The Life of Ideas suspends its activities between Christmas and New Year. We will resume our daily publication schedule this Monday, January 2, 2012. In the meantime, we offer you a selection of texts and interviews put online since September 2011 and wish our readers a happy new year 2012.
The work above is presented until January 16, 2012 as part of the exhibition Fra Angelico and the Masters of Lightat the Jacquemart-André Museumin Paris. Late nights every Monday and Saturday until 9:30 p.m.
To find out more: www.expofraangelico.com
Case
The world in 2112
by Ivan Jablonka & Nicolas Delalande (28-10-2011)
What will the world look like in a century? ? La Vie des Idées asked researchers from various backgrounds to imagine utopias for the day after tomorrow, mixing diagnoses, apprehensions, solutions, hopes, the whole range of inventiveness and optimism, the whole register of possibilities .
Trials
Are union representatives discriminated against? ?
by Thomas Breda (25-10-2011)
In France, the number of union representatives in companies is relatively low even though labor law gives them significant advantages. This study indicates that in addition to the well-known factors of the crisis of unionism, the number of delegates could be affected by discrimination.
Tax havens: guided tour
by Thomas Vendryes (15-11-2011)
How much money is hidden in tax havens ? By whom ? And how ? Using an original methodology and previously under-exploited data, Gabriel Zucman sheds new and harsh light on these problems, hoping that this can help improve the fight against tax havens.
Small arrangements with tax
Interview with Katia Weidenfeld and Alexis Spire
by Nicolas Delalande (14-10-2011)
Tax inequalities do not only result from the erosion of progressive levies. They also involve the individualization of the relationship that each citizen has with ever more complex rules and with the administration. A sociology of the uses of the tax standard thus reveals other inequalities, which contravene the ideal of a truly democratic tax.
Jaurès, protectionism and globalization
by Alain Chatriot (06-10-2011)
The concept of “ deglobalization » divides the left and the French socialists. Can we raise customs tariffs without harming the international solidarity of workers and increasing the cost of living? ? These questions were already at the heart of Jean Jaurès’ reflections at the end of the XIXe century, at the time of the first globalization “. Return to a founding debate for European socialism.
A Republican’s Thoughts on 15M
by Philip Pettit (20-09-2011)
By attacking the democratic deficit in Spain, the 15M movement (started on May 15, 2011) called into question the theory of republicanism of Philip Pettit, intellectual guarantor of Zapatero ? The philosopher here draws lessons from the movement and the context of crisis which gave rise to it for his theory of republicanism.
Books & Studies
Microsociology of violence
by François Buton (17-11-2011)
The sociologist Randall Collins, little known in France, proposes an interactionist theory of physical violence which attributes its emergence not to the actors, but to the situations. Therefore, no social group can be characterized globally by its level of violence.
Our promises of freedom
by Louis Carré (16-11-2011)
Twenty years after The Struggle for Recognition, the German philosopher Axel Honneth continues his project aimed at recasting a critical theory of society. This now takes the form of a theory of justice articulated with a diagnosis of the transformations of modernity.
History facing the climate crisis
by Fabien Locher (07-11-2011)
What can history teach us to face the challenge of climate change? ? By discussing the links between slavery and dependence on fossil fuels, J.-F. Mouhot attempts a rapprochement intended to shake up consciences and draw lessons for the present. An opportunity to question certain metaphors that are now influential within environmental thinking.
The ethnographer’s two books
by Christine Laurière (27-10-2011)
Why do many ethnologists, once they return from their fieldwork, publish a literary work in addition to their scientific monograph? ? In Farewell to Travel, Vincent Debaene traces the history of the relationships between ethnology and literature which, from the post-war period to the 1970s, gave anthropology a central place within the human and social sciences.
When history drives you crazy
by Laurence Bertrand Dorléac (26-10-2011)
How do the tumults of History affect the psychological life of individuals ? Laure Murat explores the links between madness and politics XIXe century, taking an interest in both asylum patients, many of whom thought they were Napoleon, and the medical and political elites who tried to exclude or stigmatize them.
Trouble in desire
by Claire Pagès (17-10-2011)
Almost 25 years after its publication in the United States, Judith Butler’s Thesis was translated in France: through a study of the reception of Hegel in France in XXe century, she laid the first milestones of a reflection, which will never cease to nourish her work, on the relationship between desire and recognition.
Clashes in Chicago
by Xavier Vigna (10-10-2011)
In a work devoted to the protest movement of which the American metropolis was the scene between 1965 and 1973, Caroline Rolland-Diamond reveals the extent of the repression and the formation of improbable alliances beyond the limits of the campuses. A French perspective on the events highlights the similarities of the 68 moment on both sides of the Atlantic.
Bartleby, the philosophers’ favorite
by Olivier Chelzen (09-30-2011)
Many thinkers have seized on Melville’s character, Bartleby, and his astonishing words, “ I would prefer not to “. G. Berkman traces this Bartleby effect by showing how, in a now bygone era, philosophy and literature could fertilize each other.
Banks, from one crisis to another
by Éric Monnet (03-10-2011)
An overview of the history of commercial banks through the story of their crises, their regulation and their links with political and monetary power. Richard Grossman offers a very useful perspective for understanding the challenges posed by the current crisis.
Montaigne’s hand
by Bernard Sève (28-09-2011)
We know, from Montaigne, the Trials and the Italy travel diary ; but the philosopher also left numerous manuscript texts, notably rich annotations made in the margins of certain books in his library. Montaigne manuscript offers an exhaustive diplomatic edition of these manuscripts, including two unpublished works. Our view of Montaigne is enriched and renewed.
The economy, a remedy for pessimism
by Emmanuel Bétry (19-09-2011)
In a work focused on subjects of economic concern, two economists well known in the blogosphere make their discipline accessible without renouncing to make its complexity understood.
Get into debt !
by Nicolas Delalande (14-09-2011)
The crisis that the United States is going through is all the more serious because its roots are ancient: the historian Louis Hyman shows how debt was lodged at the heart of American capitalism during the XXe century. More than an economic system, it is a real model of society which collapsed with the fall of subprime.
From chain to pen
by Nicolas Hatzfeld (05-09-2011)
Christian Corouge, assembly line worker at Peugeot, in dialogue with sociologist Michel Pialoux, provides a unique perspective on the disillusionment of the workers’ cause in the last third of a century. An exemplary case of intellectual production shared between an artisan of the intellect and a thinker of worker activity.
At the origins of the Algerian War
by Claire Marynower (08-31-2011)
On August 20, 1955, in a small village in North Constantine, dozens of Europeans were massacred. One of the consequences will be the extension of the state of emergency to the entire territory. ; but war propaganda, rumors and the lack of sources do not help to shed light on the event. A historian led the investigation.