France is used to considering itself the intellectual center of the world, a place where universal values of reason are cultivated. Today this idea is experiencing a crisis, and more and more publications are appearing in different countries that explore the boundaries, origins and prospects of French intellectual culture, its place in the diverse world culture of thought and verbal creativity. This book is compiled from works of this kind, covering the status of the French language in culture, the international fate of the so-called “new French theory”, the connection of intellectual life with politics, the figure of the “intellectual” as a conductor of the values of reason in everyday social life. The book also includes materials from the Russian-French colloquium on Maurice Blanchot, an outstanding representative of French literature and intellectual culture of the 20th century, and a bibliographic index “French humanitarian thought in Russian translations, 1995–2004.” For specialists in cultural studies, philosophy, theory and history of literature.