La république des « humeurs » : Les querelles dans le dictionnaire de Bayle

Quarrelling is a ‘routine’ activity of the Republic of Letters. This article demonstrates that quarrels played a key role in the field of historical criticism. The contention of this article is twofold. First, it explores the epistemological issues raised by Bayle while reporting the quarrels of the Republic of Letters, and demonstrates their creative potential, thus applying to historiography conclusions drawn by recent research on scientific controversies. It offers a new understanding of scholarly quarrels, here understood as a socially and intellectually structuring activity. Second, this article takes issue with the debate over Bayle’s historical pyrrhonism. As will be shown, the quarrels constitute a key element within a method of writing history that is both conscious of its limits and confident of its investigative powers     

Le Concept de « Démocratie Raciale » dans L’Histoire Intellectuelle Brésilienne

This article aims to reconstruct the history of the term “racial democracy” in Brazilian sociological literature. This term, usually associated with the idea of “myth”, is used in many studies of race relations without little definition or clarity. This article retraces its origins, in particular by showing that the concept is not the invention of Gilberto Freyre. It then examines the evolution of its use with particular emphasis on Unesco’s research in the 1950s and the texts of Florestan Fernandes in the 1960s.     

« Ne nous engageons point dans les querelles » : Un projet de guerre perpétuelle ?

This article considers the extent to which a quarrel might be a strategic activity for a writer or philosopher making a bid for posterity. Inveterate quarrellers like Voltaire or Rousseau come to mind, but the case to be examined here is the far less straightforward case of Diderot and in particular the stance of ‘accidental quarreller’ that he fabricates in his Essai sur les règnes de Claude et de Néron et sur les moeurs et les écrits de Sénèque pour servir à l’introduction de la lecture de ce philosophe (1782), the last work he published in his lifetime. The article argues that the Essai constitutes what might be called a « quarrel-text », that is to say a text that stages the quarrel of which it is itself the object and, in so doing, reignites it; it analyses the stance adopted by the philosopher-quarreller as it is revealed in the paradoxical utterance « ne nous engageons point dans les querelles », the performative qualities of which are explored in detail.     

Les «Faits scientifiques» et leur public: l’histoire de la détection de la syphilis

In the 1910's and 1920', thanks to the conjunction of scientific views concerning the specificity of anti-bacterial antibodies, of lay ideas about the existence of anti-bacterial antibodies and of the perceived importance of developing a syphilis test for public health officials, the community of serologists collectively transformed a relatively inefficient diagnostic test described by Wassermann in 1906 into an "incontestable scientific fact". This "scientific fact" established the equivalence: Wassermann positive individual=person infected with the germ Treponema pallidum, the etiological agent of syphilis. It modified the boundaries of the nosologic entity "syphilis", medical practices, professional attitudes, lay perceptions of syphilis, and health policies. In the 1950's, however, discrepancies between Wassermann test data and epidemiological data and, on the other hand, the development of specific anti-treponemal tests, destabilized the previously stabilized "scientific fact". A high percentage of Wassermann positive individuals were redefined as "biological false positifs", that is persons who suffered from chronic affections able to induce positive results of the Wassermann test. The equivalence Wassermann positive person=individual infected by Treponema pallidum was replaced by the equation: Wassermann positive person=individual infected by Treponema pallidum or biological false positive. The new perception of the Wassermann test again changed scientific views, professional practices and lay beliefs. The history of the Wassermann reaction illustrates the complicated interaction between "scientific facts" and "social facts", and the mutual shaping of both.     

La scission et le développement dans la tradition de l’écriture féminine de Chen Ran

Le roman de Chen Ran陈染Siren shenghuo 私人生活(La vie privée) constitue la vie d’une jeune femme, Ni Niuniu, qui vivait dans une métropole chinoise dans une époque de grands changements. Chen Ran a dévoilé la propre expérience de sa vie intime pour concrétiser son image de soi et d’autrui,son style de narration de la vie avec sa volonté et sa logique, pourétablir les paroles féminines.Chen Ran est une écrivaine singulière et importante dans la littérature contemporaine, elle nous a fourni une ressource spirituelle riche pour le développement de la littérature féminine du XXesiècle par ses nombreuses écritures d’exploration des expériences psychologiques spécifiques, féminines, qui représentent le modernisme.Pendant ces dernières années, son oeuvre s’ est orientée de plus en plus vers le psychologique et le philosophique en explorant la solitude, l’amour sexuel et la vie humaine. Chen Ran exprime la solitude et la tristesse des personnages par son écriture parfaite qui rend toute la beauté de la tristesse profonde. La tristesse qu’elle a exprimée n’est pas de simples expériences ou émotions personnelles, mais de la recherche et de l’interrogation profonde vers l’identité du《je》 et de l’《autre》     

Geographical representations of the «Other»: the landscape of the Panama Canal Zone

Concentrating on the years 1912–1940, this paper explores why the Panama Canal Zone developed as a hyper-American suburb completely separated from surrounding countryside, cities, and people. It argues that American representations of Panama and Panamanians generated a recognizable Panama Canal Zone residential landscape. Canal Zone towns were designed to remove white American residents from an array of «Others», specifically an «Other» natural landscape (the Panamanian «jungle»), an «Other» cultural landscape (Panamanian Cities), and an «Other» people (the West Indian Panama Canal labour force and Spanish-speaking Panamanians). The negative nature of these representations undergirded American perceptions of the Canal Zone. Importantly, the manner in which Americans understood Panama bolstered the imperial practice of rationalizing discrimination against tropical people, the need for segregated housing, and the creation of an Americanized landscape. In doing so, American representations of Panama as «Other» engendered an American sense of superiority. The paper views the Canal Zone communities as not only reflecting social, moral, and economic outlooks of the American administrators, but also as embodying American perceptions of Panama and Panamanians as the «Other».     

The Burial of the Dead: the British Army on the Western Front, 1914–18

Abstract

This article examines the ‘war culture’ that developed within the British Army with regard to death and burial on the Western Front. Soldiers on the battle?elds responded to the presence of death and the bodies of the dead through a speci?c framework that was used to understand this perverse and violent landscape. This drew upon pre-war practices and emphasized the physicality of the corpse in the desire to ensure a ‘decent’ burial for a ‘pal’.     

The Chosen Few: The Order Pour le mérite and the Order of Merit

Abstract

Brain disease or injury is a terrible thing, but the fact that the same kinds of brain diseases occur the world over offers researchers the opportunity to address the question posed by the title to this review. In the research described here, we assessed the reading skills of adult neurological patients (who had been normal speakers and readers prior to the onset of their brain damage) in both England and Japan. We chose patients in the two countries with the same causes and neuroanatomical locations of brain damage. The writing systems of English and Japanese differ fundamentally in the manner in which written words represent the sounds and meanings of the words in their respective languages. If the organisation of language in a person's brain is determined by the characteristics of the language he or she has learned, it follows that there should be little or no commonality in the patterns of reading deficit across these two languages. On the other hand, if the same principles of brain organisation apply across different cultures and languages, then we should be able to predict the nature of the reading impairments from one language to another when the same part of the brain is malfunctioning. The results discussed strongly suggest that the brain's organisation of language is in fact the same no matter which language you speak.     

Le Texte et le corps: la pensée dialectique de Diderot dans Le Supplément au voyage de Bougainville

By using a dialogical method in Le Supplément au voyage de Bougainville (1772), Diderot contrasts two places: the civilized European world and the primitive island of Tahiti. The dialogical structure of his work entails a questioning of the concept of libertinage through the theme of the corporeal. Indeed, the dialectical method he employs in the text unifies his vision on what the body represents. This work will demonstrate that for Diderot the body can be defined as three entities: the text, the physical, and the social. All these three categories are intertwined for him. Using them as a leitmotiv enables him to call into question the moral and social conventions of his own country.     

Etiqueter ou définir: L'évolution de la nomenclature chimique aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles

Dans la prétendue révolution chimique, un point de rupture demeure indiscutable : la réforme de la nomenclature chimique réalisée en 1787 par Guyton de Morveau, Lavoisier, Berthollet et Fourcroy. Cet événement est ici replacé dans le contexte plus large de l'évolution de la chimie aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. La réforme de la terminologie est considérée dans le long terme ; les débats menés et les efforts déployés avant 1787 sont interprétés à la lumière de quatre facteurs : le développement de la chimie des gaz, l'introduction d'une nomenclature systématique pour les sels, le modèle suscité par la nomenclature linéenne et les réformes de la pharmacopée. Comparée aux efforts de Bergman et Guyton de Morveau, la Méthode de nomenclature chimique crée une rupture en approuvant la théorie de l'acidité et de la combustion de Lavoisier ; elle attire également l'attention sur le fait qu'il vaut mieux nommer une substance (méthode) que d'en chercher le terme approprié (nomenclature).