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.
Part celebration, part demonstration, the activist carnival has emerged as a form that blends festive traditions and subversive politics. As a strategy for mobilization as well as transgression, carnival blurs the boundary between revolt and theater.
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?
Despite being confined to diplomacy’s backstage, ambassadors’ wives were the invisible architects of France’s prestige abroad. From social receptions to soft power, Isabelle Dasque examines two centuries of feminine influence.
Active in the fight against poverty since the 1950s, the ATD Fourth World movement has successfully combined grassroots action, research and advocacy, exerting a lasting influence on social policies in France and internationally.
About: Sacha Lévy-Bruhl, Le grand renversement de l’État social, Presses universitaires de France
About: Fatma Çingi Kocadost, La promesse qu’on nous a faite, Éditions de l’EHESS
About: Silyane Larcher et Félix Germain (dir.), Marianne est aussi noire. Luttes occultées pour l’égalité, 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.
In this virtual roundtable published in partnership with Public Books, six contributors from France, Russia and the US address the issue of contemporary Russia and its often tense relations with the West.
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 essays and reviews published over the past year.
Books & Ideas is slowing down for the summer and will be offering weekly selections of reviews and essays published over the last year. This week’s selection focuses on China today, its uses of digital technologies to govern, and the political theories developed by its intellectuals.
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.
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.
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.
Jeanne Tsai et Batja Mesquita montrent que les émotions sont façonnées par des logiques culturelles qui orientent nos relations et nos jugements. Elles interrogent ainsi ce que signifie comprendre autrui dans des sociétés culturellement plurielles.
En dressant une biographie sociologique du nouveau sélectionneur de l’équipe de France, Stéphane Beaud rappelle l’alchimie complexe des conditions sociales qui mènent à la réussite.
Issus du trafic d’antiquités et parfois qualifiés de « Guéniza Afghane », les Bamyan Papers sont un des rares corpus permettant de contribuer à une histoire économique et sociale par le bas de l’Islam médiéval. Ils sont également une fenêtre vers l’histoire délaissée de l’Afghanistan prémoderne.
À propos de : Anton Brender, Géopolitique de la dette. Où va l’épargne du monde ?, Odile Jacob
À propos de : Charles-François Mathis et Steve Hagimont (dir.), La Terre perdue. Une histoire de l’Occident et de la nature XVIIIe-XXIe siècle, Tallandier
À propos de : Bruno Quélennec, Salima Naït Ahmed (dir.), Penser l’antisémitisme contemporain. Anthologie critique, Éditions de l’Aube
