Décembre 1993‐Février 1994

Alexandre, P., Plaidoyer impossible pour un vieux président abandonné par les siens (Albin Michel, 1994), 218pp., 95F.

Faux, E., Legrand, T., and Perez, G., La main droite de Dieu. Enquête sur François Mitterrand et l'extrême‐droite (Seuil, 1994), 264pp., 110F.

Montaldo, J., Mitterrand et les 40 voleurs ... (Albin Michel, 1994), 276pp., 120F.

Schneider, R., Les dernières années (Seuil, 1994), 284pp., 120F.     

Débats autour de l'école

Altschull, E., Le Voile contre l'école (Seuil, 1995), 278 pp., 110F., ISBN 2 02 022748 7 Soubré, L, l‘Ecole sous pressions (Stock, 1995) 241 pp., 110F, ISBN 2 234 04508 8.     

La Découverte de L’Amérique

This article examines the significance accorded to the discovery of America in the period between 1492 and the publication of Alexander von Humboldt’s Kosmos in 1855. It argues that, the « discovery » of America was perceived as the « uncovering » of not merely a place, but of an epistemological challenge which both transformed, Europe’s intellectual dependence on Antiquity, and shaped its evolving perception of both space and time. It argues that, after the discovery, human history came to be seen, in terms of as series of inventions all of them related to human movement, which were projected, as more and more of the globe was « discovered » into an unpredictable future.     

Délocaliser L’esprit

The cognitive sciences have breathed fresh air into the old problem of localizing mental functions, which was often laughed off. Regarding the most philosophical form of the question on the localization of the mind, authors such as Peirce, James, Wittgenstein, and most recently Descombes have imagined delocalizing the mind in order to spread the conviction that the idea itself of a location of the mental is meaningless and to criticize the localisationism of today’s cognitive scientists.     

Serge Gainsbourg and Le Défi américain

This article discusses how the singer-songwriter, Serge Gainsbourg, responded through the medium of song to the new socio-economic model which the USA came to represent, especially during the 1960s. Although certain songs express an ambivalent attitude towards the promotion of the société de consommation as well as the proliferation of American mass culture in France, these particular processes of modernisation are ultimately viewed as inexorable. The collection of songs discussed in this article makes an original contribution to perennial debates regarding France's relationship with the USA.     

L’épistémologie Transversale D’ettore Majorana

« Il valore delle leggi statistiche nella fisica e nelle scienze sociali » is Ettore Majorana’s only work on science. It offers a critique of classical determinism, establishing an analogy between the laws of quantum mechanics and social science and arguing that both are intrinsically linked to probability. This article first studies this argument from the standpoing of metaphysics, physics, and sociology, and then assesses the significance of this transversal epistemology.     

La Résurrection D’un Jeune Physicien

Since his mysterious disappearance in 1938, there have been many biographical accounts of Ettore Majorana’s short life. Yet, his scientific work and his influence on the development of physics are often left in the background. The thrust of this article is precisely to shed light on them. In fact, some of Majorana’s articles were only understood after World War II. Notably, this was the case of his last article. Written in 1937, it represents the best long-lasting contribution of Ettore Majorana to particle physics. He envisages, thanks to a new formalism, that neutrinos could be identical to their own antiparticles. The answer to this question posed by Majorana more than half a century ago may be found thanks to several experiments now carried out. It could give a lightning on the nature of dark matter and an explanation to the dominance of matter over antimatter in our universe.     

Jeux D’échelles. Une Histoire Internationale

The book Jeux d’échelles. La microanalyse à l’expérience, which appeard in 1996 under the direction of Jacques Revel, was translated in Italy in 2006 by the Viella editions under the title Giochi di scala. La microstoria alla prova dell’esperienza. This occasion seemed propicious for a historiographic and epistemological return to the microhistorical experience between France and Italy. It had to do with cross reperencing the reflections of a french historian and those of an italian philosopher to seek to place in evidence, from a distance, the theoretical presuppositions of microhistory, and to measure the displacements undergone.     

Histoires de Lectrices en Italie au Début de L’époque Moderne

The connection between the history of reading and gender is made using a range of methodological perspectives, each illustrated by analysing concrete examples from the early modern Italian area. The significance of the circulation and reception of texts as well as the various attempts to control knowledge and behaviour via censorship and availability of reading material will be considered. In fact, since the XVI ^th century, written texts seem to play an increasingly influential role in defining the relationship between men and women. The figure of the early modern woman reader appears in literature sources as both a consciously constructed and easily influenced addressee, who nevertheless may still behave in a way different to that intended by the authors. This double approach facilitates the reading of normative texts from a new perspective that takes into account the possibility of creative adaptation and enables the question of interdependence between the production and reception of the written word to be reconsidered.     

Le Décor Peint de la Maison Médiévale: Orner pour signifier en France avant 1350

Abstract

The remarkable survival of considerable elements of a large rose window at Elgin Cathedral allows an accurate reconstruction of its form. The design can be shown to be from the mainstream of rose window tracery patterns in northern Britain and can be related to the pre-1390 west front of the cathedral. When reconstructed the design of the front shows close affinities with the west front of Arbroath Abbey which also featured a large circular window. Certain elements of the tracery also show similarities with the eastern rose window reconstructed at Fountains Abbey and indicate strong links with sources in northern England.     

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.