Fédération et/ou confédération

A concern to pin ideological labels on Morris has obscured the continuing importance of romanticism and Protestantism for his socialist politics. Romanticism led him to seek self-realisation in an art based on naturalness and harmony, and Protestantism led him to do so in the everyday worlds of work and domestic life. From Ruskin, he took a sociology linking the quality of art to the extent of such self-realisation in daily life. Even after he turned to Marxism, he still defined his socialist vision in terms of good art produced and enjoyed within daily life. Moreover, his over-riding concern to promote a new spirit of art, not his dislike of Hyndman, led him to a purist politics, that is, to look with suspicion on almost all forms of political action.     

Gymnastique Volontaire et pratiques d'entretien physique: fragments d'histoire culturelle d'une fédération sportive française (1970–1985)

Au cours de la deuxième moitié du XXème siècle, la Fédération Française d'Education Physique et de Gymnastique Volontaire (FFEPGV) se positionne comme l'interlocuteur privilégié en matière d'entretien physique du corps. Cependant, durant les décennies 1970 et 1980, émergent de nouvelles propositions qui viennent concurrencer les contenus qu'elles proposent: tandis qu'à partir de la fin des années 1960 apparaissent de multiples techniques « douces » prétendant rompre avec les gymnastiques traditionnelles telles que celles défendues par la fédération, la première moitié des années 1980 est marquée par la diffusion massive des gymnastiques aérobiques. Cet article s'intéresse aux réactions des sphères dirigeantes de la FFEPGV devant des évolutions sociales tendant à remettre en question les choix qu'elle a effectués. Au cours des années 1970, des nouvelles pratiques vont faire l'objet d'une appropriation active par certains cadres fédéraux. Par contre, dans la première moitié des années 1980, les dirigeants fédéraux vont vivement réagir contre les gymnastiques de forme et démontrer la distance qui les sépare des principes qui guident la fédération. Cependant, ces choix ne font pas l'unanimité, ce qui conduit la FFEPGV à nuancer son positionnement par rapport aux pratiques corporelles extérieures.     

Bons Procédés Entre Érudits

This article exposes certain functions of scientific correspondence during the second half of the 16(th) century. A professor of mathematics in Rome, Antonio Maria Pazzi, sends a mesolabe together with a letter to Barbaro, the humanist scholar of Venice. The latter would include parts of it in the Latin version of his commentary to Vitruvius. The analysis of the context of this publication shows that both arrive at aligning their personal intentions with the ideal of the "common good" by contributing to the spread of mathematical knowledge and practices.     

République et démocratie de Montesquieu à Madison

Political theory has been for long committed to the idea that a republic is possible only in small states, where the diversity of interests is reduced to the point where it makes possible the formation of a genuine common interest. Montesquieu adheres to this thesis when he says that, far from looking for this chimerical common interest, modern politics must be an art of balancing particular interests. Madison answered this argument by showing how, on the contrary, a republic is possible in large states only; in such states, the variety of extant interests constrains each of them to look not for a compromise — which is impossible to find where the interests in play are so widely apart from each other — but for a genuine common interest transcending all particularities.     

Poésie, Sciences Et Politique Une Génération D’Intellectuels Italiens (1290–1330)

Nothing is more false than the image of Dante as an isolated genius standing out against his epoch. On the contrary he belongs to a very caracteristic generation of italian intellectuals: laymen, often active in more than one domain, practicing abundantly poetic expression, engaged in political action, these scholar-citizens share equally a strong historical conscience. Their inventivity is manifested in philosophy, in medecine and in law, as well as in literary expression. Aside from these endogenous factors, a key to this phenomenon is linked to the active reception of the naturalistic knowledge elaborated in Paris, which is read in Italy outside of the control of theologians. The parallel journeys of a dozen uncommon personalities show the necessity of enlarging the habitual frames of medieval intellectual history.     

Opération Amérique: Québec’s Soft Power Applied to French Language Teaching in the United States

ABSTRACT

Opération Amérique refers to the coordinated efforts of René Lévesque’s Parti Québécois government beginning late 1970s to promote Québec’s interests in the United States. The general goals and strategies of Opération Amérique suggest that it presents a case of soft power. However, the specific actions implemented as well as their effects have barely been explored. An analysis of original documents pertaining to Opération Amérique indicates that specific groups in the United States—namely, French professors—were targeted with the hope that they would improve perceptions of Québec in the United States. An examination of French textbooks used in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s shows an increase in Canada/Québec content, which may reflect the influence of Opération Amérique on French teaching practices.     

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.     

Ordre des décrets divins,hiérarchie des droits humains

Until the xvi^th century, the use of public force in the service of religious unity seems to be a consequence of a zeal for the salvation of others. In order to reach civil peace, in the nations where different creeds confronted each other, it was necessary to find a theological foundation for the legal recognition of a freedom of conscience and of religion. The Protestant theologians of the Academy of Saumur, founded by Philippe Duplessis-Mornay, a negotiator of the Edict of Nantes, sought this foundation in a theology of creation. God created man to live peacefully in the company of his fellow-men and the drama of original sin, although it led for its reparation to a revelation from God, protected by the Church, did not destroy this primary order. «We are men, writes Amyraut, before being Christians.»     

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     

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.     

Poteries anciennes décorées à la roulette dans la Région des Grands Lacs

Résumé L'article propose une classification générale de la poterie ancienne décorée à la roulette, dans la Région des Grands Lacs et en Afrique de l'Est. Un premier groupe de poterie, appelé ici W, caractérisé principalement par la roulette torsadée, est produit vraisemblablement dèsca 800 AD; cette poterie pourrait avoir été diffusée de la région Est vers la zone interlacustre par le sud du Lac Victoria. L'hypothèse que le groupe W est associé à des populations de langues sud-nilotiques permet de reconsidérer les débuts du Deuxième Age du fer en Afrique interlacustre. Cet article suggère l'installation de groupes de pasteurs sud-nilotes dans la zone interlacustre; leurs rapports avec les autochtones sont examinés, en particulier le cas du Rwanda.Le groupe X (roulette nouée) apparaît en Ouganda dans les premiers siècles du second millénaire, suivi du groupe Y (roulette torsadée fine); à partir de 1500 AD, ils remplacent le groupe W dans la région interlacustre. Dans cet ensemble céramique, que l'on sait associé à des groupes de langues ouest-nilotiques venus du nord, une distinction est suggérée entre trois styles régionaux, qui sont mis en relation avec l'histoire des migrations de leurs producteurs.

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This article offers a general classification of the ancient roulette-decorated pottery from the Great Lakes Region and from East Africa. A first pottery group, here named W, mainly characterised by twisted string roulette, appears as early asca 800 AD; this pottery might have been introduced to the interlacustrine area from the east and south of Lake Victoria. The hypothesis that the W group was associated with speakers of Southern-Nilotic languages is relevant to our view of the beginning of the Late Iron Age in interlacustrine Africa. This article suggests the establishment of pastoralist groups of Southern-Nilotic speakers in the interlacustrine zone and also examines their contacts with local populations, giving special attention to Rwanda.The X group (knotted string roulette) appears in Uganda in the first centuries of the second millennium, followed by the Y group (thin twisted string roulette). Fromca 1500 AD these groups replaced the W group in the interlacustrine area. In these last groups, which are associated with Western-Nilotes coming from the north, a distinction is made between three regional styles which are further correlated with the history of their makers.