Le rire et le théâtre dans la Lettre à M. d’Alembert

Often interpreted as a field of contradictions and fragmentation, the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau presents an inner unity. This inner unity, though, is structured around regulated contradictions. I will examine here the distribution of those regulated contradictions by focusing on the preface to the Lettre à M. d’Alembert sur les spectacles and the relations between the Lettre and the Essai sur l’origine des langues. What Rousseau rejects as agents of corruption—theater and laughter—constitute at the same time the principles of his argument. The values of representation and technique implied by theater and laughter come to compose with those of presence and nature. Taking as a point of departure the work of Jacques Derrida on Rousseau, but also engaging it polemically, I will show in the analysis of the preface to the Lettre the distribution of regulated contradictions as well as the essential difference between language and theater in Rousseau throughout his reflection on the origin of theater and language.     

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.     

Le Métier de Juriste Entre Règle de Droit et Expérience de l’Histoire

The activities of jurists, they may be judges, lawyers or university teachers, occupy a central role in the maintenance of the political and social order of modern societies. In Germany the confrontation of the recent past provoked in the early 1960’s a large debate about the real foundations of the modern state and his role in the crisis of the modernity which have been pursuit in the course of the eighties issuing in the beginning of the century in the discussions about integration and a general order of values to be recognized by everybody.     

Trois revues institutionnelles : Le Journal de l’École polytechnique,les Annales des Mines,les Annales des Ponts et Chaussées

The three journals studied are characterized by their own institutional background, which explains most probably their centenial longevity, and their slow evolution. The Journal de l’École polytechnique is more academic. The two Annales publish scientific, technical and legislative texts. They are a bond between the administration and its engineers. As the bulk of published articles is huge and diversified, it was important to develop an effective system of access to the various articles.     

Rehabilitating feminist politics and political theatre: Hélène Cixous's La Ville parjure ou le réveil des Erinyes at the Théâtre du Soleil

Hélène Cixous's 1994 play La Ville parjure ou le réveil des Erinyes , first produced at Ariane Mnouchkine's Théâtre du Soleil , insists on both theatre and feminism as valuable political practices in the face of the AIDS pandemic. Disguised in the trappings of Greek tragedy, the play reframes the scandal over the French government's complicity in the distribution of blood contaminated with HIV. As the mother of two young plague victims openly exhorts the audience to take part in righting social wrong, the Furies wreak havoc on the on-stage regime that ignores its citizens suffering. Ultimately the emphasis is not on peaceful resolution but on the critical need for action on social issues. The maternal heroine and strong women figures in this elaborate production insist on the impossibility of divorcing aesthetic considerations of theatre from its responsibility to create public awareness.     

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.     

Des Considérations inactuelles au coeur de l'Occupation: Le Cogito à rebours d'Hélène Berr

Written in Paris during the darkest moments of the German Occupation, but only published in 2008, Hélène Berr's Journal was immediately hailed for its dramatic testimony and striking insights. With precision and lucidity, the young Jewish student at the Sorbonne records the human tragedies unfolding all around her in the wake of the Holocaust, while at the same time reviewing her own manner of experiencing these traumatic events through her personal reflections and emotions. The present article analyses her astute and poignant observations in the light of Emmanuel Lévinas's notion of the ethically grounded subject. Beyond its documentary value, Hélène Berr's Journal thus takes on significant philosophical dimensions. At the same time, Lévinas's concept of the Other's incursion into the realm of the self proves to be firmly anchored in the firsthand experience of the twentieth century's greatest historical catastrophe.

Écrit aux jours les plus sombres de l'Occupation de Paris, mais publié en 2008 seulement, le Journal d'Hélène Berr s'est tout de suite présenté comme un insigne témoignage. De manière aussi précise que perspicace, Hélène note les drames qui se déroulent tout autour d'elle tout en revenant sur tout ce qu'elle parvient à vivre et à penser au jour le jour. Nous nous proposons de lire ce Journal à la lumière d'Emmanuel Lévinas et de découvrir ainsi la profondeur non seulement humaine mais aussi philosophique de ce carnet intime tout en confirmant l'ancrage de la pensée de l'Autre dans le vécu historique de la plus grande catastrophe du XXième siècle.     

La typologie des nations et l’Espagnol mélancolique: Notes pour l’interprétation d’un cliché

Included in the traditional typology of nations, the image of the melancholy Spaniard is a cultural stereotype which appears with a remarkable continuity since the Spanish Golden Age. Developed by foreigners--particularly by the French--this stereotype is also adopted by the Spaniards themselves. It is then necessary to inquire about the persistance of this stereotype through-out the centuries and to examine how--and why--the Spaniards did adhere to the image given by foreigners and the typology of nations. The examination of this stereotype aims at analyzing its mechanism, at discovering its representations--sometimes very different--and the implications involved. The image of the melancholy Spaniard is deeply subjective representation which engages a complex work of the imagination: it concerns the representation of the other and the consciousness that every nation has of itself, revealing many elements about the one who produces it.     

L’eugénisme et la protection de l’espèce humaine dans les lois bioéthiques Vers une nouvelle construction juridique de l’homme

The aim of this study is to bring to the fore some issues concerning human rights unleashed by the bioethical laws of July 1994, regarding the application of biotechnologies to reproduction. To achieve this aim, an analysis is offered of the legal arrangements, set by law in order to determine the procedures related to the selection of embryos and the transformation of their genetic characteristics. These analyses are then compared to the eugenic procedures instituted in the West during the first half of the xxth century. As a result, the idea is challenged, that eugenics is a category fit for the characterizing the biopolitical project contained in the bioethical laws. To conclude, the aim is made that what is a stake, as far as human rights are concerned, is the fate of the idea of man and of the subject of rights that is involved in these laws.