Yhwh est-il un menteur? Une lecture narrative de 1 R 22,1-40

ABSTRACT: The portrayal of Yhwh that emerges from 1 Kings 22,1-40 is at first sight that of a malicious and immoral god who uses a lie to involve the king of Israel in a war that costs him his life. Deception, betrayal, dishonesty, etc., are terms used by some commentators to describe Yhwh’s behavior in this story. How can one understand such an act from a god often presented as faithful (Deut 7,9; 32,4), and whose word is truth (2 Sam 7,28)? In addition, how can we understand the death of Ahab whereas Yhwh just declared at the end of chap. 21 that the punishment of the ruler is postponed to the next generation? Some commentators attempt to justify the “deceit” of Yhwh by minimizing his responsibility in the matter or by citing extenuating circumstances of socio-historical order.

Through a narrative analysis of the story, this article asserts that the god in the story of Ahab’s death and in the previous episodes of his life is rather a patient and benevolent god, who gives the son of Omri opportunities to turn away from his sins and live.     

Autobiography and women's travel writings in nineteenth‐century France: Journeys through self‐representation

This analysis of nineteenth‐century travel literature by French and francophone women examines the various mechanisms and strategies at play in women's struggle with self‐representation within the genre of travel writing. Through the works of three women travellers, Henriette d'Angeville, Adèle Hommaire de Hell and Carla Serena, four main voices are identified as representing the plurality of self‐images women writers create in their texts: conventional autobiographical voices where they present themselves in a stereotypically feminine manner; conventional ‘neutral’ scientific voices where they take on the traditionally masculine task of science writing, thus erasing the autobiographical; differentiated scientific voices where they valorize a (private) sphere of knowledge dependent upon their personal experiences and valorized as such; and finally, differentiated autobiographical voices which undermine constraining representations of women by placing them in the valued public sphere. As a result, travel writing becomes a most important medium for women: it questions the traditional limits placed upon their writings and ways of being and allows for a complex feminine subject to emerge (often indirectly) from the texts. Such a process leads to the questioning of gender constructions as a whole.     

Environmentality on the Canadian Prairies: Settler‐Farmer Subjectivities and Agri‐Environmental Objects

State and institutional actors have been shaping settler‐farmer subjectivities in order to transform the landscape and thus the history and geography of the Canadian Prairies. This paper expands the application of environmentality from its origins in colonial forestry to interrogate agriculture on prairie landscapes. The Canadian state used the technologies of environmentality to influence “common sense” attitudes and behaviours, which acted to deterritorialize Indigenous communities and then manipulated their subjectivities to guarantee settler‐farmer access to land. Later, institutions and states moulded settler‐farmer subjectivities of correct farming behaviour in an effort to convert soil, water, and seeds into economic resources. These environmental objects, in turn, acted upon settler‐farmer subjects by setting biophysical and genetic limits such as soil fertility, water quality and quantity, and plant hardiness and disease resistance. Resisting environmentality requires understanding processes of subjugation while also creating counter‐narratives of “good” farming behaviour and Indigenous‐settler relations.     

Revisiting the structuring effect of transportation infrastructure: An empirical approach with the French railway network from 1860 to 1910

The development of the French railway network was mostly planned in a centralized manner. Despite the multiplication of travel opportunities, the local impact on the demographics is often given as an indirect effect of this spatial transformation. However, this “structuring effect” is still subject to controversies within the academia.

In this paper, we construct a historical geographic information system describing the evolution of the French network. We use it to compute accessibility measures based on network access and travel durations. We first observe that the network growth indeed achieved the various planning goals in terms of functional accessibility. We then present further evidences that the “structuring effect” of the train network on cities demographics is very limited if not null.     

The right of resistance in Richard Price and Joseph Priestley

ABSTRACT

This article is concerned with the writings on resistance by Richard Price and Joseph Priestley, the leaders of the Rational Dissenters who supported the American and French Revolutions, from the late 1760s to 1791. The article discusses the differences between Rational Dissent and mainstream (Court) Whig resistance theory, as regards history in particular: the Dissenters viewed the Glorious Revolution as a lost opportunity rather than a full triumph and claimed the heritage of the Puritan opposition to Charles I, some of them justifying the regicide. Price's and Priestley's views on resistance are assessed against the benchmark of John Locke's conception of the breach of trust. While both thinkers presented themselves as followers of Locke, they departed from his thought by their emphasis on the constantly active role of the people. Each in their own way, they also argued that early, possibly peaceful, resistance was preferable to violent resistance as a last resort against a tyranny. In the end, Price and Priestley each articulated an original theory derived from Locke; their views were very close and their main difference concerned the treatment of history, Price's caution contrasting with Priestley's justification of tyrannicide.