Books & Ideas is the English-language mirror website of La Vie des Idées, a free online journal which has gained a large readership and established itself in France as a major place for intellectual debate since 2007.
Review History
At the beginning of the eleventh century, the collapse of the Umayyad caliphate coincided with political fragmentation. It was in this unusual context, soon to be exacerbated by Christian incursions from the north and Berber incursions from the south, that this part of the Muslim world experienced a flourishing culture.
How did African-Americans attempt to overturn the relations of racial domination in the United States? From the post-war period onwards, by creating cultural and educational institutions specific to their community, which are still useful today in the fight against discrimination.
Educating children by respecting their spontaneous interests: Such is the promise of alternative pedagogies. Subjecting these promises to sociological critique, Ghislain Leroy shows that they are not necessarily emancipatory and may even contribute to the reproduction of social inequalities.
While Chinese immigrants and their descendants have long been portrayed as a “model minority”, Ya-Han Chuang shows how this qualifier papers over the representations that are imposed on members of this minority in France – who are now fighting back against racism.
About: Jérémie Foa, Tous ceux qui tombent. Visages de la Saint-Barthélemy, La Découverte
About: Denis Colombi, Pourquoi sommes-nous capitalistes (malgré nous) ? Dans la fabrique de l’homo œconomicus, Payot
About: Clément Viktorovitch, Le pouvoir rhétorique, apprendre à convaincre et à décrypter les discours, Seuil
Jane Mansbridge has made a major contribution to political theory. She has spent her life combining empirical research with a theoretical approach, and has played a vital role in developing the critique of rational choice and the study of democracy as a permanent process continually in flux.
Rorty made conversation a philosophical genre in its own right, which led him to reject any distinctions he considered futile: between analytic and continental philosophy, between the Enlightenment and postmodernity, between philosophy and literature.
In 1947, Princess Elizabeth promised to serve ‘the great imperial family’, as part of the attempt to remake post-war Britain as a global power. The British Empire collapsed; but this language of service and Commonwealth allowed the Queen to take up the postcolonial concerns of the 21st century.
At a time when Europe is equated with sovereign debt and political powerlessness, one should not forget that the foundations for a European citizenship have already been laid. Its potential for democracy needs to be interrogated, as do the cultural resources that it can rely on.
Summer is here; Books&Ideas is off on holiday. We will be back with new publications starting August 30. In the meantime, here is a selection of essays, interviews and reviews published over the past year.
Books & Ideas is slowing down for the summer and will resume its publication schedule on August 26. In the meantime, we present to you a weekly selection of articles published over the last year.
From the margins to which he was confined, Georges Devereux (1908-1985) formulated some of the most original scientific work of his century. In the wake of Freud, whose legacy he firmly defended, Devereux initiated the transcultural practice of psychiatry. François Laplantine, one of his former disciples, reconsiders the legacy of ethnopsychoanalysis’ founder.
Umberto Eco is best known to the general public for his novels and critical works in which he developed his theory of reception. Who realizes, however, that this aspect of his work is only one part of a general semiology organized around a philosophy of signs?
According to Nancy Fraser, the renewal of socialism requires a conflation of activism and political theory; indeed, emancipation can only exist on the basis of equal participation in all spheres of life, and can only be understood in terms of social struggles, which today appear in multiple forms.
L’État peut-il changer le comportement des individus ? Il s’y efforce, mais les changements les plus remarquables sont le plus souvent des effets non intentionnels.
Comment se fait le théâtre à la fin du Moyen Âge, et que fait-il à la cité qui l’organise ? Par son caractère exceptionnel autant que la richesse de la documentation, le Mystère des trois doms représenté à Romans-sur-Isère en 1509 révèle sa dimension collective – religieuse, sociale et civique.
Passerelle entre l’Empire romain tardif et le haut Moyen Âge, charnière entre l’Orient romain et les royaumes de l’Ouest, Ravenne a été davantage qu’une capitale : une entité politique au croisement de plusieurs mondes.
À propos de : Frédéric Keck, Préparer l’imprévisible. Lévy-Bruhl et les sciences de la vigilance, Puf
À propos de : David Edmonds, Parfit : A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality, Princeton University Press
À propos de : Pablo Gilabert, Human Dignity and Social Justice, Oxford University Press