Overseas Department Of France Research Articles

JMM Profile: Rift Valley fever: a zoonotic viral haemorrhagic disease.

Rift Valley fever (RVF) is caused by infection with Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV), a mosquito-borne RNA virus that affects both humans and livestock species. Humans can also acquire infection from contact with infected animals and contaminated bodily fluid. Veterinary vaccines are available for use in livestock, but no vaccines have been approved for humans to date. The virus is currently endemic in most sub-Saharan regions of Africa but numerous incursions into Middle Eastern countries and islands in the Indian Ocean, such as Mayotte (an overseas Department of France), have occurred in the past decade. The risk of further geographical expansion is high and therefore additional investigation is warranted to better understand disease transmission and pathogenic mechanisms to develop threat mitigation strategies.

The Immigrants of BUMIDOM and Their Resistance to Employment Assignments

Abstract: The Bureau pour le développement des migrations dans les départements d’outre-mer (Office for the Development of Immigration in the Overseas Departments of France, or BUMIDOM), created by France in 1963, oversaw the immigration of some two hundred thousand people from the Overseas Departments, about a third of whom were women, to metropolitan France between 1963 and 1982. These immigrants were subjected to strictly controlled employment assignments. These women, mostly Black women succeeded, partially, in escaping them. Without comprising a Black feminist movement per se, these women demonstrated a desire for emancipation and a capacity for agency through different strategies. Although their social and economic situation did not put them in a dominant position, they were still not entirely defenseless against BUMIDOM, whose capacity to control the women was limited and which appeared to be a weak institution. Thus, these immigrants’ assorted paths are reminiscent of other forms of contemporary Black feminisms in which Antillean women have long distinguished themselves.

An Archipelagic Node in Global Migration? The Stakes of Comparison and Irony in Nathacha Appanah’s Tropique de la violence

Abstract Nestled in the Mozambique Channel, the island of Mayotte is an overseas department of France, wrenched away from the Comoran archipelago in 1975. This act of colonial mutilation gave birth to an ultra-peripheral “French” territory that persists as a beacon of hope for Comoran clandestine migrants, thousands of whom have perished on the treacherous sea crossing since 1995. In her novel Tropique de la violence (2016), Mauritian author Nathacha Appanah inscribes the Mahoran tragedy within a global imaginary of migration. This essay explores the risks and merits of such a comparative approach: as Appanah’s references to the Mediterranean “migration crisis” foster transnational empathy, do they simultaneously reproduce the colonial gaze? After all, the polyphonic novel does not give a voice to the Comoran migrant herself. Is this a gesture of narrative violence, or a way of forcing us to confront silences that can never be filled? Through a series of detailed close-readings, the essay argues that Tropique de la violence takes a nuanced and often ironical approach to the facile equivalences between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean (in terms of migratory tragedy), as well as between Mayotte and France (in terms of political status). This exploration culminates in an examination of the novel’s own complex positionality as a French-language novel written by a Mauritian author about Mayotte. Simultaneously branded as too foreign and yet not foreign enough, Tropique de la violence both embodies and exceeds Indian Ocean circularities.

Memorializing Masculinity?

The Black Lives Matter movement has delivered a timely reminder of the colonial narratives underpinning commemorative statuary in the public sphere. Crucial to this renewed scrutiny of public memorialization is a consideration of the intersection of political and historical narratives with systems of oppression such as gender and race. This essay explores the gendering of colonial and anticolonial commemorative statuary on display in the French Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe. As overseas departments of France, these islands remain politically, administratively and economically tied to their former colonizer. The essay traces the evolution in Antillean memorialization from the glorification of the white male colonizer or abolitionist to the celebration of slave resistance through the figure of the maroon. It examines a range of public artworks dating from 1904 to 2002, questioning the extent to which these memorials, whether commemorating colonial history, abolitionist rhetoric or anticolonial resistance, uphold “great men of history” narratives. The essay explores the subversion of classical representations of colonial and abolitionist figures through the vandalism and destruction of a number of statues of abolitionist Victor Schoelcher. It examines the masculine iconography of resistance, often premised on the radical appropriation of classicist forms to celebrate male resistors, while women and their roles in anticolonial struggle are commonly obscured or depicted in ways which uphold dominant racial narratives and gender stereotypes. Finally, the essay explores the subversive anticolonial forms employed in several recent installations, which move beyond mimetic depictions of the male body to showcase elements usually excluded from representation, including the grotesque, disfigured or wounded body, or to eschew portrayals of the (gendered and racialized) body altogether. These works point to more inclusive ways of portraying not only resistance to colonialism, but also the suffering and the collective humanity of enslaved peoples.

THE BURDEN OF HISTORY AND THE ANTILLEAN’S QUEST FOR HIS DISTINCTIVE IDENTITY

One of the greatest burdens to bear is that of an unfavourable history. Its weight has a great deal of undertones that turn the existence of the persons involved into a psychologically distorted one. On this question of the burden of history, a collective approach has more far reaching psychological consequences for its bearers than that with an individualistic dimension. The former captures the reality of the Antillean people of Guadeloupe and Martinique, two overseas Departments of France. Our objective in this paper therefore is to painstakingly examine the Antillean‟s history, existence and space with a view to rationalizing the reactionary and innovative mentality amongst the Antillean people who seem to be racing against time in the search for their true identity, qualities and future projections.

Comparative assessment of the overseas territories of France according to the criteria of provision of tourist resources

The article is devoted to assessing the availability of the largest French overseas departments with tourist resources based on quantitative characteristics. The main approaches to assessing the provision of the territory with resources – component-wise and integral were considered. The algorithm for conducting the assessment, including techniques of both main approaches, was presented. The component-wise assessment was carried out according to three main blocks of parameters that reflect the availability of tourist resources in the territory: provision of natural facilities; provision with objects of historical-cultural heritage; provision of tourist infrastructure. Due (for the reason) to the heterogeneity of the evaluation criteria, which does not allow using absolute indicators, a point-rating approach was applied, which allowed linking the main characteristics of each department being evaluated together and conducting a component-by-component, and then an integral assessment. Based on the results of geo-information analysis a map scheme was constructed, which reflects the geolocation of the evaluated departments and the degree of their availability of tourist resources. It will allow tourism industry organizers to more effectively to direct their efforts and funds to the development of tourism in the overseas departments of France. The work was built using GIS.

Combining Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 Satellite Image Time Series for land cover mapping via a multi-source deep learning architecture

The huge amount of data currently produced by modern Earth Observation (EO) missions has allowed for the design of advanced machine learning techniques able to support complex Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) mapping tasks. The Copernicus programme developed by the European Space Agency provides, with missions such as Sentinel-1 (S1) and Sentinel-2 (S2), radar and optical (multi-spectral) imagery, respectively, at 10 m spatial resolution with revisit time around 5 days. Such high temporal resolution allows to collect Satellite Image Time Series (SITS) that support a plethora of Earth surface monitoring tasks. How to effectively combine the complementary information provided by such sensors remains an open problem in the remote sensing field. In this work, we propose a deep learning architecture to combine information coming from S1 and S2 time series, namely TWINNS (TWIn Neural Networks for Sentinel data), able to discover spatial and temporal dependencies in both types of SITS. The proposed architecture is devised to boost the land cover classification task by leveraging two levels of complementarity, i.e., the interplay between radar and optical SITS as well as the synergy between spatial and temporal dependencies. Experiments carried out on two study sites characterized by different land cover characteristics (i.e., the Koumbia site in Burkina Faso and Reunion Island, a overseas department of France in the Indian Ocean), demonstrate the significance of our proposal.

How Empires Make Peripheries: ‘Overseas France’ in Contemporary History

The inhabitants of the overseas departments and collectivities of France have, of late, been reconsidering their relationships both to each other and to the former imperial metropole. In 2011 Mayotte, previously classified as an overseas collectivity, acceded to full French and European status as an overseas department of France following a referendum. This decision to, in the words of the social scientist François Taglioni, further ‘anchor’ the island in the republic has commonly been understood as a pragmatic decision as much as an ideological one. It was a way of distancing Mayotte from the political turmoil in neighbouring independent Comoros, as well as an indicator of the improbability of a small island nation achieving full sovereignty in a multipolar, resource hungry world. The narrative that self-determination must necessarily be obtained through national independence is still prevalent in the language of certain independence movements, including that of the Kanak people of New Caledonia. But it has been repeatedly tested at the ballot box, not least in November 2018 when New Caledonians voted in a referendum on their constitutional future. This referendum – and the further two due to follow it before 2022 – will be observed with interest by other self declared nations in waiting. Some anticipate, not a reclaiming of local sovereignty in the event of independence, but rather a transferral of economic hegemony from France to China, a prospect hinted at by Emmanuel Macron during a visit to Nouméa in 2018. However, the demographic minority status of the Kanak people whom the independentist Kanak and Socialist Liberation Front (Front de libération nationale kanak et socialiste;FLNKS) claims to represent, coupled with divisions within the movement, means it is very hard to predict the contours of a future independent New Caledonian state.

DuPLO: A DUal view Point deep Learning architecture for time series classificatiOn

Nowadays, modern Earth Observation systems continuously generate huge amounts of data. A notable example is represented by the Sentinel-2 mission, which provides images at high spatial resolution (up to 10 m) with high temporal revisit period (every 5 days), which can be organized in Satellite Image Time Series (SITS). While the use of SITS has been proved to be beneficial in the context of Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) map generation, unfortunately, most of machine learning approaches commonly leveraged in remote sensing field fail to take advantage of spatio-temporal dependencies present in such data.Recently, new generation deep learning methods allowed to significantly advance research in this field. These approaches have generally focused on a single type of neural network, i.e., Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) or Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs), which model different but complementary information: spatial autocorrelation (CNNs) and temporal dependencies (RNNs). In this work, we propose the first deep learning architecture for the analysis of SITS data, namely DuPLO (DUal view Point deep Learning architecture for time series classificatiOn), that combines Convolutional and Recurrent neural networks to exploit their complementarity. Our hypothesis is that, since CNNs and RNNs capture different aspects of the data, a combination of both models would produce a more diverse and complete representation of the information for the underlying land cover classification task. Experiments carried out on two study sites characterized by different land cover characteristics (i.e., the Gard site in Mainland France and Reunion Island, a overseas department of France in the Indian Ocean), demonstrate the significance of our proposal.

Citizens’ Actions in Response to Chikungunya Outbreaks, Réunion Island, 2006

To the Editor: To get ready for the spread of chikungunya, health authorities in North, South, and Central America and the Pacific Islands are developing preparedness and response plans (1,2) that contain vector control, epidemiologic surveillance, medical education, and communication components. They might consider the experience of Reunion Island, an overseas department of France, where a chikungunya outbreak affected 38.5% of its 800,000 inhabitants during the first 3 months of 2006 (3). Although the island was unprepared to deal with such a massive outbreak (4), the disease was under control by the middle of 2006; only a few sporadic cases occurred during the following years. In addition to taking recommended public health measures, public health officials in France created a task force with physicians (including intensive care unit doctors, pediatricians, and obstetricians), specialists in public health and social sciences, virologists, immunologists, entomologists, and pathologists (5) to develop a multidisciplinary approach to the outbreak. Some citizens’ initiatives complemented the official measures. First, associations of chikungunya virus–infected patients helped families (through means that included psychological and friendly support and home visits) and updated mass media with regard to disease complications, persistent symptoms, and administrative difficulties (including receiving long-term sick leave and disability, recognition of professional exposure, and free analgesic medication). Second, citizens created a chikungunya-dedicated website (http://www.chikungunya.net) that included citizens’ frequently asked questions and university-affiliated physicians’ responses and patients’ forums. Third, citizens actively supported the twice-yearly Kass moustik (Creole for “to break mosquitoes”) operations, which involved vast community mobilizations to educate persons on mosquitoes’ role in spreading chikungunya and to destroy breeding sites near homes. The operations also involved mobilizing community-based and municipality groups, making door-to-door visits, and lobbying for government funds (each operation cost US $60,000). After implementation of these initiatives, telephone operators sent health messages to all cell phones on the island. These actions demonstrate that citizens have a place in their countries’ response to chikungunya outbreaks.

Silence, Space and Ecology: Representing the ‘Amerindian’ in Contemporary Guyane

‘Amerindians’ represent only a small proportion—currently estimated at 3–4%—of the sparse but rapidly growing population of France's South American département d'outre-mer. Yet the existence of ‘autochthonous’ communities in Guyane presents legal, political, cultural and environmental challenges to the concepts of republican universalism ostensibly established in 1946 alongside its status as an overseas department of France. Using an Amerindian cultural centre as a case study, this article seeks to explain how representations of ‘Amerindian’ identities in Guyane are constructed both alongside and against a traditional framework of opposition between universal commonality and cultural particularism. Through engagement with museum ethnography and analysis of personal narrative and collective action, the article traces conflicts and compromises surrounding ‘indigeneity’ and citizenship in the face of state non-recognition of ethnicity. It argues that the politics of Amerindian identity, from citizenship rights to ecotourism, has increasingly been characterised by an emphasis on ‘ecological’ relationships.Les « Amérindiens » ne constituent que 3 à 4 % de la population de la Guyane – seul département d'outre-mer de France en Amérique du Sud – une population relativement faible et dispersée mais qui connaît une croissance rapide. Cependant, l'existence de communautés « autochtones » dans ce département présente des défis juridiques, politiques, culturels et environnementaux face à l’universalisme républicain établi au moment où la Guyane est devenue département, en 1946. Cet article s'appuie sur le cas d'un centre culturel amérindien pour exposer comment les représentations de l'identité « amérindienne » en Guyane se construisent à la fois avec et contre l'opposition traditionnelle entre les communalités universellement partagées et le particularisme culturel. S'appuyant sur l'ethnographie muséologique et sur l'analyse des récits individuels et de l'action collective, l'article reconstitue les conflits et les compromis autour de « l'autochtonie » et de la citoyenneté face à l'aveuglement officiel de l'État par rapport à l'idée de l'ethnicité. L'article suggère que, des droits citoyens à l'écotourisme, la politique identitaire « amérindienne » se caractérise de plus en plus par une emphase sur les relations sociales « écologiques »; c'est-à-dire entre hommes, femmes et environnement.

Rozwój przemysłu turystycznego departamentów Francji zamorskiej w warunkach światowego kryzysu gospodarczego

The French tourism sector is one of the fastest growing and profitable sectors of the country’s national economy, and France itself should be at the forefront of deriving great benefits from tourist services. At the end of the last decade, the Republic was visited by over 81 million tourists, which generated more than 6% of the GDP, and provided employment to approximately 2 million individuals. Since the 60s of the twentieth century, the development of tourism has covered also the departments and territories (DOM-TOM), endowed with numerous material evidence of the colonial past and rich natural potential. These regions offer a variety of activities, and are now prestigious tourist destinations. The aim of the present study is to outline the characteristics of the French tourism industry in communities and overseas departments of France, in the conditions of the global economic crisis. The global decline in productivity, coupled with an increase in public debt in numerous countries, contributed to the regression of the tourism industry, both in international traffic, as well as on the internal market. According to a UN report, the WTO includes France into a group of five countries with the highest reception of passenger traffic (–7.8%). When analysing the French overseas tourism industry, expressed by the production of goods and tourism services, attractive areas, a range of accommodation with the evolution of tourism, and the average length of stays have all been studied. The article describes and assesses the potential of the tourism product, with particular emphasis on the traditional alternative forms of tourism, especially in the departments where non-European ecotourism is popular. Taking into consideration the diversity of French qualified and maritime tourism, their brief characteristics have also been included. By analysing tourism development strategies, such as the Schemad'amenagement et de developpementtouristique ( Scheme Planning and Tourism Development ) and the ProgrammeSectoriel en Agritourism ( Agritourism Sector Development Programme ), authors attempt to answer questions about the validity and effectiveness of these initiatives, in times of growing competition and decreasing share in the foreign tourist market.

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

Fourteen years of debate and workshops on the immunology of preeclampsia. Where are we now after the 2012 workshop?

This paper depicts an overview of debates that have taken place during the 14 years of the International Workshops on Reproductive Immunology/Immunological Tolerance and Immunology of Preeclampsia. This 8th event in 2012 (Reunion island, overseas department of France in the Indian Ocean) witnessed a consensus among immunologists on the key role of regulatory T-cells in the orchestration of trophoblastic invasion at the maternal–fetal interface, while they represent some 10% of the immunological cellular repertoire at the site of implantation (NK cells representing 70%). On the vascular side, the upregulation of carbon monoxide CO, metabolite of heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1; by inhibiting soluble Flt-1, SFlt-1, and soluble endoglin, SEng, release), explains the very promising protective and potentially therapeutic effect of pravastatin in preeclampsia and the paradoxical strong protective effect of cigarette smoking on preeclampsia. Finally, there was, through a study performed on Mauritius island a great interest in the inositol phosphoglycans P-type (IPG-P) as a reliable, cheap, and predictive urinary test in preeclamptic women (a few weeks before the clinical onset of the disease). Besides the interest of a specific test, IPG-P may also partially explain the global endothelial cell disease encountered in preeclampsia. Furthermore, the Appendix of this paper lists the programs of all the workshops that have taken place since 1998.

The recognition of Brazilian samba de roda and reunion maloya as intangible cultural heritage of humanity

In this essay, we present a comparative analysis of the UNESCO heritage nomination process for two African Diaspora music and dance forms: samba de roda, from the Bahian Recôncavo (a coastal area of the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia), and maloya, from Reunion Island (a former French colony in the Indian Ocean, which is now officially an "overseas department of France"). samba de roda, as the Brazilian candidate, was included in the III Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity, in 2005. And maloya, the French candidate, was inscribed onto the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, in 2009. Despite a number of formal commonalities between samba de roda and maloya, such as responsorial singing, choreography, and the main musical instrument types, the controversies raised during their respective processes of nomination were quite distinct. The former is regarded as a traditional and less well known style of samba, the musical genre widely recognized as the musical emblem of Brazil. The latter competes with séga-a genre of popular music consolidated in the local media-for the position of chief musical representative of Reunion Island. The disparate symbolic identities attributed to these musical expressions pave the way for a distinct manner of employing the international resources related to the safeguarding of intangible heritage. This suggests that the local impact of the inclusion onto international lists depends as much on the contextual particularities of each candidacy as on central decision-making bodies such as UNESCO.

Words to Make you Laugh?: Performing the Public in Guadeloupean Comedy Sketches

Guadeloupean comedy sketches in Kréyòl, live and on DVD, feature stock characters taken from the city streets, rum shops and small neighborhoods of the island. Through their depictions, actors in Kréyòl comedy sketches position different Guadeloupean “types” into an imagined social landscape that spans the island, the Caribbean and the mainland, including much of the social complexity of the island. This paper considers how creole comedy constructs a particular vision of the Guadeloupean public. In this overseas department of France, artists dedicate a considerable amount of time and energy to imagining and reclaiming what it means to be Guadeloupean. I explore how comedy sketches elaborate and circulate social and linguistic stereotypes and how Kréyòl comedy offers commentary and presents stances on Guadeloupean society and the issues the community faces, such as high unemployment, assimilation into France and the impacts of globalization. [publics, comedy, performance, Guadeloupe, stereotypes]

The failure of colonial ‘distancing’: Changing representations of the 2005–06 chikungunya epidemic in Réunion, France

In 2005–06, the Indian Ocean island of Reunion, an overseas department of France, experienced a massive epidemic of the mosquito-borne viral infection chikungunya. Public health authorities in metropolitan France were arguably slow to react, and we explore their representations and management of the epidemic in the context of tropicality and colonial discourse. We analyse official reports on the epidemic from the bulletins of the Institut de Veillance Sanitaire (Institute for Health Surveillance) for changes in representations of risk posed by chikungunya to metropolitan France, in the emphasis on control measures for the epidemic and in descriptions of chikungunya case symptomatologies, and compare these with parallel representations of another epidemic, flu, already known in metropolitan France. Our findings illustrate that official responses to chikungunya at the beginning of the epidemic are suggestive of a centred tropicality: there is no perceived risk to metropolitan France because of its nontropical climate; thus, there is no justification for costly control measures for a disease inevitable in the tropics; and therefore the symptoms of French nationals in overseas departments in the tropics can be described in detached terms so as to generate knowledge about the disease. However, this 'distancing' fails with the perceived risk to metropolitan France towards the end of the epidemic in late 2006, when representations are more consistent with a decentred tropicality: the concept of a protective metropolitan French climate is abandoned; the need for a whole-of-society involvement in control measures is accepted; and symptoms are described using more inclusive language. Similar changes are not found in official reports on the flu epidemic.

Predictors of student Internet use: data from three developing countries1

Training, organizational support, attitude and national culture were explored in relation to college students’ Internet usage. Samples were drawn from India, Mauritius and Reunion Island (an overseas Department of France). Each nation differs culturally from the others. Questionnaire data was collected on students’ Internet usage as well as the predictor variables. Data was analyzed using hierarchical multiple regression. The country groups were dummy‐coded. Results suggested that attitude, training and university support were positively related to students’ Internet use. Non‐significant interaction terms suggested that these relationships did not change according to country sample. The present findings are consistent with previous reports using samples from Western, economically developed countries.

A Four-Country Investigation of Factors Facilitating Student Internet Use

Education and national culture may influence Internet use. The present study explored factors that might facilitate college students' use of the Internet across samples in four countries: India, Mauritius, Reunion Island (an overseas Department of France), and the United States. Questionnaire data was collected on students' extent and frequency of Internet use. Also, structured items asked about the factors that would help them to use the Internet more. Data was analyzed using dummy-coded multiple regression so as to compare responses across the country groups. The U.S. sample was coded as the reference group so that the regression coefficients in the equation provided a comparison between the U.S. sample and each other country represented. Further country comparisons were made using t-tests for differences between the regression coefficients. Results suggested that there was more Internet use in the U.S. sample compared to the others. The Non-Western samples also reported greater desire for Internet access and non-English web sites. Training on how to use the Internet and course requirements for Internet use were reported as helpful by the India and Mauritius groups to a greater extent than by those in Reunion and the United States. Implications of the present exploratory results are discussed for applications of theoretical models across cultures.

(review)

190 Reviews three centuries, new challenges to the writers and readers ofthis kind of literature, and frequent, unnecessary reminders of the hybridity of the genre. However, the author is much more convincing when, in subsequent chapters, he eventually buckles down to an examination of specific texts?many of which are not, in fact, travel accounts. The geographical and cultural focus is Europe and the Americas?perceptions and experiences of the New World, and memories of and other connections with the old continent. The Caribbean is seen as the 'coordinating point between North and South' (p. 57) in the Americas. Whereas in the early part of this work some space is given to the writings of Columbus and Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, detailed assessment is reserved for Guillaume-Thomas Raynal's Histoire philosophique etpolitique des etablissements et du commerce des europeens dans les deux Indes (1770)?the involvement of Denis Diderot in this multi-volumed work figures prominently?and Alexander von Humboldt's voyage and substantial overland trek of 1799-1804. The account of this journey (the 'Personal Narrative' of almost 2,000 pages was published between 1808 and 1834), which took in parts of what we now call Venezuela, Colombia , and Ecuador, as well as Peru, Mexico, and the Caribbean, begins, according to Ette, 'the modern discourse about the New World' (p. 88). But he means a European discourse. Nevertheless, after a distracting chapter on Balzac's novella Sarrasine (presumably inspired by Barthes's examination of the work in S/Z), the author alights on Latin American concepts ofthe Americas. Pride ofplace is given to the Uruguayan Jose Enrique Rodo's Ariel (1900) and Motivos de Proteo (1909). Unfortunately, Rodo's vision of a supranational Latin American continent gets a little lost in the discussion of these texts. Subsequently, a chapter is focused on the Mexican essayist and poet Alfonso Reyes, a significant figure in modern Latin American thought and an individual who was prepared to accommodate Spanish and European cultural influences. His dramatic poem Ifigenia cruel (1924), accompanied by a prose commentary, is described here as 'a border text and maybe even more a border-crossingtext', with its 'two polesof Western and indigenous cultures'(p. 193). The contemporary period and the Caribbean are brought into play with a detailed study of the 1989 novel of the Guadeloupian writer Maryse Conde, Traversee de la mangrove. Set in Guadeloupe, an overseas department of France, and published in Paris, this work brings together colonial and postcolonial motifs, as well as European and Antillean perspectives. Finally, the Old World-New World link is further em? phasized with an examination of Arnold Stadler's Feuerland (1992), in which travels, memories, letters, and recent history connect twentieth-century Germany and Ar? gentina, specifically Patagonia?a Patagonia that is 'only good for being a surface on which the travel movements ofthe novel's figures are inscribed' (p. 304). This monograph provides a generally wide-ranging approach to what is very much an Atlantocentric view of movement, contacts, and culture. It reveals an occasional disjointedness, too many repetitions, too many long, lumbering sentences (it has not been carefully edited), and some not infrequent, self-conscious attempts at dazzling the reader with ideas and insights that have little more than surface charm. Yet the work's strength is that the author is often very penetrating with individual texts and this monograph contains many detailed, fascinating assessments of a wide variety of essays, works of fiction, and accounts of travels and discoveries. University College London David Henn La Cathedrale. Ed. by Joelle Prungnaud. (Collection UL3: Travaux et Recherches) Lille: Universite Charles-de-Gaulle. 2001. 304pp. ?23. ISBN 2-84467-034-2. Ichabod? Cathedrals east long shadows, and even if readers are occasionally left in the dark, this comparatist exercise in sciagraphy has much to offerin no fewer than MLR, ioo.i, 2005 191 twenty-five essays, with even the unwonted pleasure of some colour plates by way of illustration. Art history, and in particular stained glass, and music, though all too briefly,occupy the place to which they are fully entitled, enhancing a gratifyingsense of purposeful interdisciplinarity. The volume is a product of what must have been a...