La Vie des Idées is on vacation. We will resume our publishing rhythm from August 25. In the meantime, here is a selection of texts and interviews published since September 2013.
Trials
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Denis-Constant Martin, “ Sugar Man: hero in spite of himself ? »
What story does Sugar Man tell us, a film awarded the Oscar for best documentary in February 2013 ? Questioning the critical, media and popular success of a film which turns into a moral tale, Denis-Constant Martin analyzes the making of a myth presenting a distorted vision of South African society.
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Pierre Merle, “ Pension reform and social justice »
The theme of justice is very present in political speeches on retirement reform, but it remains general and for this reason not very practical. Pierre Merle defines four principles of justice making it possible to evaluate the current organization of the retirement system and the proposed reform projects to reduce the deficit of the National Old Age Insurance Fund.
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Cyrille Ferraton & Ludovic Frobert, “ Albert Hirschman: a self-subversive temperament »
Economic theory owes to Albert O. Hirschman the enrichment of the notion of “ rational actor », of which he showed the deliberative capacities capable of promoting the development of a democratic market society. Portrait of a protest economist and activist.
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Thibault Le Texier, “ Misery of digital humanity »
Can understanding the world and its transformation be reduced to simple programming questions? ? While his second book, Who Owns the Future, has just been published ?, it is not useless to discuss the intuitions of the humanist geek Jaron Lanier who denounces the standardization of consciences and the increasing demonetization of the economy.
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Gérôme Guibert & Jedediah Sklower, “ Dancing with the Devil »
How did the music of Black Sabbath, Metallica, Sepultura or Tool give rise to the creation of a new academic field ? This essay presents metal studies as a field characterized by a globalized network of researchers torn between the imperatives of scientificity and marginal imaginations.
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Ecolinks, “ Has the obsession with competitiveness killed Europe? ? »
To respond to the sovereign debt crisis and the serious imbalances from which the European Union is suffering, the policies put in place invoke the notion of “competitiveness”. But this notion and the prescriptions it implies are not suitable for the European situation which they risk worsening.
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Anthony Favier, “ Catholics and gender »
The criticism carried out by certain Catholic circles of the “ gender theory » is not only a travesty of gender studies: it obscures the development of feminist theology and current attempts at dialogue within the Catholic Church.
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Thomas Vendryes, “ The world in 2050 »
What will the economic world look like in 2050? ? The projection of current major trends shows that the center of gravity of the world economy is set to shift towards emerging countries – firstly China and India – but also sub-Saharan Africa whose growth will soon take first place.
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Interviews
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Ivan Jablonka, “ The story between dream and pleasure: Interview with Alain Corbin »
What is the story ? History, Alain Corbin shows us, is a new object, an original question, but it is also a childhood memory, a piece of writing, a dream and pleasure.
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Lucie Campos, “ Life, model for the chemist: Interview with Marc Fontecave »
In the context of growing questions about the energy future, bio-inspired chemistry of carbon and hydrogen, according to Marc Fontecave, is expected to play an important role in the development of renewable energies. At the crossroads of chemistry and biology, his laboratory is inspired by biological phenomena, such as photosynthesis, to invent new materials, new catalysts and new reactions.
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Florent Guénard & Thomas Vendryes, “ Economic analysis of the Ukrainian crisis: Interview with Volodymyr Vakhitov »
For Ukrainian economist V. Vakhitov, analyzes of the Ukrainian political crisis exaggerate the weight of Russian supervision. The country is not as divided as people say, divided between the pro-European West and the pro-Russian East. The revolt against the authorities today is a large-scale protest against a corrupt regime, which confiscates wealth.
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Nicolas Delalande & Thomas Grillot, “ Power and passions in the land of Islam: Interview with Jocelyne Dakhlia »
To stubborn clichés about oriental despotism or the incompatibility of Islam with democracy, Jocelyne Dakhlia responds through historical investigation into the forms and logics of power in Muslim societies. His prolific work, which extends from the Sultanate courts of the Middle Ages to contemporary Tunisia, redefines the contours of the Mediterranean and invites us to think differently about the history of Europe.
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Reviews
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Charlotte Ribeyrol, “ When Greek art lost its colors »
Greek art, as we know today, was multicolored and variegated: but the myth of its whiteness dates back to Antiquity itself. P. Jockey traces the colorful history of this myth and its aesthetic, moral and ideological implications.
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Pierre Olivier Weiss, “ Migrants and mercenaries: The market of fear »
The Lampedusa drama has shed harsh light on the effects of border control, which Europe outsources and privatizes in order to obscure responsibilities and maintain a market of fear. Claire Rodier reveals the ideological and economic implications of this phenomenon, and its perverse effects.
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Emmanuel Brassat, “ Philosophy for everyone ? »
S. Charbonnier offers a severe, educated and enthusiastic critique of the practice of philosophy in high school: he calls for a reform of its teaching which would make it less elitist. Utopia ? Report followed by the author’s response.
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Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer, “ Drone ideology »
Is the drone a radical form of manhunt put in place by the American administration? ? Or only a military means, which can be put at the service of various ends, from the most legitimate to the most barbaric ?
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Isabelle Kalinowski, “ Max Weber and the strange rationality of capitalism »
Was Max Weber the champion of modern capitalism and the triumph of Western reason? ? Two recent publications answer this question resolutely in the negative and seek to rectify, starting from very different premises, a caricatured vision of the author of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
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José Moura, “ To the Rhythms of Brazil »
Source of fascination and exchanges since the XVIe century, Brazil occupies a special place in French culture. Carefully tracing the itinerary of Brazilian music in France over the past century, Anaïs Fléchet shows that Franco-Brazilian relations have never been as strong as in the musical field.
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Nicolas Lainez, “ The mixed feelings of sex tourism »
Analyzing the sentimental, sexual and economic relationships between young Cambodian women and foreigners, the anthropologist Heidi Hoefinger breaks with the dark images of “ sex tourism ”, without denying the inequalities and misunderstandings at the heart of these exchanges.
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Solenn Carof, “ Sociology of corpulence »
The American sociologist Abigail Saguy develops innovative thinking on obesity. Between the construction of a social category and the denunciation of discrimination suffered by people considered to be “ big », the author presents an important contribution at the crossroads of sociology, gender studies, political science and public health.
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Jean-Paul Herman & Lise Herman, “ Hungary, a mafia state ? »
Hungary’s political choices are worrying, even though the country was considered a model of post-communist transition ten years ago. A collective of Hungarian economists, sociologists, jurists and former opponents offers an analysis of the oligarchic system emanating from Victor Orbán’s party.
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Olivier Roueff, “ The greatness of Manet »
The publication of Pierre Bourdieu’s courses devoted to Manet, followed by a manuscript written with Marie-Claire Bourdieu, allows us to see the sociologist at work. Educational introduction to the finer points of a theoretical edifice dedicated to inquiry, far from abstract syntheses, the work studies the “ symbolic revolution » operated by Manet, “ field creator “.
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Rachel Mason Dentinger, Evolution without Darwin »
What if Charles Darwin had never existed ? In a recent book adopting counterfactual historical reasoning, Peter J. Bowler imagines how, in the absence of a theory of natural selection, other models of evolutionary change would certainly have acquired increased scientific and cultural power.
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François Dubet, “ What does the fire say ? »
Denis Merklen renews our view of the suburbs and the violence that ignites it based on an investigation into library fires. An innovative and tragic reflection on the place of culture in working-class neighborhoods.
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