodicals at the end of the nineteenth century, the reference to Cassandra was almost inevitable, as illustrated by the careers of Juliette Adam, Claude Vignon and Séverine. This practice of women's journalism endures into the twentieth century, taken up in particular by Louise Weiss and Geneviève Tabouis when fascism was on the rise.