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.
What effects have economic rationalization had on public services? Nadège Vezinat presents a nuanced picture of how institutional dynamics weaken the welfare state’s bureaucracy, agents, and the rights of beneficiaries.
Jeanne Tsai and Batja Mesquita show how emotions are shaped by cultural logics that orient our relationships and judgments. Their conversation raises a broader question: what does it mean to understand others in culturally plural societies?
According to Arnaud Orain, capitalism, with the exception of a few historical periods when free markets prevailed, has primarily been characterized by mercantilism, or “capitalism of finitude,” which pits against one another the ambitions of nation-states that seek to escape competition by imposing their hegemony through force.
During the Middle Ages, women didn’t just listen to music. They sang, composed, copied, and transmitted it. Behind the silence of the sources, there exits, from cloisters to courts, a form of musical life that remains largely unknown. A new book brings to life these flourishing musical practices.
About: Éric Dacheux et Daniel Goujon, Théorie délibérative des valeurs, Presses universitaires de Provence
About: Céline Marty, L’écologie libertaire d’André Gorz. Démocratiser le travail, libérer le temps, Presses universitaires de France
About: Sophie Cras et Charlotte Guichard, Vendre son art. De la renaissance à nos jours, Seuil
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.
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.
Over the past few months, Books and Ideas has been running a series of interviews with leading contemporary scholars, who took the time to discuss their particular topics of research with us. For the Christmas season, we have put together a selection of seven discussions with intellectuals across the humanities and sciences: sociology, history, comparative literature, neuro-biology, anthropology and political science.
How do images respond to political events and how do they shape them ? What is the political power of images ? Should images of violence be shown in the media ? Through its winter selection, Books&Ideas offers to rediscover a group of four essays and reviews, all published in 2015, which have tackled these questions through the prism of history, philosophy, aesthetics and political sciences.
Books & Ideas is slowing down for the summer and will be back at the end of August. In the meantime, here is a selection of interviews, reviews and essays on popular music published over the past year.
Kenzaburō Ōe, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, is a controversial figure in Japan. And rightly so, for there are a great many contradictions in both his fictional and theoretical work. He is a fierce opponent of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy, and yet continues to celebrate the heroism of the soldier who finds glory through sacrifice.
One of Albert O. Hirschman’s contributions to economic theory is a richer understanding of the concept of the “rational actor,” which, he demonstrated, possesses the deliberative capacities that democratic market societies require. This following is a profile of an economist who was also a dissident and an activist.
Michel Crozier’s work was shaped by the conviction that organizational phenomena create society. He helped pioneer the tools for analyzing groups established to carry out a common project according to a specific system of action and rules of the game.
Que savons-nous vraiment du système solaire ? Titulaire de la chaire « Formation planétaire : de la Terre aux exoplanètes » au Collège de France, Alessandro Morbidelli retrace sa genèse chaotique, et dévoile la façon dont les découvertes récentes bousculent les certitudes.
Comment conserver son identité culturelle et la mémoire des persécutions lorsqu’on est membre du Parti communiste, un parti qui se veut universaliste ? En étant attentive aux sociabilités et aux émotions de ses cadres juifs, l’historienne Zoé Grumberg analyse leurs dilemmes et leurs contributions au communisme français.
La famille s’est-elle transformée au XVIIIe siècle ? Est-elle devenue un espace d’émancipation pour les individus désormais détenteurs de droits, ou est-elle restée au contraire un lieu de domination genrée ? Les philosophes des Lumières ont à ces questions des réponses nuancées.
À propos de : Gabrielle Angey, Yannick Fer et Juliette Galonnier (dir.), Saisir les religions en sociologue. Enjeux et méthodes, ENS éditions
À propos de : Arnaud Fossier, La Réputation au village. Enquête sur des procès d’Église (XIIIe siècle), Puf
À propos de : Bertrand Geay, Jérôme Camus, Pierre Clément et Pierig Humeau, dir., La Reproduction au 21e siècle. Actualité de la sociologie de Bourdieu et Passeron, Éditions du Croquant
