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.
Books&Ideas presents a second summer selection, in which contemporary historians tell us about the future of history as a discipline, about how they research and write history, and the way history affects their bodies and minds.
After four years of monetary crisis in Europe, with serious political and social consequences for some countries, as well as a general mistrust of Europe’s political and economic models, new analyses bring light on what happened in 2009 and on how to improve the current situation. Books&Ideas presents them in a selection of essays and reviews on Europe, its money, its construction, and its politics.
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 articles published over the last year.
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.
Miguel Abensour profoundly renewed thinking about democracy. His political philosophy paid close attention to the desire for emancipation and was based on an original conception of utopia breaking with the mythology of the ‘ideal city’ or of a ‘good society’.
“Do we have the right to make bets on the future of mankind?” Forty-one years after being the first ecologist candidate in a presidential campaign and publishing his manifesto book, René Dumont’s intuitions and warnings have lost little of their relevance.
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
