Recherche multi-critères

There and back: Circularity in Jane Campion’s The Piano (1993) par Annalena Geisler, Arthur Dussart, publié le 11/05/2023

The commercial and critical success of Jane Campion’s third feature-length film The Piano (1993) paired with the accolades it received (three Academy Awards, a César and the first Palme d’Or for a female director) cemented the reputation of the New Zealand director. The Piano is a period drama set in the beginning of the 19th century which centres on the mute Scottish woman Ada McGrath who, together with her daughter and her piano, travels to New Zealand to be married to a frontiersman.

From page to screen: between betrayal and re-creation in the film adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun par Agathe Faucourt, publié le 27/04/2023

This article examines the film adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2006 novel, Half of a Yellow Sun. Released in 2014, Biyi Bandele’s adaptation was often criticized for its alleged betrayal of the original text. The task of adapting a novel of more than four hundred pages in a film of less than two hours was particularly daunting. Yet, it remains to be seen whether the film deserved to be labelled as unfaithful. Rather than judging the worth of an adaptation based on its degree of loyalty to the source text, spectators could also regard the adaptation as a commentary and even possibly as an independent work of art. Relying on adaptation theory, this paper will consider whether Bandele’s infidelities allow for a potential re-reading of Adichie’s novel.

G.K. Chesterton, penseur critique de la culture de masse ? par Charlotte Arnautou, publié le 25/04/2022

L’enjeu de cet article est d’envisager G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) comme un penseur critique original de la culture de masse en Grande-Bretagne, à une époque traversée par une crise politique et sociale mais aussi culturelle. Héritier d’une tradition conservatrice d’écrits critiques sur la culture contemporaine, Chesterton s’écarte de la vision prédominante d’une culture de masse dangereuse et dégradante et décide plutôt de l’envisager comme un sujet d’étude fécond.

The policy of "danization" of the local Greenlandic populations as viewed by inhabitants of Ilulissat par Andréa Poiret, publié le 17/12/2021

The acculturation of the Danish colony of Greenland during the 20th century was less brutal than in other latitudes. However, under the guise of the modernization and rationalization of the built environment, the urbanization imposed by Copenhagen profoundly changed lifestyles. Based on their family albums, this text gives a voice to the Greenlanders themselves in an attempt to draw the contours of a collective memory of danization.

La nature sauvage dans la guerre du Vietnam par Pierre Journoud, publié le 20/05/2021

Cet article présente trois conceptions de la nature vietnamienne (nature-refuge, nature-cible et nature-martyre) durant la guerre du Vietnam (1955-1975).

Images of Erudite Femininity. Capturing the learned/knowledgeable woman in the 19th-century visual arts (part 1: Pre-Raphaelite artists' male perspective) par Virginie Thomas, publié le 30/12/2020

[Fiche] Very few representations of female knowledge can be found in Pre-Raphaelite paintings without them being imbued with a threatening dimension. Female knowledge is necessarily associated with the representation of a domesticated woman, echoing the recommendations of the time defined, for example, by John Ruskin in Sesame and Lilies. On the contrary, the aim of the pictures of learned women was to send a warning against the deadly potential of woman's unwonted curiosity through the use of mythological figures, such as Pandora, Psyche or Cassandra, ultimately leading to the lurking image of the castrating prophetess or sorceress.

A voice and a place of one’s own: women, knowledge and empowerment in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre par Christine Vandamme, publié le 30/12/2020

[Article] The article deals with women and knowledge in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847). The novel was quite revolutionary in its time for its strong assertion of female agency and self-empowerment and a keen perception of power dynamics inherent in the definition of gender and gender roles. However considering Jane Eyre through the sole prism of a novel of emancipation only dealing with women’s rights and aspirations would be reductive. Jane Eyre’s fiery narrative is a strong plea against all forms of intersectional oppression in Victorian times despite its own unconscious bias relative to ethnicity and the colonial question notably.

“Captives of ignorance”? Women, education and knowledge in the Victorian period par Véronique Molinari, publié le 30/12/2020

[Article] This article provides an overview of the different ways in which women were educated in the Victorian period, from home-schooling to private day-schools and boarding schools. While the campaign for educational reform was seen, within the context of the Industrial Revolution and the growing feminist movement, as a key to freedom, improvements in female education were also met with resistance.

Images of Erudite Femininity: Capturing the learned/ knowledgeable woman in 19th-century visual arts (part 2: Pre-Raphaelite artists' female perspective) par Agathe Viffray, publié le 30/12/2020

[Fiche] Pre-Raphaelite women artists assimilated the type of the erudite woman that had been forged by their male counterparts: they complied with the canon, yet slightly shifted it by softening the usual rejection of the learned woman and emphasising the idea of freedom linked to the possession of knowledge. From the (twin) figures of the governess and the Angel in the House (two forms of possession of knowledge deemed acceptable for women by Victorian society) to the image of the sorceress (the embodiment of Evil), by way of the representation or lack of representation of the professional scholar woman, we shall endeavour to embrace the different types of knowledgeable women created by women artists in 19th-century British art.

Giving Voice in Mike Lew’s Teenage Dick: Disability in a Modern Rewriting of Richard III par Méline Dumot, publié le 09/10/2020

This article examines a contemporary rewriting of Shakespeare’s Richard III by Chinese-American playwright Mike Lew. In his play Teenage Dick (2018), Lew gives a new voice to Shakespeare’s well-known villain. Noticing that one of the most famous disabled characters in theatre history is rarely – if ever – performed by a disabled actor, Lew centers his play on Richard’s experience as a disabled teenager. The play questions our current vision of disability, both in the theatrical world and in our society. This article explores the ways in which Lew adapts the Shakespearean legacy to produce a new narrative and envisions the concept of accessibility in multiple ways.

Aestheticism and Morality in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) par Louise Bailly, publié le 17/09/2020

Known for his witty aphorisms, fanciful style and extravagant way of life, Oscar Wilde was not only a dandy par excellence but also a major figure of nineteenth-century literature. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, he expresses his belief that art should be dissociated from moral considerations and creates an anti-hero at odds with traditional protagonists whose virtuous behaviours were meant to be exemplary models.

Mary Cassatt, a modern approach to the painting of domestic life par Louise Bailly, publié le 07/09/2020

Mary Cassatt was a major figure of transatlantic artistic exchanges, the only American who exhibited her paintings alongside the Impressionists in Paris. A strong independent woman and a truly talented artist, Cassatt thought that “Women should be someone and not something.” Although she was considered one of the greatest painters of her time in America and spent sixty years of her life in France, she was long forgotten there after she died.

"60% of new jobs are precarious jobs": A conversation with Ken Loach par Ken Loach, publié le 14/11/2019

Ken Loach was invited to the Festival Lumière in Lyon to present his new film, Sorry We Missed You, about a family struggling in the wake of the 2008 financial crash. His masterclass at the Comédie Odéon was moderated by Thierry Frémaux, director of the Festival, and Clémentine Autin, a French politician. This resource is an edited transcript of the discussion about the film.

Reconfigurations of space in Partition novels par Sandrine Soukaï, publié le 19/09/2019

This article examines two Indian novels Clear Light of Day (1980) by Anita Desai and The Shadow Lines (1988) by Amitav Ghosh along with Burnt Shadows (2009) by Anglo-Pakistani novelist Kamila Shamsie, books written about the Partition of India that accompanied independence in 1947. Partition led to violence on an enormous scale; the exact number of people who were killed has never been ascertained, and estimates vary between one and two million. Partition also caused massive displacements of population, estimated between 12 and 18 million. This paper examines the way in which space – national, familial and communal – was divided and then reshaped by and through Partition. After discussing the fractures, ruptures and uprooting brought about by this trauma, I will consider the way in which diasporic writers devise fictional maps of memory of the past that foster exchanges across geographical borders.

All men are created equal? Barack Obama and the American Revolution par Steven Sarson, publié le 28/03/2019

Barack Obama believes that the American nation's founding documents—the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (including the Bill of Rights)—have been the driving forces of American history and remain the foundations of American politics today. In this talk we will explore Obama's analyses of these documents and of their legacies since, in particular in relation to slavery, the Civil War, Jim Crow, and Civil Rights. We will look at the words of Barack Obama, as derived from his writings and speeches, and also at historical sources from the time of the American Revolution, through the Civil War, and to the Civil Rights era.

Race and the three phases of the American Revolution par Olivier Richomme, publié le 25/03/2019

The American Revolution, the Civil War and Reconstruction period, along with the Civil Rights era can be seen as three phases of the same struggle for racial equality in the U.S. The Declaration of Independence established the revolutionary ideal of equality among men. This promise was not fulfilled by the Reconstruction Amendments. Some might argue that the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 the Voting Rights did not bring about true racial equality. In a sense, the American Revolution can be envisioned as a work in progress.

Measuring the Global Influence of a City par Hiroo Ichikawa, publié le 31/05/2018

Le professeur Hiroo Ichikawa de la Mori Memorial Foundation nous explique le fonctionnement du Global Power City Index qui classe les métropoles mondiales selon 70 critères. La définition de la « puissance » ("power") adoptée dans ce classement est large et repose aussi bien sur l'attractivité économique que le poids touristique ou l'efficacité énergétique et environnementale. Les métropoles s'appuient sur les résultats du rapport pour infléchir leurs politiques, et l'auteur souligne le rôle performatif de ce type de classements.

Vie(s) ordinaire(s) pendant la Grande Dépression : le parti pris de «Let Us Now Praise Famous Men» (James Agee et Walker Evans) par Adriana Haben, publié le 06/04/2018

Cet article se propose d’analyser le choix fait par James Agee et Walker Evans, auteurs de l’ouvrage documentaire Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), de s’intéresser spécifiquement au quotidien de trois familles de métayers dans l’Alabama pendant la période de la Grande Dépression, plutôt qu’au contexte socio-politique à proprement parler. Le documentaire devient alors le lieu d’une réflexion sur la valeur de chaque forme de vie humaine, plutôt qu’un constat sur l’échec d’un système.

We’re Going on a Bear Hunt: Traditional and Counter-traditional Aspects of a Classic Children’s Book par Véronique Alexandre, publié le 07/07/2017

The read-aloud book We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, “retold” by Michael Rosen and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury designed for very young children may be unlikely teaching material for EFL students in French middle and senior schools. But if studied in conjunction with the video released by The Guardian in 2014 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the book, and if additional literary and artistic references are brought into the lesson plan, the teaching project may prove rewarding on many levels.

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samourai / Ghost dog : la voie du samouraï (Jim Jarmusch – 1999) par Lionel Gerin, publié le 15/03/2017

Avec Ghost Dog, Jarmusch s'attaque à un autre genre, le film noir, pour lequel il revient paradoxalement à la couleur. Un tueur à gages, Forest Whitaker, adepte du code d'honneur des samouraïs de l'époque médiévale, vit simplement, connu seulement sous le nom de Ghost Dog. Il considère comme son maître un mafieux qui lui a autrefois sauvé la vie. À cause d'un témoin gênant, au cours de l'exécution d'un contrat, il devient lui-même la cible de la mafia. Film sur la transmission, sur la confrontation des anciens et des modernes, sur la conscience de l'histoire, cette œuvre ravira les cinéphiles et enchantera les autres.

Festival Lumière 2016 : Masterclass de Walter Hill par Walter Hill, Yves Bongarçon, publié le 13/02/2017

Le 10 octobre 2016, à l'occasion du Festival Lumière, Walter Hill est venu donner une Masterclass à la Comédie Odéon à Lyon. L'entretien mené par Yves Bongarçon est l'occasion de revenir sur le parcours de ce géant du cinéma américain. Producteur, réalisateur et scénariste, il a notamment produit les trois premiers Aliens, et réalisé le film 48 heures, avec Nick Nolte et Eddie Murphy. Ce texte est une transcription de l'entretien entre Walter Hill et Yves Bongarçon. Il a été par endroits modifié pour l'adapter au format écrit. Un enregistrement audio est disponible sur la plateforme Souncloud.

12 Angry Men / Douze hommes en colère (Sidney Lumet - 1957) par Lionel Gerin, publié le 25/11/2016

En 1957 sort 12 Angry Men, premier film de Sidney Lumet, qui connait un succès commercial très modeste, mais remporte l'Ours d'or au festival de Berlin, le prix spécial à Locarno, est nommé aux Oscars, et voit Henri Fonda remporter le prix du meilleur acteur aux British Awards. Il s'agit d'un "film de procès", genre qui a donné de grands classiques, de The Paradine case (Le procès Paradine, 1947) d'Alfred Hitchcock, à Anatomy of a Murder (Autopsie d'un meurtre, 1959) d'Otto Preminger, en passant par Witness for the Prosecution (Témoin à charge, 1957) de Billy Wilder. Mais alors que tous ces films se concentrent sur les débats, le défilé des témoins et les plaidoiries, jusqu'au suspense du verdict, 12 Angry Men se déroule entièrement en salle de délibération. C'est donc un huis clos, pari de mise en scène intéressant.

Manu Joseph: Les familles : liaisons et déliaisons par Manu Joseph, publié le 03/05/2016

Ce texte a été écrit lors des Assises Internationales du Roman 2015, suite à la discussion animée par Raphaëlle Leyris, avec Manu Joseph, Florence Seyvos et Zeruya Shalev. "When I was a child, our home had a sofa that had a big hole in the seat. The sofa was draped in a sheet and only the family knew about the hole. One day, the surly landlord came asking for rent. My mother invited him in on purpose, and made him sit on the sofa. As he sank into the hole, she laughed. My mother did things people did not understand."

Republican Electoral Strategy after Realignment: Electioneering and the Ideological Shift par Andrew Ives, publié le 29/02/2016

This article argues that the ideological shift undertaken by the Republican Party in the late 1970s, namely the move away from the consensus politics of Eisenhower’s Modern Republicanism towards the so-called Reagan Revolution, was motivated primarily by electoral considerations and the pursuit of power. The southern strategy, the adoption of socially conservative policies and the embracing of supply side economics, are analyzed in light of their electoral appeal, and are seen as a delayed response to the New Deal realignment of 1930-32.

Gallipoli and the First World War - Online Resources par Fabien Jeannier, publié le 22/01/2016

Une sitographie sur la Campagne de Gallipoli pendant la Première Guerre mondiale.

Adelle Waldman: L’identité troublée par Adelle Waldman, publié le 15/09/2015

In reporter and columnist Adelle Waldman’s first, highly touted novel, La Vie amoureuse de Nathaniel P., the author describes with subtlety and irony the meanderings of Nate Piven, a popular writer moving up in the elite literary circles of Brooklyn. He is also a young lover drunk with his success with women. In this astute novel of manners, Waldman brilliantly paints the portrait of a modern, imperfect and narcissistic male with a troubled love life.

Nickolas Butler: On Rural America par Nickolas Butler, publié le 15/09/2015

Until about a year ago, I had lived my whole life in urban areas. The smallest cities I had ever called home was likely during graduate school, when I commuted between Arden Hills, Minnesota (population: 9,704) and Iowa City, Iowa (population: 67,862). And in fairness to Arden Hills and Iowa City, both communities are much larger than their census estimates, due in part to their proximity to other larger growing cities, and their migrating student populations. The largest city I had ever called home was Chicago, where I once lived for a year during college, in a small room so close to the elevated train tracks I could have thrown a baseball and hit the passing EL.

Taiye Selasi: On Emotions par Taiye Selasi, publié le 31/08/2015

How do writers succeed in submerging us in situations so unlike our own lives? I would argue that, as a reader, I have yet to encounter a situation in literature "unlike" my life. The demographic details may differ: Charlotte is a spider, I am a human; Teju Cole's narrators are men, I am a woman; many of Toni Morrison's characters are mothers, I am not. The list of things that I am not is long: white, male, a parent, a soldier, Chinese-speaking, South American, a witness to any war.

Home (Taiye Selasi) par Taiye Selasi, publié le 26/08/2015

What were we seeking when we set out? And where did we set out from? Birthplace. Plausible. But who was born? Not ‘we,’ not whole. Not yet, not then. Then, we were theirs: the parents, the adults, the fully-formed members of loosely-formed worlds. They had homes. Or thought they did. We belonged to them. They belonged to There. At least they tried: they ate the food, they spoke the tongue, they donned the garb. Still they moved like strangers There, like looser threads in tight-knit Thens. A question. If they belonged to There then why did they leave in search of Where?

Identity (Dana Spiotta) par Dana Spiotta, publié le 26/08/2015

I read obituaries. I love to read about people who were notable for one thing—say the woman who appears in a famous photo at Kent State. I am drawn to what people think of as failures: the guy who backed the wrong videotape format or the guy who lost an election after a tweet. I like to read about people whose lives took dramatic turns, like the guy who spent most of his life running an ice cream shop in New Jersey but secretly had a past life as a war criminal. I am fascinated by secret lives or multiplex identities. I imagine the day-to-day ordinary life, what does it feel like over time. I wonder about consequences, guilt, and redemption. I wonder how your past shapes who you are. And I wonder about the life that takes shape around an event. How a fleeting moment can change you, or maybe not. Maybe you are you no matter what.

Morality (Adelle Waldman) par Adelle Waldman, publié le 26/08/2015

Two of my favorite authors, Jane Austen and George Eliot, are very concerned with characters’ moral lives. In “The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.,” I look closely at how Nathaniel P. justifies his behavior to himself. Today, books or films about romantic relationships, or dating, are often seen as very light—mere amusements and escapes—but this is the area in life when most of us will reveal how we treat others: how kind we are to those we don’t (or no longer) love and how we respond when differences arise with those we do love. I wanted to write a book about relationships that was truthful without being escapist, and I wanted to look closely at how dating behavior reflects morality in the deepest sense.

Meritocracy (David Samuels) par David Samuels, publié le 11/06/2015

“Meritocracy” is the comic honorific that the American elite has awarded to itself in recognition of its accomplishments since the end of the Cold War. The coinage has proved to be a lasting and significant one because it does so many kinds of necessary work at once. “Meritocracy” assuages the inherent tension that exists between the terms “elite” and “popular democracy” by suggesting that the new American elite has earned its position in an entirely democratic way. Yes, we do have an elite, the word admits, as other nations do: but our elite merely consists of the most “meritorious” members of our democracy, and so any potentially troubling contradiction dissolves in a pleasurable way that both the early Puritans and their plutocratic descendents might easily recognize. The fortunes of the founders of Google and Facebook provide us with reassuring proof that the more we have, the more deserving we are.

Ireland’s political life during the Famine: Election, constitutionalism and revolution par Anne-Catherine de Bouvier, publié le 07/03/2015

This article aims at exploring the available means of political response in Ireland to the issue of the Famine. What comes first to mind is the case of the representative function, democratic, or approximately so, by the standards of the day; i. e., parliamentary activity. Compiling the records of all individual Irish MPs in Parliament over the period is a tempting intellectual task but clearly beyond the scope of this paper; instead, I approach electoral activity during the period, since elections provide the opportunity of assessment of past contributions, and of confrontation. In the specific context of the Famine, theoretically at least, Irish MPs at Westminster were instrumental in bringing about a better knowledge of what was going on – and indeed some did so in quite a sustained, articulate, and often humane manner. Conversely, elections are moments in a country’s life when voters can take their representatives to account; and clearly, there was much to account for.

Roosevelt’s Political Discourse: Grounded in a Liberal Protestant Worldview par Andrew Ives, publié le 05/03/2015

This paper will argue that Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s political discourse was profoundly influenced by his liberal Protestant worldview. The paper begins with some background on Roosevelt’s Christian upbringing. It moves on to show how FDR consistently used Protestant precepts and Biblical allusions as a rhetorical tool to gain electoral support. However, the author argues that Roosevelt’s simple yet profound Christian faith went far beyond this purely rhetorical usage and that liberal Protestant teachings in fact structured his political philosophy.

Seeing Between the Lines: Terence Davies’s The House of Mirth and the art of adaptation par Wendy Everett, publié le 02/03/2015

Examining Terence Davies’s adaptation of Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, this article identifies ways in which the creative interpretation of the filmmaker may serve to open up new insights into both the original text and the language of cinema itself. It considers, in particular, aspects such as music, painting, and visual metaphor in its presentation of cinema as an essentially multilayered and complex medium which requires of the spectator an imaginative and creative engagement, just as the novel requires of the reader.

The Myth of Concordia par Nadia Urbinati, publié le 23/02/2015

The place of God in the constitution has been one of the most sensitive issues in the debate on the constitutional treaty of the European Union, and has influenced the process of ratification. In the five decades since the Treaty of Rome was signed in 1957, European leaders have tried to build a united Europe on a secular foundation of treaties and economic regulations. These no longer seem to be adequate to the task. Lately, efforts have been made to include another factor – religion...

Philosophy, Religion and Toleration par Sudipta Kaviraj, publié le 22/01/2015

Religious faith connects strongly held ethical ideals to the belief that these are the commands of God, or a power above human reason. This can make people of hard religious belief to be intensely intolerant. How can we easily accept those who violate or dismiss principles that we consider the foundational to the moral order of the universe? Thus it is quite possible that religious people might be pious inside their own religion, but hateful towards others. Though most religious faiths set down often similar principles of moral conduct, and encourage adherents to live by principles of fellowship, kindness, and love, these injunctions often get circumscribed by the larger idea of their religion being the only ‘true’ religion...

Analysing front pages par Clifford Armion, publié le 20/01/2015

A front page tells you a lot about the contents of a newspaper and its attitude towards the news. Even if the traditional format difference between broadsheet newspapers and the more compact tabloids is disappearing – most papers are now printed in the same size – you can still easily recognize serious newspapers from tabloids. Tabloids usually have a large red masthead, very bold typeface and eye-catching pictures. The more serious papers have more text on the front-page and a plainer layout. Contrary to tabloids, broadsheets have no puns or jokes in the headlines and use a more formal language. Here are the main features you will find in any front-page…

Bill Douglas Trilogy / La trilogie Bill Douglas My Childhood - My Ain Folk - My Way Home (Bill Douglas 1972 -1973 -1978) par Lionel Gerin, publié le 15/01/2015

Écosse. Un village minier près d'Édimbourg. 1945. Un enfant, son frère, leur grand-mère maternelle. Un prisonnier allemand.Mort de la grand-mère. Orphelinat. Grand mère paternelle. Un oncle. L'orphelinat encore. L'adolescence. La mine. Service militaire en Égypte. Rencontre de Robert. Ouverture. Les dialogues? Presque aucun. La musique? Aucune. L'action? Survivre. Le résultat? Au-delà des mots. Saisissement total. Comment en effet parler d'une telle œuvre? C'est un coup à l'estomac, un vent du Nord, une nuit charbonneuse.

Pluralism and Tolerance: Philosophers, Mystics and Religions par Souleymane Bachir Diagne, publié le 12/01/2015

The belief in certain supernatural realities is an essential dimension of faith. And, by definition, they are that because we do not comprehend them in the same way as we comprehend objects and beings which we are capable of experiencing with our senses or those mathematic idealities that we understand. Faith therefore allows us to perceive the realities of God, His attributes, His angels and other entities and qualities of the same kind. It equally convinces us that, as human beings, we have the capacity for reaching these truths of a different kind than those of our senses or of our reason in the conventional sense within ourselves, and therefore posses an aptitude for the supernatural or the absolutely comprehensible.

Outline for a Discussion on Toleration par Karen Barkey, publié le 09/01/2015

"There are a few ways of thinking about toleration: I define toleration as more or less absence of persecution; the acceptance of a plurality of religions, but not necessarily their acceptance into society as full and welcomed members/communities. Toleration can mean the acceptance of “difference” and a lack of interest beyond the instrumentality to maintain a coherent polity."

The Politics of Fear par Corey Robin, publié le 19/12/2014

In my 2004 book Fear: The History of a Political Idea, I argued that “one day, the war on terrorism will come to an end. All wars do. And when it does, we will find ourselves still living in fear: not of terrorism or radical Islam, but of the domestic rulers that fear has left behind.” When I wrote “one day,” I was thinking decades, not years. I figured that the war on terror—less the invasions, wars, torture, drone attacks, and assassinations than the broader atmosphere of pervasive and militarized dread, what Hobbes called “a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known” and an enemy is perceived as permanent and irrepressible—would continue at least into the 2010s, if not the '20s. Yet even before Osama bin Laden was killed and negotiations with the Taliban had begun, it was clear that the war on terror, understood in those terms, had come to an end.

Heaven's Gate / La porte du paradis (Michael Cimino -1980) par Lionel Gerin, publié le 12/12/2014

1978. Deer Hunter / Voyage au bout de l'enfer. Bien qu'avare du mot, je l'ose ici: chef d'œuvre absolu. N'en déplaise aux détracteurs, à ceux qui y voient, à grand tort, un film (de plus) sur le Vietnam. Deer Hunter est un immense film, profondément américain. Faut-il être aveugle pour y lire un message impérialiste, malgré cette dernière scène poignante, si souvent incomprise. Chef d'oeuvre, donc. Presque trois ans plus tard, sort Heaven's Gate, le plus grand désastre financier du cinéma américain, mais qu'importe! Combien de tableaux Van Gogh a-t-il vendu? Combien d'exemplaires Rimbaud a-t-il écoulé?

The Night of the Hunter / La nuit du chasseur (Charles Laughton - 1955) par Lionel Gerin, publié le 28/11/2014

Pour inaugurer cette rubrique, je ne pouvais choisir aucun autre film. C'est une œuvre qui m'est chère, unique, dans tous les sens du terme, un diamant noir dans la cinéphilie mondiale, une pierre noire dans la nuit de l'enfance. Charles Laughton, immense acteur (de Mutiny on the Bounty à Quasimodo, de Hobson's Choice à Spartacus, passant de la comédie au drame, du film noir au péplum) réalise là son seul film, qui est depuis une des références absolues des cinéphiles. Les films uniques ont toujours une saveur particulière (que l'on se souvienne de Honeymoon Killers de Leonard Kastle, ou d'Electra Glide in Blue de James William Guercio, par exemple) et cette Nuit du chasseur ne fait pas exception.

Scotland’s No par Alistair Cole, publié le 29/09/2014

Shortly before the Scottish referendum on independence, I visited the impressive city of Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city. Though the Scottish referendum eventually produced a No of over 55%, the once second largest city in the Empire was one of only four districts to vote Yes (just over 53%). I had correctly judged the atmosphere in this city, but elsewhere the story was rather different. In 28 of the remaining 32 districts, the No vote carried the day, including in SNP stronghold areas such as Angus and Perthshire...

David Treuer: Forgotten World / Forgotten Words par David Treuer, publié le 18/09/2014

We speak confidently and playfully about the “death of the author” but not one wants to seriously consider the death of literature. But this is precisely what we risk when we treat literature as ethnography, or worse, as the last living remnants of what seem to be vanishing cultures. We don’t read novels, at any rate, to educate ourselves. Or if we do we shouldn’t. And if we do commit this soul error we don’t enjoy novels because of the information they contain. Rather, we enjoy them, we clutch novels to our very souls because they move us, surprise us, transport us, entertain us, shock us, and (ultimately) trick us into caring about people and places that don’t exist and never existed.

Nikolai Grozni: The Whispers of Music Lost par Nikolai Grozni, publié le 10/09/2014

“Only the words break the silence, all other sounds have ceased,” writes Beckett in his Texts for Nothing. Or does he sing it? If words were the only sounds, then a sentence would be the only melody. We might never understand which came first—the words or the melody. Perhaps the first humans knew how to sing long before they knew how to talk. In this Dionysian vision of antiquity, all mortals were originally musicians. Music was the only thing that mattered. People understood each other by inventing mimetic melodies and singing together in tune. They appeared, loved, suffered, worshipped the gods and died like opera singers on stage.

The Salvation (Kristian Levring) par Clifford Armion, publié le 25/08/2014

Nous sommes dans les années 1870, quelque part dans le Far West américain. Jon (Mads Mikkelsen), un pionnier danois, vient de retrouver sa famille fraîchement immigrée après plusieurs années de séparation. Mais le fermier, qui se trouve être un ancien soldat, est brutalement tiré de sa vie laborieuse et tranquille par le frère d’un violent chef de gang… Avec Mads Mikkelsen, Eva Green, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Mikael Persbrandt et les participations d'Eric Cantona et Jonathan Pryce.

"a" (Stewart O’Nan) par Stewart O’Nan, publié le 03/07/2014

Chaque année, les invités des Assises Internationales du Roman rédigent la définition d'un mot de leur choix : il s'agit ici du mot "a", défini par l'auteur américain Stewart O’Nan.

Sofi Oksanen: They fooled you - Greetings from the countries bordering Russia par Sofi Oksanen, publié le 01/07/2014

When I was a kid, my Estonian family never watched TV. Not because they disliked TV-shows, but because Soviet-TV was pure zombie-propaganda. Finland was my other homeland and when we got back to Finland, after visiting my Estonian family, switching on the television was one of the first things we did. It was like opening a window. I can still smell that moment, when my lungs were filled with free air, though I wouldn't have used that word at the time – free.

Redemption Song (Lorna Goodison) par Lorna Goodison, publié le 02/06/2014

Chaque année, les invités des Assises Internationales du Roman rédigent la définition d'un mot de leur choix : il s'agit ici de "redemption song", défini par l'écrivaine jamaïquaine Lorna Goodison.

Rebellion (Rachel Cusk) par Rachel Cusk, publié le 30/05/2014

Chaque année, les invités des Assises Internationales du Roman rédigent la définition d'un mot de leur choix : il s'agit ici du mot "rebellion", défini par l'écrivaine anglaise Rachel Cusk.

La Pensee Sauvage (David Treuer) par David Treuer, publié le 21/05/2014

Chaque année, les invités des Assises Internationales du Roman rédigent la définition d'un mot de leur choix : il s'agit ici de "la pensée sauvage", définie par l'auteur américain David Treuer.

Swim Little Fish Swim (Lola Bessis et Ruben Amar) par Clifford Armion, publié le 13/05/2014

Après Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, 2013), voici une nouvelle comédie New Yorkaise rafraîchissante. Production franco-américaine de Ruben Amar et Lola Bessis, Swim Little Fish Swim nous plonge dans l’univers de la colocation assumée. Une jeune artiste française, Lilas, squatte le canapé d’un couple que tout semble séparer. Leeward, musicien qui n’a jamais enregistré un disque, croit en l’idéologie contestataire des années 60 et refuse de compromettre son ‘intégrité artistique’ pour gagner de l’argent. Mary, infirmière fatiguée, rêve d’une petite maison de banlieue avec des meubles IKEA et un arbre devant...

Wave (Kate O’Riordan) par Kate O'Riordan, publié le 15/04/2014

Chaque année, les invités des Assises Internationales du Roman rédigent la définition d'un mot de leur choix : il s'agit ici du mot "wave", défini par l'auteure irlandaise Kate O'Riordan.

What's a hero? par Susan Neiman, publié le 01/04/2014

When talking about heroes I’ve often been asked if I could please drop the problematic term ‘hero’ in favor of the term ‘role model’. I cannot, since the word role model is part of the problem: a sterile term that social scientists invented in 1957, which simply doesn’t work the way the word heroes does: to inspire, to challenge, to light fires for (and under) people of whatever age who need to be reminded that there is more to their lives than they are told to be resigned to. When attempting to use the word hero in a BBC discussion I was attacked by an interlocutor who justified her refusal to use the old-fashioned word ‘hero’ because “Hitler and Stalin were heroes.”

Finding the Way par Gunnar Olsson, publié le 17/03/2014

Gunnar Olsson explore l'influence du vocabulaire et des méthodes des géographes sur la pensée, la création littéraire, la religion et les arts. How do I find my way in the power-filled world of hopes and fears, truths and lies, love and hate, freedom and repression? By approaching it as if it was made of sticks and stones, mountains and rivers, as if it could be captured in a coordinate net of up and down, front and back, left and right..

Scotland’s Hour of Choice: The 2014 Referendum Campaign par Alistair Cole, publié le 09/02/2014

With the Scottish independence referendum campaign in full swing, it is difficult to stand back and evaluate the position of Scotland in a dispassionate way. Scottish citizens will shortly be called upon to decide whether they agree or not with the proposition that ‘Scotland should be an Independent country’.

Pictures Versus the World par Barbie Zelizer, publié le 24/01/2014

For as long as pictures have been among us, they have generated an uneasy mix of suspicion and awe. Perhaps nowhere is that as much the case as with journalism, where pictures are implicated in the larger truth-claims associated with the news. Aligned with a certain version of modernity, pictures are expected to establish and maintain journalism as the legitimate platform for giving shape to events of the real world. Consider how public response to acts of terror, war and natural disaster is affected by decisions not to depict them. Without pictures to show the news, journalism’s capacity to render the real and make it accessible is compromised.

Much Ado About Nothing (Joss Whedon) par Clifford Armion, publié le 20/01/2014

En adaptant cette comédie de Shakespeare, Joss Whedon marche dans les pas de l’illustre Kenneth Branagh qui avait fait de Much Ado un film remarqué en 1993. Le pari pouvait sembler ambitieux, même prétentieux, et pourtant le résultat est une comédie de mœurs toute en finesse qui respecte et met en valeur l’œuvre du dramaturge élisabéthain.

Minorities and democracy par Siddhartha Deb, publié le 17/01/2014

In 1916, the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore delivered a series of lectures that would eventually be collected into the book, Nationalism. Tagore was writing in the glow of his own celebrity (he had just won the Nobel Prize for literature) and from within the heart of the crisis engulfing the modern world, two years into the slow, grim war that had converted Europe into a labyrinth of trenches covered over with clouds of poison gas. For Tagore, this was the tragic but inevitable outcome of a social calculus that valued efficiency, profit and, especially, the spirit of us versus them that bonded together the inhabitants of one nation and allowed them to go out, conquer and enslave other people, most of them members of no nation at all.

Family Histories par Ian Buruma, publié le 16/12/2013

When I was at primary school in the Netherlands in the late 1950s and early 1960s, history was still taught as a story of great men, kings, generals, national heroes, and of course great villains, mostly foreigners. In our case, this meant a succession of Williams of Orange, Admiral Tromp, Philip II, the Duke of Alva, Napoleon, Hitler, and so on. As a reaction to this kind of thing, historians of the left began to focus on systems: fascist, late capitalist, communist, totalitarian. Hannah Arendt’s take on the Eichmann trial, though not the work of a typical leftist, contributed to this tendency, as did the work of Adorno. I have often suspected that they favored systemic analyses, because they couldn’t bring themselves to face what had gone so badly wrong specifically in their beloved Germany. The responsibility of Germans, such as Heidegger, was not the issue; it had to be a systemic failure.

Taking History Personnally par Cynthia Carr, publié le 12/12/2013

Two black men were lynched in Marion, Indiana, on the night of August 7, 1930. That was my father’s hometown, the town where I have my roots, and I heard this story when I was a little girl: The night it happened someone called my grandfather, whose shift at the Post Office began at three in the morning. "Don’t walk through the courthouse square tonight on your way to work," the caller said. "You might see something you don’t want to see." Apparently that was the punchline, which puzzled me. Something you don’t want to see. Then laughter. I was in my late twenties — my grandfather long dead — when I first came upon the photo of this lynching in a book. It has become an iconic image of racial injustice in America: two black men in bloody tattered clothing hang from a tree and below them stand the grinning, gloating, proud and pleased white folks.

Are You Going to Write That in Your Book? par Siddhartha Deb, publié le 03/12/2013

Born in north-eastern India in 1970, Siddhartha Deb is the recipient of grants from the Society of Authors in the UK and has been a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies at Harvard University. His latest book, a work of narrative nonfiction, ((The Beautiful and the Damned)), was a finalist for the Orwell Prize in the UK and the winner of the PEN Open award in the United States. His journalism, essays, and reviews have appeared in Harpers, The Guardian, The Observer, The New York Times, Bookforum, The Daily Telegraph, The Nation, n+1, and The Times Literary Supplement.

We’re All Translators Now par Esther Allen, publié le 15/11/2013

As our language ceases to dominate cyberspace (our share of the Web has fallen to about 27%), we English speakers are hesitantly stepping out of our monolingual sphere and evincing renewed interest in foreign tongues. Language learning websites like Livemocha and Matador Network seem to crop up like mushrooms, Rosetta Stone is a publicly traded company whose stock is up 41% year to date, and last year’s top-rated YouTube video — remember? —was in Korean (with a few repetitions of “hey sexy lady” thrown in for nostalgia’s sake).

Reunion / L'ami retrouvé (1989) Jerry Schatzberg par Jerry Schatzberg, publié le 15/11/2013

Jerry Schatzberg started his career as a photographer and made his debut as a film director with Puzzle of a Downfall Child in 1970. Three years later he won the Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix for Scarecrow with Gene Hackman and Al Pacino. He was invited by the Festival Lumière to present Reunion (1989) which was screened in Lyon on 18 october 2013.

David Vann: Secret and subtext par David Vann, publié le 07/10/2013

All of the conventions of literary fiction can be successfully broken except one: there must be subtext, a second story beneath the surface. We don’t have to care about a protagonist or even really have a protagonist. We’re not limited to any particular style or structure. But our entire idea of literature being “about” something is based on a second narrative, something else that the surface narrative can point to. What’s interesting to me about this is that we live in a time when surface narratives are taking over. Blogs are generally so worthless for this one reason, that they lack subtext. The online world is, above all, earnest, saying exactly what it means.

Goldie Goldbloom: Portraits and Faces - Appearance and Disfigurement par Goldie Goldbloom, publié le 27/09/2013

Chekhov is well known for his impartial observations of his characters and for his grasp of “realism”. When I first read his description of the lady with the little dog, I discovered that she is “a fair-haired young lady of medium height, wearing a beret.” I was puzzled. This less than enthusiastic description of the woman Gurov will come to love leaves out many basic details such as the colour of Anna Sergeyevna’s eyes and whether she has an attractive figure. I wondered why Chekhov departs from the wordier earlier traditions of written portraiture, and how his simple sketch of Anna illustrated the “realism” for which he is known.

Rebelling as a female in the 18th and 19th century literature. From Pamela to Jane Eyre: a path to equality? par Marion Lopez-Burette, publié le 23/09/2013

This article intends to study and compare the way Pamela, Richardson's early heroine of the novel genre, and Charlotte Brontë's romantic Jane, rebel. What follows will underscore the path trodden by female fictional characters in terms of shaping the individual, from the Enlightenment period to the romantic era. The patterns of entrapment and self-willed seclusion the protagonists are involved in function as incentives for rebellion. The ideals they rebel for play the role of living forces in a way that is meaningful to comprehend how the essence of rebellion evolved with time. No matter how much the protagonists' respective procedure may differ, from moral conservatism to personal answering of moral questions through rites of passage, the two female heroines are equally conscious of their value as human beings. Their handling of their hardships and their allegiance to God, however, points to the qualitative and quantitative evolution of the notion of equality.

Les tubes de la Grande Guerre en Angleterre par John Mullen, publié le 27/08/2013

La vie des Britanniques il y a un siècle était souvent très dure. Comme à toute époque, le divertissement, et spécialement la musique, était essentiel pour toutes les classes sociales. Les couches privilégiées organisaient des concerts chez elles, aidées par leurs domestiques, ou allaient dans les salons de danse. La classe ouvrière rejoignait des fanfares ou des chorales, mais surtout allait au music-hall. Dans cet article nous avons choisi 10 chansons à succès des années de guerre qui peuvent illustrer les priorités de leur public. Pour chacune, nous fournissons un extrait des paroles, un enregistrement de l’époque, et une image.

Hugo Hamilton on memory and fiction par Hugo Hamilton, publié le 24/06/2013

It’s a stormy night in Dublin. My father comes into the bedroom to close the window. But the old sash window is rotten. As he tries pull it down, the wooden frame comes apart in his hands like a piece of fruit cake. The glass is smashed. So my father has to find a way to cover over the gaps. He looks around and picks up the nearest thing at hand. In the corner of the room there is a map of the world, a big rolled up school atlas which he’s kept from the time he was a schoolteacher. He rolls it out and nails the atlas up against the window frame. It’s a temporary solution, he says. Go to sleep. So that’s how I fall asleep, with the wind blowing across the world, flapping at the oceans and the continents. The world is there in the morning with the sun coming through.

Victorian printing and William Morris’s Kelmscott Press par Laura Mingam, publié le 09/05/2013

During the Victorian period, the Industrial Revolution reached the field of printing, and profoundly altered book production in England. Even though technical innovations led to the creation of dazzling volumes, the artist designer William Morris denounced the corruption of traditional printing methods. As a reaction against the standards of his time, William Morris decided to open his own printing press, with the aim of “producing [books] which would have a definite claim to beauty”. The Kelmscott Press was to become a new landmark in the history of English printing.

Kate Chopin as a Vocal Colourist: Vocalscapes in “Beyond the Bayou” par Manuel Jobert, publié le 16/04/2013

Authors sometimes pepper their writings with features of orality. Charles Dickens, Emily Brontë, Thomas Hardy or George Bernard Shaw have become household names renowned for this propensity to rely on the vocal medium. Orality, however, is an umbrella term that covers a wide range of possible meanings. In this paper, I shall mainly be concerned with direct speech and the way it represents spoken discourse proper.

Introduction à Measure for Measure par Estelle Rivier, Delphine Lemonnier-Texier, Isabelle Schwartz-Gastine, publié le 11/04/2013

Mettre en scène une pièce, dit Jean-François Sivadier interrogé sur le processus de création, c’est poser une hypothèse, et la mettre à l’épreuve du plateau, poursuivre le rêve que l’on a sur la pièce, et franchir le pas de son adaptation, accepter d’être confronté à l’écart entre le rêve et le plateau, tout en réussissant à ne pas perdre son rêve. Mettre en scène une pièce de Shakespeare, comme toute autre pièce de répertoire, c’est aussi se confronter à ses fantômes : ceux, manifestes, de ses mises en scène antérieures, et ceux, implicites, que l’on porte en soi en tant qu’artiste, les traversées que l’on a faites, les créations, les rôles antérieurs, l’histoire d’un parcours esthétique où cette pièce vient s’inscrire dans un cheminement, y (d)écrire un moment, une étape, une boucle peut-être...

Care: A New Way of Questioning our Societies par Joan Tronto, publié le 15/03/2013

"In the United States, care became a focus of feminist research in the early 1980s. As “second wave” feminists realized that mere formal equality was insufficient, they began to think more deeply about what was required for the genuine inclusion of women."

A global open-circuit television system going live? par Jeffrey Rosen, publié le 11/03/2013

I was at a conference at Google not long ago, and the head of public policy, said he expected that before long, Google and Facebook will be asked to post online live feeds to all the public and private surveillance cameras in the world, including mobile cameras mounted on drones. Imagine that Facebook responds to public pressure and decides to post live feeds, so they can be searched online, as well as archiving the video in the digital cloud.

After Obamacare: The New Stakes of US Healthcare Policy par Alondra Nelson, publié le 21/02/2013

The new stakes for healthcare policy in the U.S. are apparent in what Obamacare concretized — the further privatization and stratification of healthcare—and what it left unsaid—the assertion of a right to health. Solutions lie outside of the formal domain of policy and in the realm of ethics and human rights. Yet, it is hard to imagine the application of these remedies at a time when life can be taken with impunity and in a world in which the US kills through drone warfare with each bomb carrying not only the threat of death but also the message that some lives matter less than yours or mine.

Going Solo par Eric Klinenberg, publié le 19/02/2013

About five years ago I started working on a book that I planned to call ALONE IN AMERICA. My original idea was to write a book that would sound an alarm about a disturbing trend: the unprecedented rise of living alone. I was motivated by my belief that the rise of living alone is a profound social change – the greatest change of the past 60 years that we have failed to name or identify. Consider that, until the 1950s, not a single human society in the history of our species sustained large numbers of people living alone for long periods of time. Today, however, living alone is ubiquitous in affluent, open societies. In some nations, one-person households are now more common than nuclear families who share the same roof. Consider America. In 1950, only 22 percent of American adults were single, and only 9 percent of all households had just one occupant. Today, 49 percent of American adults are single, and 28 percent of all households have one, solitary resident.

Livery, liberty, and the original staging of Measure for Measure par Andrew Gurr, publié le 17/02/2013

We know that Shakespeare lived in Bishopsgate through his first years in London, in the parish of St. Helens. Located just to the north of the Tower, he is on record as paying his dues in this parish. Not far from St. Helen’s was St. Botolph’s in Aldgate, another local church where Shakespeare had neighbourly connections. Not far from there, slightly to the east and north of the Tower, in the parish of St. Aldgates Without (meaning outside the city walls) there had once been the greatest of the three English Franciscan nunneries, known as the Minories, the London nunnery of the Order usually called the Poor Clares. This site, though no longer a nunnery, was still there when Shakespeare came to live nearby in 1590 or so...

The Political Future of Religion and Secularism par Craig Calhoun, publié le 08/02/2013

Secularism has long been seen as a solution to problems of religion. Yet today, secularism (laïcité) itself is a political problem alongside religion. In some versions, secularism has become an obstacle to political and social projects potentially shared among members of different religions and the non-religious. It has been politicized in relation to migration, insurgency, and religious renewal. As ideology, it is sometimes the basis for new forms of intolerance. Both secularism and religion are sometimes made the bases for prescriptive demands on others as well as self-understandings. A central issue is the transformation of secularism and laïcité – in some versions – from formulations focused on freedom to ideologies mobilized to impose cultural values. Yet this need not be so. The problems are not with religion and secularism as such, but with how “fundamentalist” versions of each are deployed.

William Hogarth - Southwark Fair par Vincent Brault, publié le 22/01/2013

Reproduction commentée de l'oeuvre "Southwark Fair" du graveur anglais William Hogarth.

How Healing Are Books? par Pierre Zaoui, publié le 22/01/2013

The idea that novels, theater, or poetry often help us live, that they help us feel cleansed or feel stronger, more energized, more alive, or that they at least help us survive by giving us the boost we need to hang on a little longer, is not simply a constant topos of literature, be it western, eastern, or universal. It is an indisputable truth for those who make use of it, whether they write it, read it, comment on it, or transform it into a first-aid kid of maxim-prescriptions and citation-medicines to use as needed.

The Young Lords par Johanna Fernandez, Claire Richard, publié le 22/01/2013

The Young Lords were the children of the first large wave of Puerto Rican migration to the North East of the United States, in cities like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Hartford. The Young Lords was begun not in New York, interestingly enough, but in Chicago. And it was initiated by the efforts of the leader of the Young Lords, who initially in Chicago had been a gang. Cha Cha Jimenez, who was the leader of that gang, worked with a leader of the Black Panther Party, Fred Hampton, to transform this gang into a political organization.

The Intensive Care Unit: A Place of Technology and Myth par Cécile Guilbert, publié le 22/01/2013

If we follow Giorgio Agamben, who defined “religion as that which subtracts things, places, animals and persons from common use to transfer them into a separate sphere,” the intensive care unit seems to be a sacred place within the hospital because it is special, separate, and governed by specific protocols, whether we’re talking about reduced visiting hours or its bunker-like nature (like the operating room and the morgue). And because it’s the place of suspension between life and death, a passageway between the conscious and the unconscious, or between presence and absence, intensive care is the place for all sorts of metaphysical questions, in the form of oxymora. What’s at stake here, for the patient—a dying life? A living death? What then is life? and death?

Power – which powers? par Mathieu Potte-Bonneville, publié le 21/01/2013

To read, thirty-five years later, the essay that Jean Baudrillard published on Michel Foucault’s The Will to Knowledge is an odd experience : not only because many aspects of this intellectual fight are now litteraly archeological, in the usual sense of this word (if we haven’t forgotten Foucault, we hardly remember that time, when sexual liberation was a motto so important that interpreting it was a path to understand the whole society) ; but also because the two authors were talking and thinking in the name of a future that is now our past, or at least the shadow of our present.

Some Thoughts on Identity par Claude Arnaud, publié le 18/01/2013

It is the topic par excellence, the enigma that is impossible to solve. This puppet that we call somewhat pompously “The Self,” what is it in the end? An actor who resigns himself, around the age of thirty, to play only one role, or a born clown who struggles to understand himself, having changed so often?

Some Thoughts About Memory, Identity, and the False Family Narrative par Mira Bartók, publié le 15/01/2013

Identity and family legacy are partially formed by the family “memory narrative”—a family member, usually our mother or father, tells us stories about what happened before we were born or when we were too young to remember momentous events. But what happens when that narrator in the family is mentally ill, or a compulsive liar? In my case, my schizophrenic mother was the unreliable narrator of our family history. And my alcoholic father, a gifted writer who left when I was four, told my mother’s family grandiose lies about his own past.

Becoming No One par Gwenaëlle Aubry, publié le 15/01/2013

"The writing project came as the answer to a question that can, in retrospect, be formulated as follows: How can we grieve for a melancholy person, a person who was grieving himself? How can we get to grips with the absence of someone who was never really present?"

For a public service of human augmentation par Thierry Hoquet, publié le 04/01/2013

Thinking about humanity begins with the myth of Epimetheus and Prometheus: forgotten during the distribution of efficient organs, humans remained naked. While Epimetheus gave claws to some, shells to others, speed or cunning to still others, humans were neglected and ended up the poorest of creatures. To help them provide for the necessities of life and to repair as best he could his brother’s fundamental and foundational omission, Prometheus came to the rescue.

For another Hysterature par Emilie Notéris, publié le 17/12/2012

Since the question of women’s freedom in writing, or “Why stories of transgression or women’s assertions of freedom are less tolerated than those of men?” only highlight ordinary male chauvinism (the answer to the question is undeniably related to cultural issues), I prefer to focus on the counter strategies that can be deployed in response to the insults made to women, like the one Eileen Myles describes in her introduction to I love Dick by Chris Kraus, What about Chris?: “She’s turned female abjection inside out and aimed it at a man.” In other words, rather than identifying the reasons for the violent reception of women’s transgressive writing, I prefer to think about the strategies that can flow from them.

Not Looking for Love par Chris Kraus, publié le 17/12/2012

As women, we are often identified through our choice of sexual partners. When an “attractive” woman has sex with an ugly man, it is a descent into “abjection.” But why? Clearly, it is because as women, we are still believed to attain most of our identities through sexuality. In the present assimilationist climate, any non-monogamous, non-relational sexual act is read as a symptom of emotional damage. Our culture persists in believing that sex holds the magic key to a person’s identity — which is, of course, wrong — and in behaving as if female writers are uniquely charged with upholding the sacred intimacy of the sexual act.

Declaration of Disinclinations par Lynne Tillman, publié le 11/12/2012

I like the theoretical ideal of neutrality, of non-hierarchical thinking. I’d like to be a writer, a person, but I am not. None of this naming is my choice. I’m a woman, “still” or I’m “only a woman.” “A good, bad woman, a silly, frivolous woman, an intelligent woman, a sweet woman, a harridan, bitch, whore, a fishmonger, gossipy woman. A woman writer.” What is “a woman writer”? Does “woman” cancel or negate “writer”? Create a different form of writer? Or does “woman” as an adjective utterly change the noun “writer”? “Man writer”? Not used. “Male writer,” rarely employed. Are there “man books” being read in “man caves?” OK, I declare: I’m a woman who writes, a person who writes. But how am I read?

The Words of the Flesh par Wendy Delorme, publié le 11/12/2012

There are people who write from the place that they have been assigned. Some of them with rage so as to get away from it; others, by contrast, who follow the path that has been mapped out for us. There are those who would rather stay on the margin of that space, away from the feminine, off-centered, but are then dragged back to it, kicking and screaming. Their words are women's words, words that are situated. The masculine remains the universal reference. Feminine words stay in the realm of the singular, indexed to the gender of who said them.

Some thoughts on silence and the contemporary “investigative memoir” par Marco Roth, publié le 06/12/2012

Critics and readers, at least in the United States, seem to be slower to recognize the investigative memoir as a narrative mode deserving of attention as such. The American memoir comes burdened with a history of survivor’s tales and evangelical Protestant redemption stories: the writer is usually delivered from bondage: slavery or captivity in the 19th century, Communism, Nazi Europe, or “substance abuse” in the 20th, and into freedom or the light of truth. THE END. Testifying, in both legal and religious senses, is important. Important too is the sense that the author can be written into a social order, given a normal or productive life...

What Does a New Yorker Think When He Bites into a Hamburger? par Caroline Heinrich, publié le 20/11/2012

What do you think of when you bite into a hamburger? Mmm, how delicious? Oh boy, this is bad for me? Or: I hope I won’t make a mess. Or perhaps you don’t want to think about anything at all? Maybe you are just thinking, “What a crazy question!”? Or are you trying to figure out what this crazy question has to do with philosophy and, particularly, with Baudrillard’s thought?

The cultural perception of the American land: a short history par Mireille Chambon-Pernet, publié le 20/11/2012

The importance of land and nature in the American culture is widely known. The Pilgrim Fathers who landed on the coast of the Massachussetts in 1620 were looking for freedom which was both spiritual and material. The latter derived from land ownership, as a landowner called no man master. Yet, in 1893, Jackson Turner announced that: “the American character did not spring full-blown from the Mayflower” “ It came out of the forests and gained new strength each time it touched a frontier”.

The 9/11 memorial - Interview and footage of the WTC site par Clifford Chanin, Clifford Armion, publié le 30/10/2012

The original World Trade Centre site was 16 acres which if my calculations are correct is about 10 hectares in French geographical terms. So it was a very large space in the centre of the downtown Wall Street business district in New York. Those two buildings were each 110 stories tall. Each floor was an acre square. So you had 10 million square feet of floor space in those buildings. It really was an attempt to build the largest buildings in the world and bring companies from around the world to do business in those buildings. Once the attacks came and the buildings collapsed, it emerged very quickly in the planning process that the actual footprints of the buildings, those places were the they stood, were considered sacred ground.

Biographical essay on the genius and works of Hogarth (Part II) par John Nichols, publié le 05/10/2012

So much has already been written respecting the illustrious Artist who is the subject of the present memoir, that, were it not intended as a necessary accompaniment to this Edition of his works, a sketch of his life might seem to require some apology. It is not here professed to bring forward additional facts, but rather to examine generally his peculiar merits as an Artist, and to exhibit, within a moderate compass, the opinions of his various Commentators; connecting this criticism with such a brief outline of his life as may serve to give a biographical form to the whole.

Biographical essay on the genius and works of Hogarth par John Nichols, publié le 27/09/2012

So much has already been written respecting the illustrious Artist who is the subject of the present memoir, that, were it not intended as a necessary accompaniment to this Edition of his works, a sketch of his life might seem to require some apology. It is not here professed to bring forward additional facts, but rather to examine generally his peculiar merits as an Artist, and to exhibit, within a moderate compass, the opinions of his various Commentators; connecting this criticism with such a brief outline of his life as may serve to give a biographical form to the whole.