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.
How does justice vanquish force? Simone Weil’s thought unifies politics and religion while proposing a radical conception of power, understood not as domination but as retreat, in a world in which violence gives way to obedience.
Can one philosophize as a feminist when the history of philosophy is so gendered? Yes—but this requires paying close attention to the positions that traverse and often constitute it.
Étienne Anheim and Paul Pasquali examine a key moment in interdisciplinary dialogue: Pierre Bourdieu’s translation and editing of the art historian Erwin Panofsky.
About: Bernard Manin, Montesquieu, Hermann
About: Pierre Charbonnier, Vers l’écologie de guerre, La Découverte
About: Geneviève Verdo, Des peuples en mal d’union. Aux origines de l’Argentine, Flammarion
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 order to better grasp protests and social movements in China, whose number has impressively swollen in recent years, Books&Ideas presents a dossier on the evolution of social mobilization and on the representation of social instability in this country.
Is there still room for hope at the White House?
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 questions our global consumerism, looks back in its history and analyses its legal framework.
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.
Although now considered a pseudo-science, phrenology was tremendously successful in its Victorian heyday. Tracing the intellectual and scientific journey of George Combe, the ’science’s most prominent promoter in Great Britain, this paper addresses the phrenologists’ little-known contribution to the ’social question’ debate of the day, and the ambiguities of their social gospel.
Though poorly known in France, the work of the anthropologist Mary Douglas is nonetheless essential for understanding the elementary forms of social organization and daily life. By shedding light on her academic career and personal life, this portrait rehabilitates the thought of a major intellectual.
Depuis une dizaine d’années, les programmes d’éducation musicale sont souvent justifiés par l’idée qu’ils pourraient favoriser les apprentissages scolaires. L’évaluation d’un programme d’apprentissage intensif du violon dans l’éducation prioritaire invite pourtant à nuancer ces attentes.
Renouvelant la façon d’aborder l’histoire de la Révolution française, l’étude de la période à partir des parutions littéraires et de leurs comptes rendus journalistiques permet de battre en brèche l’idée reçue d’une pauvreté de la création littéraire durant la décennie révolutionnaire.
D. Boullier cherche à comprendre ce que deviennent nos capacités de penser, de juger, de créer et d’agir à l’heure de l’expansion tous azimuts de l’IA générative. Bien que de nature anthropologique, cette révolution ne doit pas se faire contre l’humain.
À propos de : Hamit Bozarslan, Walpurgis. Les révolutions de droite, XIXe-XXe siècles, Passés/composés
À propos de : Vincent Azoulay, Ostracisme ! Du bon usage de l’arbitraire en démocratie, éditions de l’EHESS
À propos de : Steeves Demazeux, Misère de la psychiatrie, Puf
