Several contemporary artists represent or stage bodies which have been blatantly marked by History and by their own history. This marking may be determined by their social embedding (in terms of the social class to which they belong, their ethnic or gender origin), or may be a question of the confrontations and ordeals imposed upon them by the societies within which they act. Contrary to the predominant, normative exhibition of bodily purity, contemporary art presents bodies which are impure, ambiguous, or (...) disquieting. Faced with the various powers (political, economic, ideological, moral, religious, scientific, technological) which, as in the past, seek to subject the body, art avails of its capacity to conjure up certain images in which, whether as an absence or as a presence, the body of rebellion reverberates. (shrink)

The Arts and the Revolution. Some Theoretical and Practical Elements of the Overall Problematic In the strict sense, there is no “Marxist aesthetics”. The writings of Marx and Engels on the question, whatever their riches, are too disparate and fragmentary to amount to a system. What does however exist is a history of the links and articulations between art, creation, and the perspectives of emancipation, and in this history the writings of Marx and Engels can legitimately claim a place. This (...) history is neither linear nor homogenous. The purpose of the introduction is thus to address four major debates which resonated through the 20th century: about the avant-gardes, about realism, about militant art, about the utopian dimension of art. These debates, whose importance and influence is variable, mobilised artists and thinkers in the 20th century. They could either crystallise in a particular time and place or, on the contrary, they could span several decades. Unresolved, these debates still remain, today, laden with productive contradictions. (shrink)

Herbert Marcuse’s Idea of the “Great Refusal” Herbert Marcuse is almost invariably cited in the numerous books and articles dealing with May 1968. Without question, the philosophical and political positions which he defended resonate with the struggles and aspirations of a period both rebellious and utopian, in which anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, third-world and anti-capitalist struggles were mingled with new forms of social mobilisation, directed against whatever could hamper and compromise the possibility of living fully in the present. Marcuse notably addressed the (...) question of alienation, affirming that, here and now, an other life is possible. While Marcuse, with the mixture of pessimism and optimism which animates him, does recognise that the path to emancipation remains a long one, he does not despair of the capacity of the “wretched of the earth” to refuse resignation and rebel against their fate. (shrink)

Le caractère destructif ne voit rien de durable. Mais pour cette raison précisément il voit partout des chemins. Là où d’autres butent sur des murs ou sur des montagnes, il voit également un chemin. Mais parce qu’il voit partout un chemin, il doit également partout déblayer le chemin. Pas toujours par la force brutale, parfois avec une force raffinée. Parce qu’il voit partout des chemins, il est lui-même à la croisée des chemins. Aucun instant n’est en mesure de préjuger du (...) suivant.Il transfo... (shrink)

Connue sous le titre d’« Invective contre le roi Jean », la Lettre céleste conservée dans le manuscrit Cotton Vespasian E. III de la British Library peut être datée du début de la décennie 1250. Elle se présente comme une critique du roi Henri III, des prélats et des grands du royaume d’Angleterre et de leurs officiers, tout en commémorant la figure du prédicateur et prophète Pierre de Wakefield, supplicié en 1213 sur l’ordre de Jean sans Terre. L’édition du texte (...) est accompagnée d’une traduction annotée et précédée d’une introduction historique et littéraire. (shrink)

Social networks play a significant role in learning and thus in farmers’ adoption of new agricultural technologies. This study examined the effects of social network factors on information acquisition and adoption of new seed varieties among groundnut farmers in Uganda and Kenya. The data were generated through face-to-face interviews from a random sample of 461 farmers, 232 in Uganda and 229 in Kenya. To assess these effects two alternative econometric models were used: a seemingly unrelated bivariate probit model and a (...) recursive bivariate probit model. The statistical evaluation of the SUBP shows that information acquisition and adoption decisions are interrelated while tests for the RBP do not support this latter model. Therefore, the analysis is based on the results obtained from the SUBP. These results reveal that social network factors, particularly weak ties with external support, partially influence information acquisition, but do not influence adoption. In Uganda, external support, gender, farm size, and geographic location have an impact on information acquisition. In Kenya, external support and geographic location also have an impact on information acquisition. With regard to adoption, gender, household size, and geographic location play the most important roles for Ugandan farmers, while in Kenya information from external sources, education, and farm size affect adoption choice. The study provides insight on the importance of external weak ties in groundnut farming, and a need to understand regional differences along gender lines while developing agricultural strategies. This study further illustrates the importance of farmer participation in applied technology research and the impact of social interactions among farmers and external agents. (shrink)

The 2005 Avignon Theatre Festival sparked a vast controversy about the insistent presence of bodies (whether wounded, broken, or humiliated) on stage. Without subscribing to the reactionary critical response to the Festival, it is legitimate to return to the debate in order to question the ubiquity of the “victim body” in contemporary theatre. Such representations, far from being heterodox, are in fact part of the massive ideology of “the ethical”, as diagnosed by Alain Badiou. The oppressed body thus tends to (...) be assimilated to the body of the victim. The result is the obliteration of the resistance of subjects to their oppression, or of their active response to it, theatre being reduced to the maxims of a democratic materialism: “there are only bodies and languages”. (shrink)

This book is the first collective study of this major figure in the intellectual and political life of 12th-century Europe to appear for thirty years. Based on the latest research, thirteen contributions by leading experts in the field provide an overview of John of Salisbury’s place in the political debates that marked the reign of Henry II in England as well as of his place in the history of the Church. They also offer a detailed introduction to his philosophical works (...) ‘(Metalogicon’, ‘Entheticus’), his political thought (‘Policraticus’) and his writing of history (‘Historia pontificalis’). 0Contributors include Julie Barrau, David Bloch, Karen Bollermann, Cédric Giraud, Christophe Grellard, Laure Hermand-Schebat, Frédérique Lachaud, Constant Mews, Clare Monagle, Cary Nederman, Ronald Pepin, Yves Sassier, and Sigbjørn Sønnesyn.0. (shrink)