Samuel Beckett's trilogy and the revolution of the body in Vichy France

This essay explores the depiction of the degenerating male form in Samuel Beckett’s post-World War II trilogy of novels (Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable) in the context of Vichy France’s ideology of the body—specifically the male body—and the propaganda of the regime’s Révolution nationale, which Beckett would have encountered in wartime France. Read with this historical situation in mind, this essay argues that Beckett’s move from the limping Molloy to the bed-bound Malone and finally to the physically limbless figure of The Unnamable gives expression to a reality of physical deterioration that is unique to the degenerating body, a reality that also inverts the ideal of physical perfection that regimes such as Vichy produced. Analyzed in this way, Beckett’s work can be seen to aggravate and challenge both Vichy’s idolization of the strong, athletic male form and the ways in which Vichy and other midcentury ideologies produced narratives of the body steeped in a narrow and ultimately violent essentialism

On History and Liberty: The ‘Revisionism’ of Bronisław Baczko

The ‘Warsaw School of History of Ideas’ is the name given to a ‘revisionist think tank’ which was led by the historian Bronisław Baczko from 1956 to 1968 in Communist Poland. This group reunited scholars like Leszek Kołakowski or Krzysztof Pomian around questions related to political believes, theological conceptions or utopian thought. Expelled from the University, B. Baczko left Poland and seek shelter in Geneva where he became a Professor of history of Ideas and historiography. In his new home, he developed an original vision on Enlightenment and the French Revolution

Authors, publishers, and public goods: Trading gold for dross

Duruy Victor. 83. 10 juillet 1868, Règlement d'organisation pédagogique pour les écoles publiques de la Seine (extraits). In: L'enseignement de l'histoire à l'école primaire de la Révolution à nos jours, textes officiels, Tome I : 1793-1914. Paris : Institut national de recherche pédagogique, 2007. pp. 214-215. (Bibliothèque de l'Histoire de l'Education, 22

Waxing Revolutionary: Reflections on a Raid on a Waxworks at the Outbreak of the French Revolution

[First paragraph] Parisians from all walks of life were already accustomed to watching heads roll before the Revolution of 1789. This is not a reference to public executions of the time (beheadings were reserved for the nobility and were rare events) but to another cultural spectacle of late eighteenth-century Paris, one which was sufficiently well-known to become the object of a satirical print in 1787. Entitled ‘Avis au public: Têtes à changer’, the print by P. D. Viviez lampoons the unceremonious updating of fashionable or celebrated waxwork figures displayed in the popular entertainments district of the Boulevard du Temple [See Figure 1]. It shows wax heads being handed down from shelves; heads being replaced on models; one head about to be struck off with a chisel; another head lies discarded on the ground, being sniffed at by a little cat. All of this takes place in front of a crowd of curious, chatty onlookers

Risk Assessment of the Project to Migrate to the Free Office Suite Under Linux "End-User" Group

The penetration and performance of free software is raising issues regarding its true capacities and, particularly, the desirability of choosing it. It is from this perspective that the Linux Migration Project was launched within the Sous-secrétariat à l’inforoute gouvernementale et aux resources informationnelles (SSIGRI). The project, supported by a CIRANO research team, seeks to assess the risks involved in the migration project and to identify the conditions for success. This report describes an assessment of the risk exposure of one of the groups participating in the project: end users. Principal results The risk assessment that was conducted enabled the following observations to be made: The project risk exposure is medium to high. Three objectives, and more particularly the first, are vulnerable to a relatively high level of risk: Operational continuity for the user, Interactional continuity for users, and Technical support. Two risk factors were undervalued in this project because of the very nature of the project: Mismatch between the functionalities of the free office suite/functionalities targeted by the organization; Degree of interdependence with non-project units/persons. This factor is important as a result of the context in which the project is being carried out, particularly the absence of a shared interoperability framework. A review of these risk factors could result in a new positioning on the risk exposure map for four of the five objectives, in particular for the two objectives that are related to the two undervalued factors.

La Résistance française face à l'hypothèque Vichy

International audienceThe French Resistance facing Vichy-obstacle In the beginning of the 1990', D. Peschanski proposed to call "vichysto-résistants" these men and these women who were authentic resistant fighters while defending the values of the French State, those of the “Révolution nationale”.With Laurent Douzou, he reconsiders a phenomenon which one did not assess the scale.They show its institutional and ideological components, but conclude that without being absolute, Vichy represented obviousness an obstacle, insofar as the association between "Révolution nationale" and collaboration were at the root of the French State.Au début des années 1990, D. Peschanski propose d'appeler « vichysto-résistants » ces hommes et ces femmes qui ont été d'authentiques résistants tout en défendant les valeurs de l'Etat français, celles de la Révolution nationale. Avec Laurent Douzou, il revient ici sur un phénomène dont on ne mesurait pas l'ampleur jusque-là. Ils montrent ses composantes institutionnelles et idéologiques, mais concluent que sans être un obstacle absolu Vichy représenta à l'évidence une hypothèque, dans la mesure où l'association entre Révolution nationale et collaboration était au fondement de l'Etat français

Eléments de prospective technologique pour une Révolution Doublement Verte. Résultats de la consultation des comités scientifiques du CIRAD

L'objectif de la communication est d'exposer de manière prospective les techniques de la Révolution Doublement Verte. L'auteur présente successivement l'écologie de la Révolution Doublement Verte, les différents aspects de la gestion de la fertilité, la zootechnie, la génétique et l'amélioration adaptées au nouveau concept, les nouvelles voies de recherche en matière de défense des cultures ainsi que les techniques en amont et en aval de l'agricultur