From littérature engagée to engaged translation : staging Jean-Paul Sartre’s theatre as a challenge to Franco’s rule in Spain

The practice of creating translations that ‘rouse, inspire, witness, mobilize, and incite to rebellion’ is described by Maria Tymoczko, following Jean-Paul Sartre's littérature engagée, as ‘engaged translation’. In Spain, under the Franco dictatorship (1939–1975), the theatre became a site of opposition to his rule and the creation of ‘engaged’ translations of foreign plays was one of the ways in which alternative social and political realities were transmitted to local audiences. This was particularly evident during the so-called apertura period (1962–1969), when Spain's political leaders embraced more liberal and outward-facing cultural policies as part of their efforts to ensure the regime's continuity. Drawing on archival evidence from the state censorship files held at Archivo General de la Administración (AGA) in Alcalá de Henares, this article considers how ‘engaged’ translations of Sartre's theatre were employed as instruments of cultural opposition to the Spanish dictatorship. It also argues that an analysis of the files both helps us to understand the role of censorship in shaping an official version of the past, and shines a light on the memory of a little-studied aspect of cultural activism in the Spanish theatre.PostprintPeer reviewe

Sustainable development and well-being: a philosophical challenge

This paper aims at gaining a better understanding of the inherent paradoxes within sustainability discourses by investigating its basic assumptions. Drawing on a study of the metaphoric references operative in moral language, we reveal the predominance of the 'well-being = wealth' construct, which may explain the dominance of the 'business case' cognitive frame in sustainability discourses (Hahn et al. in Acad Manag Rev 4015:18–42, 2015a). We incorporate economic well-being variables within a philosophical model of becoming well (Küpers in Cult Organ 11(3):221–231, 2005), highlighting the way in which these variables consistently articulate a combination of 'objective' and 'subjective' concerns. We then compare this broad understanding of well-being with the metaphors operative in the sustainable development discourse and argue that the sustainability discourse has fallen prey to an overemphasis on the 'business case'. We proceed to draw on Georges Bataille to challenge the predominance of these value priorities and to explore which mindshifts are required to develop a more comprehensive understanding of what is needed to enable 'sustainable development'

Geography, death and finitude

publication-status: PublishedRomanillos J L, 2011. The definitive, peer-reviewed and edited version of this article is published Environment and Planning A, 2011, Vol. 43, Issue 11, pp. 2533 – 2553 DOI: 10.1068/a4474Copyright © 2011 PionDespite growing interest in the geographies of death, loss, and remembrance, comparatively little geographical research has been devoted either to the historical and cultural practices of death, or to an adequate conceptualisation of finitude. Responding to these absences, in this paper I argue for the importance of the notion of finitude within the history and philosophy of geographical thought. Situating finitude initially in the context of the work of Torsten Hägerstrand and Richard Hartshorne, the notion is argued to be both productive of a geographical ethics, and as epistemologically constitutive of phenomenological apprehensions of ‘earth’ and ‘world’. In order to better grasp the sense and genealogy of finitude, I turn to the work of Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, and Georges Bataille. These authors are drawn upon precisely because their writings present powerful conceptual frameworks which demonstrate the intimate relations between spatiality, death, and finitude. At the same time, their writings are critically interrogated in the light of perhaps the most important aspect of the conceptual history of finitude: the way in which it has been articulated as a site of anthropocentric distinction. I argue for a critical deconstruction of this anthropocentric basis to finitude; a deconstruction which raises a series of profound questions over the ethics, normativities, and understandings of responsibility shaping contemporary ethical geographies of the human and nonhuman. In so doing, I demonstrate the geographical importance of the notion of finitude for a variety of arenas of debate which include: phenomenological understandings of spatiality; the biopolitical boundaries drawn between human and animal; and contemporary theorisations of corporeality, materiality, and hospitality

High-resolution spectroscopy for Cepheids distance determination

Context. Galactic Cepheids in the vicinity of the Sun have a residual line-of-sight velocity, or γ-velocity, which shows a systematic blueshift of about 2 km s-1 compared to an axisymmetric rotation model of the Milky Way. This term is either related to the space motion of the star and, consequently, to the kinematic structure of our Galaxy, or it is the result of the dynamical structure of the Cepheids' atmosphere. Aims. We aim to show that these residual γ-velocities are an intrinsic property of Cepheids. Methods. We observed eight galactic Cepheids with the HARPS (High Accuracy Radial velocity Planetary Search project developed by the European Southern Observatory.) spectroscope, focusing specifically on 17 spectral lines. For each spectral line of each star, we computed the γ-velocity (resp. γ-asymmetry) as an average value of the interpolated radial velocity (resp. line asymmetry) curve. Results. For each Cepheid in our sample, a linear relation is found between the γ-velocities of the various spectral lines and their corresponding γ-asymmetries, showing that residual γ-velocities stem from the intrinsic properties of Cepheids. We also provide a physical reference to the stellar γ-velocity: it should be zero when the γ-asymmetry is zero. Following this definition, we provide very precise and physically calibrated estimates of the γ-velocities for all stars of our sample [ in km s-1] : -11.3 ± 0.3 [R TrA], -3.5 ± 0.4 [S Cru], -1.5 ± 0.2 [Y Sgr], 9.8 ± 0.1 [ β Dor] , 7.1 ± 0.1 [ ζ Gem] , 24.6 ± 0.4 [RZ Vel], 4.4 ± 0.1 [ $\ell$ Car] , 25.7 ± 0.2 [RS Pup]. Finally, we investigated several physical explanations for these γ-asymmetries like velocity gradients or the relative motion of the line-forming region compared to the corresponding mass elements. However, none of these hypotheses seems to be entirely satisfactory to explain the observations. Conclusions. To understand this very subtle γ-asymmetry effect, further numerical studies are needed. Cepheids' atmosphere are strongly affected by pulsational dynamics, convective flows, nonlinear physics, and complex radiative transport. Hence, all of these effects have to be incorporated simultaneously and consistently into the numerical models to reproduce the observed line profiles in detail

High-Resolution Spectroscopy For Cepheids Distance Determination - III. A Relation Between Gamma-Velocities And Gamma-Asymmetries

Context. Galactic Cepheids in the vicinity of the Sun have a residual line-of-sight velocity, or gamma-velocity, which shows a systematic blueshift of about 2 km s(-1) compared to an axisymmetric rotation model of the Milky Way. This term is either related to the space motion of the star and, consequently, to the kinematic structure of our Galaxy, or it is the result of the dynamical structure of the Cepheids' atmosphere. Aims. We aim to show that these residual gamma-velocities are an intrinsic property of Cepheids. Methods. We observed eight galactic Cepheids with the HARPS*** spectroscope, focusing specifically on 17 spectral lines. For each spectral line of each star, we computed the gamma-velocity (resp. gamma-asymmetry) as an average value of the interpolated radial velocity (resp. line asymmetry) curve. Results. For each Cepheid in our sample, a linear relation is found between the gamma-velocities of the various spectral lines and their corresponding gamma-asymmetries, showing that residual gamma-velocities stem from the intrinsic properties of Cepheids. We also provide a physical reference to the stellar gamma-velocity: it should be zero when the gamma-asymmetry is zero. Following this definition, we provide very precise and physically calibrated estimates of the gamma-velocities for all stars of our sample [in km s(-1)]:-11.3 +/- 0.3 [R TrA],-3.5 +/- 0.4 [S Cru],-1.5 +/- 0.2 [Y Sgr], 9.8 +/- 0.1 [beta Dor], 7.1 +/- 0.1 [zeta Gem], 24.6 +/- 0.4 [RZVel], 4.4 +/- 0.1 [l Car], 25.7 +/- 0.2 [RS Pup]. Finally, we investigated several physical explanations for these gamma-asymmetries like velocity gradients or the relative motion of the line-forming region compared to the corresponding mass elements. However, none of these hypotheses seems to be entirely satisfactory to explain the observations. Conclusions. To understand this very subtle gamma-asymmetry effect, further numerical studies are needed. Cepheids' atmosphere are strongly affected by pulsational dynamics, convective flows, nonlinear physics, and complex radiative transport. Hence, all of these effects have to be incorporated simultaneously and consistently into the numerical models to reproduce the observed line profiles in detail.European Southern Observatory's programs 072.D-0419, 073.D-0136Max Planck Institut for RadioastronomyAstronom