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.
How are television series written? Muriel Mille’s study sheds light on a collective process based on a division of labor and time constraints. It represents a total break with the auteur ideal of New Wave cinema.
The female silhouette – understood as the body’s visible form and socially perceived appearance – has long been shaped by social norms. In the age of social media, these norms are intensifying, prompting, in response, the rise of so-called “body-positive” movements.
How can we move beyond the double deadlock of state socialism and market capitalism? For Lea Ypi, returning to Kant and the Enlightenment offers a perspective to provide a new ground to freedom as social responsibility, and to open up towards a cosmopolitan horizon against the authoritarianism of profit.
Is it possible to identify the origin of the shift from feudalism to capitalism? Such a transition cannot be reduced to the expansion of trade or a linear evolution. It implies a transformation of social relations, work, and production.
By adopting a child’s perspective, Camille Mahé shows that younger children perceived the Second World War differently than adults.
About: Guillaume Durieux, Faut-il en finir avec l’école ? Autonomie & justice scolaire, Éditions Eliott
A rumour is circulating in some African countries: the French state is organising penis thefts to offset declining fertility. The rumour, spread by Russian propaganda, has become fake news.
The American sociologist Harrison White made a vital contribution to the development of social network analysis. Besides his work in this field, his theoretical synthesis and his understanding of social formations have influenced a variety of fields such as the sociology of art and economic sociology.
Ukraine’s water networks have been mobilized since the start of the war in 2014. Infrastructure workers are some of the last to leave settlements attacked by the Russian army. Water systems and people are resisting but are reaching the limits of their capacity to adapt to violence and disruptions.
After four years of monetary crisis in Europe, with serious political and social consequences for some countries, as well as a general mistrust of Europe’s political and economic models, new analyses bring light on what happened in 2009 and on how to improve the current situation. Books&Ideas presents them in a selection of essays and reviews on Europe, its money, its construction, and its politics.
In this virtual roundtable published in partnership with Public Books, four participants from France, Germany and the US re-visit the inequalities debate sparked by Thomas Piketty’s Capital, comparing perceptions of income, economic equality and political economy.
Books & Ideas is slowing down for the summer. In the meantime, here is our weekly selection of reviews published over the past year.
Though poorly known in France, the work of the anthropologist Mary Douglas is nonetheless essential for understanding the elementary forms of social organization and daily life. By shedding light on her academic career and personal life, this portrait rehabilitates the thought of a major intellectual.
Among the recipients of the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics was Elinor Ostrom, for her analysis of economic governance, especially in relation to the commons. While this choice took many in the profession by surprise, her life-long quest for an understanding of successful common property resource management holds important lessons for our future.
What distinguishes a blank canvas from an empty frame? A simple object from a readymade? What is this mysterious gap that art digs as it separates from life? Such are the questions posed by Arthur Danto, a major figure of contemporary art theory.
Delphine Rouilleaut est la présidente du collectif Alerte, réseau qui rassemble 34 associations et fédérations actives dans la lutte contre la pauvreté. Elle exprime la voix de la société civile et explique les ressorts de la construction d’un plaidoyer en faveur des personnes en situation de vulnérabilité ou d’exclusion.
Caroline Muller et Frédéric Clavert engagent une réflexion sur ce que l’usage du numérique transforme dans le métier d’historien, depuis le travail sur les sources jusqu’à la structuration de la discipline elle-même.
D’utopie à dystopie, comment Internet s’est-il retourné contre ses propres valeurs libertaires en quelques décennies ? Par l’analyse d’un vaste corpus documentaire, Sébastien Broca étudie cette transformation sous l’angle des critiques de l’empire des « big tech » du numérique.
À propos de : Catherine Rémy, Hybrides. Transplanter des organes de l’animal à l’humain, CNRS Éditions
À propos de : Jean-Yves Authier et Joanie Cayouette-Remblière (dir.), Ce que voisiner veut dire. Une grande enquête sur les liens sociaux de proximité, Puf
À propos de : Caroline Piketty, Harmonies volées. Printemps 1945 : le retour des pianos pillés par les nazis, L’Archipel
