Dans La Research Articles

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Botany: The Salutary Science

Botanizing played a major role in Rousseau's life, second only to music, and perhaps not even second, during the last fifteen years of his life. Although he was not much interested when Mme de Warens pursued the subject with her steward-lover Claude Anet, he became smitten with botany during his exile in Môtiers in the 1760s, under the guidance of Neuchâtel friends such as d'Ivernois, Gagnebin, and Du Peyrou. It was Du Peyrou whom he startled by exclaiming, ‘Ah voilà de la pervenche’ (Confessions, vi), recalling his first glimpse of that flower during the halcyon days at Les Charmettes. In England he continued to collect plants and to press them in beautiful herbiers, some of which survive, and during his final decade in Paris he made frequent botanizing excursions in the countryside with Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. It was a way to know nature intimately without any intention to exploit that knowledge, and an opportunity for congenial companionship. ‘Errer nonchalamment dans les bois et dans la campagne,’ he says in the Confessions (xii), ‘prendre machinalement çà et là, tantôt une fleur, tantôt un rameau; brouter mon foin presque au hasard, observer mille et mille fois les mêmes choses, et toujours avec le même intérêt parce que je les oubliois toujours, était de quoi passer l’éternité sans pouvoir m'ennuyer un moment.' In addition to collecting plants, Rousseau acquired numerous botanical treatises, pondered the subject deeply, and wrote about it at length. Yet this important aspect of his life and thought has been largely neglected. That gap is now splendidly repaired in this learned and comprehensive study by Alexandra Cook, who previously translated Rousseau's botanical writings for the University Press of New England edition of the Works (2000). Her subtitle, The Salutary Science, points to Rousseau's conviction that studying plants in their natural setting was even more valuable for the soul than for the body (ever since his time in Annecy, he had been sceptical of the medicinal use of herbs). ‘Si l’étude des plantes me purge l'âme,' he declared, ‘c'est assez pour moi, je ne veux point d'autre pharmacie’ (Fragments de botanique). Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Botany is engagingly written and convincingly grounded in eighteenth-century scientific and cultural thought, and has no evident axe to grind, except for an entirely justified corrective to occasional claims that the reason Rousseau admired Linnaeus (which he did, but not exclusively) was that the sexual system of classification supposedly confirmed a reactionary view of gender relations. For a man who was persecuted and increasingly paranoid, botany represented above all, as Cook says, ‘a quest for freedom’ (p. 25). It was in that context that Rousseau wrote from Môtiers to Malesherbes, in a letter of 11 November 1764: ‘Il ne me vient jamais une idée vertueuse et utile que je ne voye à côté de moi la potence ou l’échafaut: avec un Linaeus dans la poche et du foin dans la tête j'espère qu'on ne me pendra pas.'

Les dames de l’estuaire par Alain Gagnon

tries to understand what happened to the young boy, Frappat’s terse prose allows the reader to enter into Laura’s frantic thoughts: “Aucune fenêtre n’est ouverte. Dans la dernière chambre, la cabine de phare où j’entre seule, je suis assaillie par une sensation étrange. Peut-être un inconnu, derrière les murs courbes d’une illusion d’optique, m’observe-t-il” (20). It is at this precise moment that the reader must begin to be attentive to the role that children’s nursery rhymes will play in the unraveling of the disturbing mystery as Laura thinks to herself: “[L]es paroles de la comptine flottent dans l’air et je m’y cogne” (20). In the decisive battle against irrational fears, Laura resists valiantly, armed with Tennyson’s poem, “The Lady of Shalott” (which later proves to be the key to the plot’s intrigue), a black stone, a song, and memories. It is exactly this deft combination of literary elements and play on childhood fears by Frappat that engrosses the reader into the plot of Lady Hunt. As a result, the reader cannot help but feeling trapped in a cinematic spine-chilling world of such directors as Alfred Hitchcock or Stanley Kubrick. Furthermore, one questions the purpose of a nursery rhyme: is it to help a child to fall asleep more easily and have beautiful dreams or to cause the child to toss and turn in bed while having nightmares? From beginning to end, Lady Hunt is a thrilling read and will not disappoint the reader who would like to approximate the sensations of true fear. Canisius College (NY) Eileen M. Angelini Gagnon, Alain. Les dames de l’estuaire. Montréal: Triptyque, 2013. ISBN 978-289031 -892-2. Pp. 153. $20 Can. In“La toupie”, the first of Gagnon’s three“novellas,”a half-poetic, half-prose tale, Andrei Bertov sails to Haut-fond Prince, in French Canada. He is a man torn between his Ukrainian heritage and the life of “pigiste” he has made for himself in Montréal. However, he is haunted by a recurring nightmare, involving his two best friends, an avalanche, and an unending walk to Kiev. He has made this voyage to Haut-fond Prince to live alone for a month inside the lighthouse, La Toupie. He will atone for a sin he thinks he has committed, and be part of this estuary from Orléans to the mouth of the Saguenay,“pays de brouillards et de vents iodé”(10). He will write of the storms that pass, in the hopes of working through the maelstrom in his head. The writer’s use of italics for his flashbacks works very well here. Gagnon is a prolific author who has won multiple literary prizes, particularly for his poetry. The first lady of the estuary was “La toupie.” The second is “La dame aux glaïeuls.” In this novella, Jared is a man who, wishing to finish his novel, takes on the role of off-season caretaker in a hotel lost between the Saint-Laurent and the Appalachians. His friends warn him of the isolation, the cold, and the shadows of the residence. Gagnon interrupts his story with various definitions and descriptions of the gladiola for which the hotel is named. Jared becomes concerned when, while putting together several paranormal experiences, he 262 FRENCH REVIEW 88.1 Reviews 263 meets his sole neighbor whose girlfriend is named and looks like his ex-wife Gladia. Gagnon uses“pathetic fallacy”to convey mood:“Fuir loin de ce chalet,de cette auberge, de ce village aux maisons placardées, de ces rivages maudits qu’il aimait pourtant si fort en été, jadis”(73). Jared’s descent into madness is well documented by the author; the reader sits at the edge of his seat.“Le gambit de la dame” is the final novella. Sam, our protagonist, is a gun for hire. He, just like Andrei and Jared, is a writer living alone. Sam’s career and love for chess began while he was living and working at his uncle’s farm. One of his relatives was a captive of a “zugzwang” move in chess...

Ereignis as Singularity

The notion of event (Ereignis) that Heidegger introduces in the 1930s names a singularity as something that happens (geschehen), but cannot be repeated and cannot thus fall under a concept. The same holds for the notion of “other beginning,” which thus cannot be in continuity with the first beginning. I show that Heidegger uses two different descriptions of such an event: a messianic or diachronic one—something will happen, we are in transition toward it—and a synchronic one: the event permeates our ways of thinking now. I show that Michel Foucault’s understanding of “the event in thought” (l’événement dans la pensée) that he uses and applies in his Hermeneutics of the Subject can help us understand that the two aspects of the event—messianic and synchronic—are not contradictory, but belongs of necessity to a thinking of a singularity, as Heidegger practices it.

Tours et détours: le mythe de Babel dans la littérature contemporaine par Catherine Khordoc

Reviews 233 this form of mysticism. Hadley Wood considers spirituality in Mme de Lafayette’s Princesse de Clèves, and sees the novel’s central concern as the tension between virtue and the court. She contends that the Princess’s struggle and its resolution would have a clear religious resonance for Lafayette’s contemporaries. Joanne M. McKeown considers four novels by eighteenth-century female authors, whose characters face overwhelming problems on the domestic front. Those who are able to bear their situation do so by turning to God, either through what McKeown calls ‘home-based spirituality,’or by entering the religious life.These authors thus refute Diderot’s reliance on reason. Kelsey L. Haskett examines two of George Sand’s novels in which religion plays a transformative role in human affairs. She demonstrates Sand’s search for spirituality in Indiana and her quest for social reform in Le compagnon du Tour de France. In another essay, Haskell focuses on the spiritual undercurrents of Marguerite Duras’s works.She observes the longing for spiritual transformation that inhabits many of Duras’s characters, which is manifested in personal transformation and often expressed as identity reversal,death,or metaphorical rebirth.Simone Weil’s writings are often paradoxical: she rejected organized Judeo-Christian religion, but was deeply influenced by Christian mysticism.Anne M.François traces Weil’s endeavor to establish her own theological system, as well as critical reactions to Weil’s writings. Susan Udry focuses on the importance of the domestic sphere in Malika Mokeddem’s La nuit de la lézarde. Mokeddem depicts Nour, the main character of the novel, as a deterritorialized subject and creates a new space for Nour, a domestic space, within which to reshape her identity. Haskett and Nelson’s fine introduction gracefully unifies the diverse collection of writings in this well-conceived volume, which provides some important clues regarding the evolution of spiritual thought in French literary expression. Saint Louis University Kathleen M. Llewellyn Khordoc, Catherine. Tours et détours: le mythe de Babel dans la littérature contemporaine. Ottawa: PU d’Ottawa, 2012. ISBN 978-2-7603-0778-0. Pp. 272. $29,95 Can. This study examines the Babel myth in five works, L’Algarabie (Jorge Semprún), Babel, prise deux ou Nous avons tous découvert l’Amérique (Francine Noël), Ainsi parle la tour CN (Hédi Bouraoui),Babel-Opéra (Monique Bosco),and Tambour-Babel (Ernest Pépin). These texts published in French since 1981 reflect a more general acceleration in the use of the myth in the media, literature, and the arts in recent decades, asserts Catherine Khordoc. She provides many examples in her introduction of explicit and subtle references to the Tower of Babel. The increased interest in the myth manifests a coming to terms with the consequences of global cultural and linguistic plurality in a world that is “postmoderne, postcoloniale et transnationale” (20). Khordoc reviews the mainly pejorative interpretation of the biblical myth as punishment for man’s hubris and/or as the source of linguistic confusion resulting in human disharmony. Despite common manifestations of the myth, Khordoc shows that contemporary usage provides more nuanced versions, including the notion that multiplicity of languages does not necessarily imply a malediction. The novels under scrutiny all rely on specific reference to the Babel myth, and all are products of authors from diverse cultures who use French as a vehicle of expression. Khordoc’s first chapter is devoted to a helpful review of the transformation of the myth from the biblical story in Genesis to contemporary representations. Even if the reader is not familiar with the novels in Khordoc’s study, this chapter offers a comprehensive overview, easily applicable to other texts referencing the Babel myth. Two Babelian references are suggested immediately in the title of Semprún’s novel: translation and confusion. Khordoc explains that agarabía is a Spanish word of Arabic origin, signifying“confusion,”rendered in French form in the novel’s title. This framed novel takes place in Paris, an example, as Khordoc notes, of the metonymic associations of the Tower of Babel with the city or metropolis. The novel’s complicated structure is an example of...

Histoire du vocabulaire français: origines, emprunts et création lexicale par Olivier Bertrand

quartier, comme en écho reconnaissant, récitent les vers répétés autrefois après lui: “J’entends ta voix dans la voix des enfants” (175). Avec Parabole du failli, Trouillot compose un hymne éloquent au pouvoir des mots, à la survivance des poètes et à la capacité de l’artiste tombé à se relever comme “l’oiseau noir toucouleur [...] au bord de la fenêtre” (176). Pourtant, cette fois-ci, “tu ne tombes pas. Tu planes. [...] Tu n’arrêtes pas de planer” (176). Une belle parabole pour Haïti aussi. Earlham College (IN) Annie Bandy Linguistics edited by Stacey Katz Bourns Bertrand, Olivier. Histoire du vocabulaire français: origines, emprunts et création lexicale. Palaiseau: École Polytechnique, 2011. ISBN 978-2-7302-1581-7. Pp. 227. 17,80 a. This concise volume will delight any Francophile curious about etymology. With lucid, lively, sometimes witty prose, the author introduces the reader to the captivating history of many common (and some less common) words that have entered French via the language’s many and varied contacts with other languages, as well as words created in-house through derivation and other means. Most chapters begin with an overview, historical synopsis, or presentation and illustration of relevant linguistic terms and processes, before discussing representative lexical examples. The organization is roughly chronological, beginning with the Latin heritage to which French owes some 87% of its vocabulary, the few lexical vestiges of Gaulish (for example, chêne, mouton), and early Germanic influences (‘h aspiré’ words, guerre, blanc, bleu). The chapter on the languages of medieval France gives a solid summary of Occitan but, oddly, little discussion of how Occitan lexically influenced its neighbor to the north; here one could mention abeille or the pronunciation of amour. Particularly fascinating is the chapter on early borrowings from Arabic (chiffre, alcool, chimie, sirop, artichaut, even jupe).Chapters on emerging political vocabulary reflect the author’s more specialized interests; as French progressively replaced Latin in the legal sphere, its vocabulary swelled with appropriate terms (often Latinate) needed to fulfill the language’s expanding functions. The seventeenth century witnessed the beginnings of linguistic purism and codification, and the eighteenth saw further advances in science (units of measurement like litre and mètre) and changes in political thought (for example, anarchiste, from the long-attested anarchie). The chapter on modern borrowings centers entirely on English and a host of recent language planning efforts, such as the Loi Toubon of 1994, designed to stem this perceived incursion and bolster the use of French. Bertrand is careful to avoid angst and alarmism, affirming rather that active borrowing is a sign 282 FRENCH REVIEW 88.1 Reviews 283 of a healthy, living language (French) and that it occurs naturally when languages are in contact. Then follows a potpourri of borrowings from languages whose lexical contributions to French are relatively modest,including Spanish (for example,intégrisme, chocolat),Portuguese (mangue), Dutch (démarrer),Russian (bistrot), Polish (meringue), Persian (pyjama),Chinese (soja),and modern German (aspirine,vampire).Unfortunately, subsequent discussion of the regional languages within France is limited to Breton. Bertrand shows how French innovates from within, for example through derivation (prefixation,suffixation),indicating that many productive affixes (aéro-,ciné-,-gramme, -logie) are of Greek origin.A few captivating cases of disputed or mysterious etymologies (including rat and cochon) are the icing on the cake. The author never pretends to exhaustivity, and annotated references appear in each chapter for readers interested in greater detail or more complete accounts. Graduate students and researchers will want to dig deeper,but selections from this book could work well in a range of undergraduate courses: two possibilities include History of the Language and Introduction to French Linguistics. Overall, this introductory work offers a highly enjoyable, accessible survey of the French lexicon that contains considerable expertise and careful scholarship. University of California, Santa Cruz Bryan Donaldson Cerquiglini, Bernard. Petites chroniques du français comme on l’aime! Paris: Larousse, 2013. ISBN 978-2-03-588587-6. Pp. 351. 20,90 a. La couverture annonce déjà qu’il s’agit là d’un vrai régal: l’auteur accueille le lectorat avec un petit sourire malin auquel s’ajoute un...

Jeune et jolie by François Ozon

l’époque rejeté par une partie de la critique française à cause de son réalisateur danois, Carl Dreyer—ce livre devrait se trouver dans toutes les bibliothèques universitaires. Western Washington University Edward Ousselin Ozon, François, réal. Jeune et jolie. Int. Marine Vacth, Géraldine Pailhas, Frédéric Pierrot. Mandarin, 2013. Six months after the release of Dans la maison, Ozon again trains his lens on adolescent sexuality. In Dans la maison, the theme provided the occasion for drawing attention to the artifice of storytelling and filmmaking. In Jeune et jolie, it inspires a work of poetic composition, underscored by its billing as“le portrait d’une jeune fille de 17 ans en 4 saisons et 4 chansons” (all Françoise Hardy hits) and a scene in which students at the Lycée Henri-IV analyze Rimbaud’s four-part poem “Roman,” better known as “On n’est pas sérieux quand on a dix-sept ans.” Jeune et jolie tells the story of Isabelle (played by captivating newcomer Marina Vacth) who, in part one of the film, loses her virginity while on summer vacation with her loving, well-to-do Parisian family (which includes a little brother who makes his big sister promise to share the details of her first sexual experience with him). In part two, as high school classes resume, Isabelle is working as a prostitute. She keeps her family in the dark by meeting clients in hotel rooms only on weekdays and during the day, but when a much older client (of whom she has grown fond) dies of heart failure while having sex with her, police investigators bring Isabelle’s secret life to her mother’s awareness. Her heartbroken mother (Géraldine Pailhas) and more “understanding” stepfather (Frédéric Pierrot) see to it that Isabelle gets therapy, but, as happens in numerous Ozon films, her presence now unsettles family order in disturbing and slyly comical ways. Nevertheless , therapy seems to have worked its magic, and by the end of part three, we see Isabelle at a party, dancing with kids her own age and starting a relationship with Alex, one of her classmates.With part four, it is springtime and household order appears to be restored: the family, now including Alex, is seated around the breakfast table happily discussing plans for the next summer vacation.Only moments later,Isabelle announces to Alex that she is breaking up with him, and in an ensuing scene, she is consulting her hidden cell phone for messages from clients. Among those messages is one from her dead client’s wife (played by Ozon favorite Charlotte Rampling) requesting a meeting with Isabelle. Together they go back to the hotel room where her husband died; she asks Isabelle to lie on the bed beside her. When Isabelle awakens, she is alone, wearing a smile that is as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa’s. Some critics and viewers complain that the film does not make sense because Isabelle has no“good”reason (i.e., lack of money, family dysfunction, mental illness) for becoming a prostitute. Perhaps they missed the scenes in which Isabelle is clearly in it for her own sexual pleasure. In Jeune et jolie, 200 FRENCH REVIEW 87.4 Reviews 201 Ozon dares to take adolescent sexuality seriously, and more important perhaps, he manages to portray his runway model-turned-actress more as the subject of her own desire than the object of someone else’s. Union College (NY) Michelle Chilcoat Silverman, Max. Palimpsestic Memory: The Holocaust and Colonialism in French and Francophone Fiction and Film. New York: Berghahn, 2013. ISBN 978-0-85745-8834 . Pp. 216. $90. What do François Emmanuel’s La question humaine, Didier Daeninckx’s Meurtres pour mémoire, and Leïla Sebbar’s La Seine était rouge have in common? Quite simply this: each superimposes events in the narrative present onto one or more traumatic events of France’s recent past, namely World War II and decolonization, or, more specifically, the Shoah and the Algerian war. They also happen to provide an ideal introduction to Max Silverman’s insightful study into the workings of memory as it appears in...

Paris Reborn: Napoléon III, Baron Haussmann, and the Quest to Build a Modern City by Stéphane Kirkland

Reviews 287 Français entre eux dans une sorte d’âme collective. Hauter trouve ce bonheur dans la France profonde, celle des petits villages. C’est là la France chaleureuse, “une France du dimanche, si parfaitement heureuse”(114):“Et si‘la province’réapprenait quelque chose à Paris, le bonheur du moment présent?”(94). Paris est loin, on n’en a pas besoin. Il y a aussi le goût pour les bons repas où “plus aucune différence ne compte” (108), une relation vibrante avec le patrimoine,“façon de tenir l’ancre par rapport au monde moderne” (126), l’enracinement régional, la solidarité familiale, le goût pour un capitalisme“à visage humain”(167), et un attachement aux valeurs d’une République tolérante qui veut savoir accueillir les immigrés. Le tissu social tient encore bon. Le livre de Hauter s’adresse à tous ceux qui enseignent la société française. Randolph College (VA) Françoise Watts Kirkland, Stéphane. Paris Reborn: Napoléon III, Baron Haussmann, and the Quest to Build a Modern City. New York: St. Martin’s, 2013. ISBN 978-0-312-62689-1. Pp. 327. $29.99. Kirkland’s primary goal is to set the record straight regarding who should be credited for what is, to his mind,“one of history’s most extravagant examples of urban reinvention” (2). That Haussmann’s energy and tenacity were critical in seeing the projects through is indisputable, but it was Napoléon III himself who “defined the vision for Paris and gathered the political means to implement it” (63); indeed, the transformation of Paris would have been impossible without “the convergence of a whole array of social, cultural, and economic factors and the contributions of many individuals” (2). Evidence abounds that posterity has tended not to give credit where it is due: some of the ideas attributed to Napoléon III, for instance, were actually those of a prefect of the Seine during the July Monarchy; as for Haussmann’s own ideas, few were original—in fact, his aesthetic principles “went little beyond systematically ending avenues with domed structure” (274); he played no part, it turns out, in the conception of the so-called Haussmannian building. Yet the Boulevard Haussmann has kept its name, unlike streets named after other prominent figures of the Second Empire. Kirkland does not hesitate to elaborate on Haussmann’s flaws, describing him as“grossly ignorant”(110),“an impassioned and unabashedly partisan advocate for his own cause” (187) who brazenly bestowed the title of baron upon himself despite his lack of noble blood. Nor does Kirkland have qualms about calling the principles underpinning the modernization program “despotic and socially regressive” (171). The Second Empire’s failure to improve the living conditions of the working class constitutes, for Kirkland, “a great missed opportunity” (171); the financial and real estate dealings were “questionable” if not “downright reprehensible”; and the moral depravity of certain players was “appalling” (291). To be sure, Napoléon III’s regime could justifiably boast of myriad changes which most would consider improvements: an additional 85 miles of streets, 420 miles of sidewalks, 46,000 trees, 17,000 gas streetlamps, not to mention 700,000 new inhabitants in just 20 years; but Kirkland never loses sight of the “tremendous human and cultural cost” of the enterprise (2). He is an accomplished storyteller who interweaves, seemingly effortlessly, information on architecture, urban planning, politics, history, economics, and the arts, bringing to life an extensive cast of colorful characters from various walks of life. Readers will relish his animated accounts of lavish celebrations hosted by Napoléon III (the emperor’s inclination“to a sort of austerity”notwithstanding [105]); Queen Victoria’s visit to Paris; the quest for safer drinking water (before Second Empire advances, water was obtained directly from the Seine and left to sit for a day so the solids could settle); the expropriation of an astonishing 20% of the city’s population so that the grands travaux could be realized. Paris Reborn is a well-substantiated, measured treatment of a key period in French history, noteworthy above all for its ability to help us visualize the metamorphosis of the“old...

Les Berserkir: Les guerriers-fauves dans la Scandinavie ancienne, de l’Âge de Vendel aux Vikings (VIe–XIe siècle) by Vincent Samson

Reviewed by: Les Berserkir: Les guerriers-fauves dans la Scandinavie ancienne, de l’Âge de Vendel aux Vikings (VIe–XIe siècle) by Vincent Samson Thomas DuBois Vincent Samson. Les Berserkir: Les guerriers-fauves dans la Scandinavie ancienne, de l’Âge de Vendel aux Vikings (VIe–XIe siècle). Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2011. Pp. 447 In his carefully researched and clearly argued doctoral dissertation from the Université Lille 3—Charles de Gaulle, Vincent Samson examines the varied evidence surrounding the concept of berserkir, “guerriers-fauves” or wild warriors, including skaldic and eddic poetry, runic inscriptions, saga accounts of varying styles and natures, and artistic representations. Samson argues that a distinct warrior/cultic class or status existed under the designation berserkir in Vendel and Viking Age Scandinavian cultures, with roots in earlier eras reaching back into the Indo-European past. It was a status that, Samson suggests, declined in the era following Christianization, a decline reflected by changes in the portrayal of berserkir in saga accounts. As Samson outlines in his study’s opening chapter, scholarship on the ambiguous and often contentious topic of the berserkr has tended toward opposing extremes (p. 28). On the one hand are “excessively enthusiastic” scholars who readily combine evidence from differing eras, geographic contexts, and textual traditions to arrive at a unified, transcendent image of a persistent berserkr institution. At the other extreme are “hypercritical” scholars who emphasize the fragmentary nature of the evidence regarding the berserkir, and who regard figures like Snorri Sturluson or even skaldic poets like Þorbjörn Hornklofi as misguided and imaginative synthesizers, misled by their Christian or continental understandings of a remote pre-Christian past and influenced by images and ideas contained in continental Christian literature. Samson aims to situate his analyses between these extremes, distinguishing carefully between items of extant evidence, but with the ultimate goal of synthesizing a reasonable portrait of the cultural and religious institution(s) that the evidence seems to describe. As Samson notes, his intent is not to provide definitive answers, but rather to offer a considered middle ground between the scholarly extremes and their at times hyperbolic or vitriolic proponents. Samson begins his examination by weighing the evidence for each of the two primary etymologies that exist for the term berserkr. Medieval Icelandic writers like Snorri, as well as early nineteenth-century philologists and later “hypercritical” analysts, read the root ber- as “bare,” linking it either to the image in Tacitus and other Classical sources of Germanic warriors entering battle naked, or to warriors bereft of weapons or dressed in only a tunic. Most twentieth-century scholars, in contrast, read the root as an obsolete term for the bear, seeing the term as a reference to the wearing of bear skins in battle, a parallel to the wearing of wolf skins signaled by [End Page 368] the somewhat less common, but occasionally co-occurring term úlfheðinn. Samson proposes a historical progression, in which the term berserkr, and the associated state of fury berserksgangr, would have referred in an era prior to the Viking Age to the ceremonial wearing of bear pelts, a cultic act apparently prominent only in Norway (p. 88) and modelled on an older pan-Germanic practice of donning wolf or other animal skins. Both terms would represent Norse adaptations of the concept of animal-costumed warriors attested more broadly in the Migration era and having ancient Indo-European antecedents. Samson sees the Migration era as the time in which an elite warrior class of this nature developed or expanded in Germanic societies, integrally linked to ideas of royal sovereignty and to the god Óðinn/Wotan. Archaeological evidence like the Torslunda plaques support this development and suggest a fused cultic and military function of berserkr figures in the sixth and seventh centuries. By the time of the skaldic Haraldskvæði, and the court of King Harald Fairhair, this warrior class was still well ensconced, but the terms berserkr and úlfheðinn had come to be understood not as references to costume, but primarily as descriptions of the fierceness and beastlike qualities of the designated warrior group, men who were said to growl and...

Science in support of racial mixture: Charles-Augustin Vandermonde's Enlightenment program for improving the health and beauty of the human species

In 1756, while he was regent of the Faculté de Médecine in Paris, Charles-Augustin Vandermonde published his Essai sur la Manière de Perfectionner l’Espèce Humaine. This treatise was situated within the French-led medical movement of meliorism, meant to increase public health by boosting the medical arrangement of marriages from all strata of society. What made Vandermonde different from his colleagues is that he was not just looking for a way to improve the health of society: he was also proposing a series of measures meant to increase the beauty of humankind. And, for the first time in the history of European medicine, he advocated mixed-race couplings as a means to obtain the best results. This latter development is so unexpected in the global setting of the Enlightenment that we could arguably hail Vandermonde as the founding father of what Michel Foucault later called ‘biopolitique’.55As developed by Foucault, ‘biopolitique’ stands for the progressive seizing by higher power of the population's daily life. For a lengthier description of how this process unfolds according to Foucault, see Foucault, Michel. L’incorporation de l’hôpital dans la technologie modern, in Dits et Écrits, t.2, Gallimard, Paris, 2001.

Diffusion induced isothermal solidification during transient liquid phase bonding of cast IN718 superalloy

In transient liquid phase (TLP) bonding for commercial applications, one of the important key parameters is the holding time required for complete isothermal solidification tIS, which is a prerequisite for obtaining a proper bond microstructure. The objective of the study is to analyse the isothermal solidification kinetics during TLP bonding of cast IN718 nickel based superalloy. Experiments for TLP bonding were carried out using a Ni–7Cr–4·5Si–3Fe–3·2B (wt-%) amorphous interlayer at several bonding temperatures (1273–1373 K). The time required to obtain TLP joints free from centreline eutectic microconstituents was experimentally determined. Considering the solidification behaviour of residual liquid, tIS could be predicted by a mathematical solution of the time dependent diffusion equation based on Fick’s second law.Dans la brasure en phase liquide transitoire (TLP) pour applications commerciales, l’un des paramètres clés importants est le temps de maintien requis pour la solidification isotherme complète (tIS), qui est une condition requise pour l’obtention d’une microstructure adéquate du lien. L’objectif de cette étude est d’analyser la cinétique de la solidification isotherme lors de la brasure TLP du superalliage coulé à base de nickel, IN718. On a effectué les expériences de brasage de TLP en utilisant une couche de liaison amorphe de Ni–7Cr–4·5Si–3Fe–3·2B (% en poids) à plusieurs températures de brasage (1273–1373 K). On a déterminé expérimentalement le temps requis pour l’obtention de joints TLP libres de micro constituants eutectiques à la ligne centrale. En considérant le comportement de solidification du liquide résiduel, on pouvait prédire tIS au moyen d’une solution mathématique de l’équation de diffusion dépendante du temps basée sur la seconde loi de Fick.

Mediated risks: the Roşia Montană displacement and a new perspective on the IRR model

The impoverishment risks and reconstruction (IRR) model is widely used in research on involuntary population displacements. This article endorses an expansion of the model to better account for how impoverishment risks are mediated through economic circumstances and through actors outside and within the displacement process. The case of the proposed Roşia Montană mining project in Romania reveals that some impoverishment risks originate beyond displacement itself, and are harder to counter, while others are mitigated through local resistance and the strategic deployment of material and cultural assets. The Roşia Montană displacement also shows that mediation reduces the predictability of IRR risks.Résumé Le modèle IRR (Impoverishment Risks and Reconstruction) est largement utilisé dans la recherche sur les déplacements involontaires de populations. Cet article propose une extension de ce modèle pour mieux tenir compte du rôle que joue la situation économique locale et celui des acteurs qui participent, de l'intérieur comme de l'extérieur, au processus de déplacement. Le projet minier Roşia Montană en Roumanie montre que certains risques d'appauvrissement, plus difficiles à contrer, ne proviennent pas du déplacement lui-même. D'autres risques sont atténués grâce à la résistance locale et au déploiement stratégique, par les collectivités touchées, de leurs ressources matérielles et culturelles. Dans le cas étudié, ces facteurs de médiation limitent la puissance prédictive du modèle IRR.

Interrogating progress indicators of the third Millennium Development Goal from the viewpoint of ultrapoor Bangladeshi female heads of household

Three indicators are instituted to monitor progress towards the third Millennium Development Goal (MDG3) directed at the promotion of gender equality and women's empowerment: girls’ participation in education, women's participation in nonagricultural wage employment, and women's participation in national political decision-making. We examined these indicators through the narratives of 43 ultrapoor Bangladeshi women heads of households. Although the United Nations reports that Bangladesh is making strides towards achieving MDG3, we question the salience of indicators that shelter social institutions such as marriage from scrutiny and perpetuate an instrumentalist orientation to gender equality, where women need to participate in the world-as-it-is.Résumé Trois indicateurs sont utilisés pour évaluer les progrès accomplis dans la réalisation du troisième objectif du millénaire pour le développement (OMD-3) qui vise à promouvoir l’égalité entre les sexes et l'autonomisation des femmes : il s'agit de la participation des filles à l’éducation, de la présence des femmes salariées dans secteur non agricole et de la participation des femmes à la prise de décision politique nationale. Nous avons examiné ces indicateurs à travers le récit de 43 femmes bangladaises chefs de famille extrêmement pauvres. Même si les Nations Unies rapportent que le Bangladesh fait de grands pas vers l'atteinte des OMD, nous remettons en question l’à-propos de ces indicateurs qui préservent d'un examen critique les institutions sociales comme le mariage et qui perpétuent l'instrumentalisation de l’égalité de sexes en invitant les femmes à participer à un monde inchangé.

The potential of evaluation to promote sustainable development in Russian forest management

This article discusses the potential of evaluation to help NGOs, namely the WWF (the World Wide Fund for Nature), to promote sustainable development in the Russian forest sector. Application of evaluation can strengthen two out of three main functions of NGOs – their expertise and lobbying. The third function of NGOs, as legitimisers, is difficult to perform in the Russian institutional climate. International partnerships address the issue of legitimacy and secure funding for NGOs. This international support is beneficial to a capacity building process and should promote the implementation of independent evaluation, which, in turn, can be helpful to promote sustainable development.Le potentiel de l'évaluation au moment de promouvoir le développement durable dans la gestion forestière en RussieCet article traite du potentiel de l'évaluation au moment d'aider les ONG, et notamment le WWF (Fonds mondial pour la nature), à promouvoir le développement durable dans le secteur forestier russe. L'application de l'évaluation peut renforcer deux des trois principales fonctions des ONG – leurs connaissances techniques et leur exercice de pression. La troisième fonction des ONG, celle de la légitimation, est difficile à mener dans le climat institutionnel russe. Les partenariats internationaux abordent la question de la légitimité et du financement sûr pour les ONG. Ce soutien international est avantageux pour un processus de renforcement des capacités et devrait promouvoir la mise en œuvre d'une évaluation indépendante, laquelle peut se révéler utile dans la promotion du développement durable.El potencial de la evaluación en la promoción del desarrollo sostenible en la gestión de bosques en RusiaEl presente artículo analiza el potencial que tiene la evaluación para apoyar a las ong, en particular el wwf (siglas en inglés del World Wide Fund for Nature), en su trabajo orientado a promover el desarrollo sostenible del sector forestal en Rusia. La aplicación de evaluaciones puede contribuir a fortalecer dos de las tres principales funciones de las ong: su experiencia y su cabildeo. La tercera función de las ong, ser legitimadoras, difícilmente puede ser realizada en el contexto institucional de Rusia. Más bien son las alianzas internacionales las que abordan el tema de la legitimidad y obtienen fondos para las ong. Este apoyo internacional aporta beneficios para el proceso de construcción de capacidades, pudiendo promover la implementación de evaluaciones independientes, las cuales, a su vez, pueden ser útiles para impulsar el desarrollo sostenible.O potencial da avaliação para promover desenvolvimento sustentável na gestão florestal russaEste artigo discute o potencial da avaliação para ajudar ONGs, especificamente o WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature), para promover o desenvolvimento sustentável no setor florestal russo. A aplicação da avaliação pode fortalecer duas das três principais funções das ONGs – seu conhecimento e trabalho de lobby. A terceira função das ONGs, como legitimadoras, é difícil desempenhar no ambiente institucional russo. Parcerias internacionais abordam a questão da legitimidade e asseguram financiamento para ONGs. Este apoio internacional é benéfico para um processo de capacitação e deve promover a implementação de avaliações independentes que, por sua vez, podem ser úteis para promover o desenvolvimento sustentável.

Town Mobiles and Country Mobiles: Exploring the Rural-Urban Dichotomy

This presentation focuses on the rural-urban distinction of mobile user information studies. It reports on an exploratory mobile user survey conducted among a relatively understudied population of rural prairie Canadians. The findings indicate a mobile behaviour that deviates from the standard observations reported in the literature gathered from urban areas and those found among many international rural mobile users. The discussion concludes by defining factors that influence future research into rural mobile populations.Cette communication s'intéresse à la distinction rurale-urbaine des études d'utilisateurs de services portables. Sera présentée une étude exploratoire auprès des Canadiens qui utilisent de tels services dans les secteurs ruraux des Prairies, un segment relativement sous-étudié. Les données démontrent un comportement qui se distingue de celui observé dans la littérature parmi les résidents en milieu urbain et de celui d'autres résidents en milieu rural à l'étranger. La discussion conclut le tout en définissant les facteurs qui influenceront les prochaines études sur l'utilisation de services portables chez les populations en milieu rural.

Wikipedia and Historiography: The Case of Singapore and the Philippines Compared

This paper explores the intellectual space of Wikipedia history-writing and raises questions about the nature of the relationship between this new virtual territory and the world of older print media history-writing using as examples the pages devoted to the national histories of the Philippines and Singapore.Cet article explore l’espace intellectuel que constitue Wikipédia dans la rédaction de l’histoire et questionne la nature du lien entre ce nouveau territoire virtuel et le monde traditionnel de l’imprimé. Seront examinées en exemple les pages consacrées à l’histoire nationale des Philippines et de Singapour.

“You Can’t Film Here”: Queer Political Fantasy and Thin Critique of Israeli Occupation in the Bubble

Cet article défend l’idée que The Bubble, film qu’Eytan Fox a réalisé en 2006, fait une critique diluée et décevante de la société israélienne. La fascination, perceptible dans la production, pour la médiation cinématique, pour la politique de la représen - tation, et pour la politique-fiction apparaît glisser subrepticement dans des invocations racistes habituelles à une culture palestinienne arriérée, dans une forme néolibérale de discours sur la politique identitaire gay appuyée par des tropes sur la représentation et la visibilité et dans une approche du conflit Israélo-palestinien qui perpétue un cycle de violence. Cette analyse fait naître un questionnement à propos de certains enjeux contemporains relatifs aux films politiques et à la critique médiatique, particulièrement en ce qui concerne la façon de réagir à un cinéma qui anticipe la critique d’un discours politique qu’il prétend lui même critiquer mais dont il reste malgré tout complice.

Image des corps : un outil pédagogique pour aider les jeunes à analyser la pression sociale

L’objectif est de synthétiser les principaux résultats d’enquête de cohortes, relatifs à l’exposition aux écrans des enfants de 0 à 3 ans. Cette revue inclut les articles ayant conclu à la fois sur les déterminants de l’exposition aux écrans, et sur l’impact de l’exposition sur différentes facettes du développement de l’enfant.Vingt études de cohorte issues de la littérature scientifique internationale ont été révisées.Les déterminants principaux de l’exposition précoce aux écrans recensés sont liés aux conditions de vie familiales, à des caractéristiques parentales. Le niveau d’éducation des parents, le revenu des parents, la garde de l’enfant, la fratrie, l’usage des écrans par les parents, les symptômes de stress ou de dépression des parents sont associés à l’exposition des enfants aux écrans. L’exposition précoce aux écrans semble avoir un impact sur le développement cognitif, socio-émotionnel, physique, et sur l’engagement et les compétences à l’école. Les études révisées varient dans la mesure des expositions aux écrans et dans les variables de contrôle utilisées. Le manque d’interactions ou le manque d’attention du bébé aux jeux et à son corps, conséquences du temps passé devant les écrans, pourraient impacter le développement.De futures analyses s’appuyant sur les données de cohorte, telles que la cohorte ELFE en France, permettraient de mieux individualiser l’effet des écrans sur le développement, en ajustant sur davantage de variables d’environnement.As parents and children have more and more leisure or educational screen activities available, there is curiosity about the impact of exposure to screen content on cognitive, socioemotional, physical and behavioural development of the child. Some recent studies suggest that early exposure may have a negative impact. Studies differ in methods and sample sizes. The aim of this study is to compute results on exposure of infants to screens from recent birth cohort studies, including determinants of exposure and the impact of this exposure on development.Based on a selection by an algorithm of research applied to PubMed and Google Scholar, birth cohort studies with a focus on determinants or consequences of early exposure of infants were included. Twenty studies from different countries were computed to do this review. Methods and results were discussed and compared.Main determinants of early exposure to screens were linked to family living conditions and to the characteristics of the parents. Low level of education of parents, low household income, no day-care for the child, no siblings, high use of screens by parents, symptoms of stress or depression by parents, lack of outdoor equipment or few outings were associated to higher early exposure to screens. It seemed that early exposure could have an impact on cognitive development, psychosocial development, emotional development, physical development, behaviour, and on engagement and performance at school. Revised studies differed in terms of measurement of exposure and in terms of difference in control variables computed in multivariate analysis. Exposure to screens could result in decreased attention to parent-child interactions or decreased attention of the infant to his/her own body and to his/her environment which could in turn impact development.In future studies, the way early exposure to screens is measured requires full attention. Also, controlling for socioeconomic conditions and physical and mental availability of caregivers is important to identify the impact of screens alone on the development. Future analysis of cohort analysis, such as ELFE cohort in France, could allow to individualize the effect of exposure to screens between the ages of 0 to 3, controlling for adequate environmental factors.

Césaire at the Crossroads in Haiti: Correspondence with Henri Seyrig

Césaire at the Crossroads in Haiti: Correspondence with Henri Seyrig

Césaire and the Challenge of Translation: The Example of “Strong Men” by Sterling Brown

Césaire and the Challenge of Translation: The Example of “Strong Men” by Sterling Brown

La décision d’hospitalisation sans consentement aux urgences : approche dimensionnelle ou catégorielle ?

Comme le signalait déjà la Haute Autorité de santé en 2005, la réalisation d’études en France sur les modalités de décision de l’hospitalisation sans consentement fait toujours défaut. Dans cette optique, nous présentons les résultats d’une enquête multicentrique transversale de conception naturalistique, portant sur 442 patients dont l’objectif est d’explorer aux urgences les critères de prise de décision de l’hospitalisation sans le consentement. Parmi les facteurs cliniques et sociodémographiques étudiés, le diagnostic catégoriel ne semble pas intervenir dans la décision. En revanche, de faibles scores à l’Échelle d’Insight Q8 ou à l’Échelle Globale de Fonctionnement (EGF) prédisent le mieux la décision d’hospitalisation sans consentement. À la lumière de ces résultats, nous discutons des relations entre insight , capacité à consentir aux soins et modalité d’hospitalisation pour proposer l’évaluation de l’ insight et du fonctionnement global comme critères opérationnels dans la prise de décision de l’hospitalisation sans le consentement. In 2005, in its recommendations on the modalities of decision making for compulsory hospitalization, the French Health High Authority (HAS) had already stressed the need for rapid implementation of studies and epidemiological analyses on the subject to compensate the lack of adequate data in France. The new French law of July 5, 2011, on the rights and protection of persons under psychiatric care, establishes a judicial review of decisions for compulsory hospitalization. Therefore, healthcare professionals need to better define and characterize the criteria for such decisions, especially in their relation to psychopathology. The concept of capacity to consent to treatment includes the ability to understand (to receive information about the disease), the ability to appreciate (to weigh the risks and benefits of treatment), the ability to reason (determining the best choice rationally) and the ability to freely express a decision. However, assessment tools of capacity to consent to treatment seem to fail to predict the modality of hospitalization. This study examined the impact of clinical and contextual characteristics on the decision in emergency services to admit patients to compulsory inpatient psychiatric units. Data was collected from 442 successive patients admitted to hospital for care from five psychiatric emergency facilities in Paris and covered sociodemographic information, previous hospitalizations, recent course of care, clinical diagnosis, Global Assessment of Functioning scale (GAF) and Insight measured by the Q8 Bourgeois questionnaire. Patients were also assessed based on criteria established by the HAS for the severity of mental disorders and the necessity of emergency care. Multivariable logistic regression shows that diagnosis does not affect the decision of hospitalization. Agitation, aggressiveness toward others, being married as well as being referred by a doctor or family are all factors that increase the risk of involuntary hospitalization. Last, low Q8 and GAF scores are strong predictors for compulsory admission. Our study shows a dimensional rather than categorical assessment of patients by clinicians. Assessment of insight is the main operational criterion used by clinicians in our study. This supports using insight and GAF evaluation in clinical practice to clarify assessment and decision-making in an emergency setting regarding compulsory hospitalization.