Sur le terme yóga,le verbe yuj- et quelques-uns de leurs dérivés dans les hymnes védiques

Summary The term yóga must have designed an essential part of the sacrificial cult as known in the gveda: the putting in motion (“Int?tigkeitsetzen”, following Geldner), the launching of a specific activity with the ultimate goal to yoke, to join together or to pair the objects and the entities which match or can match each other or which can be viewed as comparable and even identical according to Vedic archaic speculative thought. Vedic sacrifice is in fact a powerful explicatory device, a set of gestures and of designs condensing a speculative experience. The verb yuj- and its derivates translate thus one of the central themes of the Vedic religion where the poet officiating in the sacrifice has to proclaim the connections and the identifications between the phenomena to be correlated (“yoked, harnessed”). The hippological vocabulary in the gveda as applied to the representation of the speculative practice is less an accidental metaphor than a true and meaningful translation of one of the basic principles this practice.      

Sur les traces de Cortés: L'expédition du Mexique d'après Le Monde illustré

Unlike L'Illustration, with which it competed under the Second Empire, the weekly Le Monde illustré, which first appeared in 1857 and which was protected by the imperial government, did not count among the political newspapers overtaxed under Napoléon the Third's repressive regime. For this reason, it made great strides thanks to its blind allegiance to a French imperialism that had asserted its authority during the Crimean war, but which spent itself during the war against Juárez and his republican partisans in Mexico. While the French liberal press criticized the Second Empire foreign policy, Le Monde illustré persisted in turning the Mexican war into an antijuarist pacification favorable to a new Latin colonial empire, as well as to an application of the Saint-Simonian doctrine on Mexican industry and economy. In order to achieve this, the illustrated reports on the expeditionary force, military operations, and French victories were a warmongering that aimed to place this campaign in the afterglow of the conquistadors' era, as well as to idealize the imperial army as a symbol of the French nation.     

Sur l'expertise anthropologique territoires et identités indigènes au Brésil

Is it possible for an anthropologist to decide whether an individual or a collectivity can or cannot be characterized as « indigenous », and then proceed to establish the limits of the territory which should be assigned (or recognized) by the state? Does his role as a scientist furnish him with the conceptual and methodological instruments necessary for such a task? In epistemological and ethical terms, is this something which he should endeavour to do? The purpose of this paper is to discuss how these questions are being put to Brazilian anthropologists since the 1980s. Torn between an « indianist » and an « indigenist » discourse, between romanticism and political mediation, the anthropologist must define an appropriate posture for dealing with policy-making; one which will simultaneously safeguard the scientific quality of his work while addressing the specific demands of each situation.     

Sur une hétéroclisie verbale avestique

Résumé La métrique des textes avestiques indique que le participe présent de duus nc dérive pas d'un thème t bsiia-, mais tbsaiia-.     

Histoire de quelques miroirs déformants orient-occident

The paper brings to light a literary fabrication cast as a “chinoiserie» published in Paris in 1788 and tentatively explores its implicit message. The fabrication implies the title—allusion to the pamphlet written by the radical Morelly then commonly credited to Diderot—, the author—the Chinese philosopher contemporary of Socrates—, the alleged translation—which could never have occurred—, and the commentary attributed to a Jesuit of the French mission in China. The genuine author of the fabrication, a plea for the abolishion of the death penalty and a satire on the legal institution and the Clergy, is Louis Lavicomterie who later will be a member of the Montagne and will vote the death of Louis XVI. He fathered the book during the French Revolution. The reconstitution of the historical context helps to decipher the cryptic purpose of this chinese message. Behind Confucius, Lavicomterie has introduced Voltaire. The text reflects the moral and intellectual expectations at the eve of the turmoil: the increasing search for secularization and the rejection of the fundamental divine rights of the Ancien Régime.     

Paul Touvier et L'église: rapport de la commission historique institutée par le cardinal decourtray

Burke's view of history is an aspect of his thought that has been largely neglected by scholars, despite the wide recognition of its importance. In Burke's view, history, led by providence and by a human nature designed by God, is necessarily progressive. It is, nevertheless, human beings who are largely responsible for building their nations. A variety of civilisations could be generated if people governed a nation in harmony with its peculiar manners and circumstances. Nations can, however, be unstable, because their fortunes fluctuate. Although Burke was very familiar with—and influenced by—several different traditions of historiography, his ideas on history should also be seen as the product of his own reflections.     

Actualités

Cet article traite du match de football ayant opposé l'équipe de France à son homologue algérienne le 6 octobre 2001 au Stade de France. Basée sur l'analyse de quatre quotidiens nationaux (Le Monde, Le Figaro, Libération et L'Équipe), l'étude cherche à comprendre les représentations des relations franco-algériennes dans la presse écrite française. Il s'agit de saisir les manières dont les journaux problématisent la rencontre en construisant des catégories et des classements particuliers. L'enquête révèle ainsi la mise en scène d'un système de perception social et politique fondé sur des séparations et des hiérarchies culturelles, nationales et sociales. Plus précisément, la presse véhicule l'idée de « choc des civilisations ». Elle instaure également un rapport de domination symbolique entre les deux pays à l'avantage de la France. Enfin, elle valorise pour l'Hexagone un modèle d'intégration des individus basé sur la séparation public/privé et sur la responsabilité individuelle.     

Hobbes et le Républicanisme

Hobbes criticizes the theory of mixed government without presenting this mixed government as republican. For him criticizing republicanism means criticizing the definition of freedom as the participation of citizens in the debate on matters concerning them all. We can find the main points of this criticism in theElements of law natural and politic and in theDe cive. InLeviathan Hobbes summarizes this criticism and makes it more dogmatic, while developing in a new way the idea that in all regimes there is an identity of essence in sovereignty. This idea is at variance with the republican thesis stating a difference of nature between free regimes and those that are not and makes it possible to take the Roman republic or the Athenian democracy as models.     

L'Oubli et la mémoire dans quelques tragédies classiques françaises

This article explores the dynamic interplay between memory and forgetfulness in three French classical tragedies: Cinna, Andromaque, and Britannicus. Corneille envisages forgetfulness as a political virtue in Cinna: Auguste's clemency represents not only the redemption of the political misdeeds of his enemies but also their conversion from rebellion to submission. Moreover, the emperor's magnanimity conjures the notion of historical myth, his transcendence of guilt, and his profound need to detach himself from his criminal identity. Andromaque highlights, on the contrary, the tragic inability of protagonists to escape the powerful hold of the past on their conscience. Memories of the Trojan War continue to obsess them. Whereas Pyrrhus calls into question his heroic identity and winds up rejecting it, Andromaque takes refuge in the mythic past of Troy and remains forever wedded to the horrific images of the war's carnage. Racine emphasizes the deep-rooted influence of the historical past in Britannicus: Agrippine incarnates the aging matriarch bent on recapturing her glorious past but remains obsessed with the tragic dimension of time, which will result in her ultimate fall from power. Néron exemplifies the would-be virtuous emperor incapable of escaping from the tragedy of genetic determinism. By centering attention on the sheer decadence of Rome and the ignominious reign of the “monstre naissant,” Britannicus stands in direct opposition to Cinna, which clearly belongs to the heroic tradition of French classical tragedy.