Ieme van der Poel. Une Révolution de la pensée: maoïsme et féminisme á travers ‘Tel Quel,’ ‘Les Temps modemes,’ et ‘Esprit.’

Abstract

Claire Addison. Where Flaubert Lies: Chronology, mythology and history. Cambridge University Press, 1996. xv + 393 pp.

Dennis Porter. Rousseau's Legacy. Emergence and Eclipse of the Writer in France. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. 306 pp. $39.95.     

La Fabrique de l’infini Phénoménologie du désordre et genèse sensible de l’idée d’infini chez Diderot

Against the classical point of view, for which the idea of the infinite is the expression of God’s in the human being, Diderot proposes a concept of the infinite that considers it as an immediate production of the body. Removing the infinite from its former divine origin, Diderot’s idea of the sentient body contests the classical concepts, particularly the one of order, which bound epistemology to theology. Thus, disorder acquires a new value, even in its pathological forms, which now can be considered as modes of an immanent and fundamentally creative process.     

Féminisme,anarchisme et fédéralisme. L’exemple de l’organisation Alternative libertaire entre 2006 et 2012

Abstract

This article examines the spatial, and especially scalar, dimension of feminism in a contemporary French anarchist organisation. This perspective is contextualised by a reminder of the role of feminism in the political history of anarchism and of the role of the spatial dimention through the question of anarchist federalism. The empirical study is based on research conducted through participant observation within the organisation Alternative Libertaire between 2006 and 2012. The problem to be addressed is the question of whether anarchist women succeed as well as they claim in bringing into question, in their promotion of feminism both inside the organisation and outside, the centrality of Paris in favour of an anarchist federalism. For this reason two scales or levels are studied: the national level and the local level of the city. The city of Paris is treated as both the national capital and as a locality.     

Présidente: le grand défi. Femmes,politique et médias

Mathieu, J.‐L., La Défense de l'environnement en France (Presses Universitaires de France, 1994), 128pp., 45F., ISBN 2 1304 5939 0

Prendiville, B., Environmental Politics in France (Westview, 1994), xiii‐190pp., $27.00, ISBN 0 8133 8822 8. Translated from L'Ecologie, la politique autrement? Culture, sociologie et histoire des écologistes (L'Harmattan, 1993), 200pp., 110F., ISBN 2 7384 1864 3     

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.     

Les «yeux d’Argos» et les «étoiles d’Astrée» pour mesurer l’univers les jésuites italiens et la science nouvelle

As what happened for thenova in 1604 and for the three comets which appeared in 1618 starting the debate between Galileo and the Jesuits of the Roman College, even the comet of 1644 enhanced the curiosity and expectations in astrometers’ and astrologers’ minds. This work focuses on some aspects of the European debate, by fixing our attention on the Bolognese observatory school of Santa-Lucia in particular, where Giovan Battista Riccioli and his socios had started an experimental activity which was known and appreciated for its accuracy all over Europe. It also closely examines the revaluation of the «medium sciences», such as geography and hydrometry, to point out the sociocultural conditions that originated the growth of new professional characters like engineers and technicians in Bologna.     

L’articulation du scepticisme religieux et du scepticisme profane dans l’Histoire du scepticisme d’Érasme à Spinoza, de Richard H. Popkin

The History of scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza by Richard H. Popkin is not just an account of various sceptical doctrines of the 16th and 17th centuries: a thread gives the whole a coherence. In fact, a general conception of modern philosophy underlies his analyses. According to Popkin, philosophy, from the Renaissance to the Englightenment, was faced with the difficulty of overcoming the sceptical crisis which was born in the context of a religious quarrel and which quickly spread to all other intellectual fields. Thus, Popkins gives an original interpretation of modernity, an interpretation that can be questionned nevertheless in so far as he does not make a clear enough distinction between modern and ancient scepticism and does not take into account the specificity of fideism.     

Vers une histoire de la mémoire sportive en France ? Cadres théoriques et éléments d’analyse

The main objectives of this article are to highlight memory as a phenomenon in the field of sport, to determine its content and to understand the dynamics that governed it during the twentieth century. Memory and its socio-historical study are two growing dimensions of the postmodern era, while sport, structured by industrial societies, has shaped modes of representation, notably since the second half of the century. Through the link between sport and society, the spatial and temporal considerations as well as the reconfiguration of social frameworks, we will therefore reveal the existence and emergence of memory as a vital element of the contemporary sporting sphere. From this analysis, we will also put forward a first assessment of existing uses of sporting memory: between historical legitimacy and patrimonialisation.     

Françoise d’Eaubonne, éco-féminisme et anarchie

Abstract

Although Luc Ferry contrasted eco-feminism with the feminism of Simone de Beauvoir, the concept was coined by one of her close friends, Françoise d’Eaubonne, who, admittedly, is not well known. This is why the author presents an outline of her thinking and her early feminism and how the latter came to be combined with environmentalism to result in a theory which is as much eco-feminist as it is anarcha-feminist.     

La République, l’affaire Dreyfus et la raison d’État

It is often said that the Dreyfus Affair was a key moment in the history of french republicanism. But the philosophical sens of this turning point remains to be elucidated. Indeed it is not certain that the republican discourse can then be reduced to the apology of the individual and of justice against the reason of State. The aim of this article is to analyse the arguments mobilised in the Dreyfus camp by certain figures of republican socialism, like Jean Jaurès, or of republicanism like Alfred Fouillée, Emile Durkheim and others. The examination of the positions of Célestin Bouglé, a young sociologist close to Durkheim, is here privileged: it is situated, through his biography and his work, at the crossroads of diverse tendencies, from positivism to neo-criticism.