Statecraft and Insect Oeconomies in the Global French Enlightenment (1670-1815)

Naturalists, state administrators and farmers in France and its colonies developed a myriad set of techniques over the course of the long eighteenth century to manage the circulation of useful and harmful insects. The development of normative protocols for classifying, depicting and observing insects provided a set of common tools and techniques for identifying and tracking useful and harmful insects across great distances. Administrative techniques for containing the movement of harmful insects such as quarantine, grain processing and fumigation developed at the intersection of science and statecraft, through the collaborative efforts of diplomats, state administrators, naturalists and chemical practitioners. The introduction of insectivorous animals into French colonies besieged by harmful insects was envisioned as strategy for restoring providential balance within environments suffering from human-induced disequilibria. Naturalists, administrators, and agricultural improvers also collaborated in projects to maximize the production of useful substances secreted by insects, namely silk, dyes and medicines. A study of these scientific and administrative techniques will shed light on how scientists, administrators and lay practitioners in the French Enlightenment came to assess and manage the risks and opportunities afforded by the related processes of commercial and ecological globalization

Central and Eastern European Literary Theory and the West

The twentieth century saw intensive intellectual exchange between Eastern and Central Europe and the West. Yet political and linguistic obstacles meant that many important trends in East and Central European thought and knowledge hardly registered in Western Europe and the US. This book uncovers the hidden westward movements of Eastern European literary theory and its influence on Western scholarship

Central and Eastern European Literary Theory and the West

The twentieth century saw intensive intellectual exchange between Eastern and Central Europe and the West. Yet political and linguistic obstacles meant that many important trends in East and Central European thought and knowledge hardly registered in Western Europe and the US. This book uncovers the hidden westward movements of Eastern European literary theory and its influence on Western scholarship

Parallaxes : lectures tangentes d'historiographie critique et d'épistémologie de la traduction

Il s'agit d'une thèse « par articles » dont quatre des cinq études présentées ont été publiées dans des revues scientifiques avec l'arbitrage professionnel d'un comité de lecture.Cette thèse par articles propose une série de lectures tangentes, embrassant les domaines respectifs de l’épistémologie, de l’historiographie critique et de la théorie crique de la traduction, axées sur une vue non déterministe de la traduction. Après avoir exploré diverses avenues et considéré divers angles de vue proposés par les théories contemporaines de la traduction, je suis parvenu à trois constats formant trois clauses catégoriques de ma réflexion : 1) tout traitement des données dans le cadre de la réflexion traductologique repose sur un savoir a posteriori et doit n’admettre qu’une axiomatisation « faible » liée à l’observation de tendances et de régularités n’obéissant pas nécessairement à une causalité ou à une finalité stricte; 2) toute proposition élaborée dans ce cadre doit conserver un caractère non déterministe; 3) la traduction comme expérience et la réflexion qui s’en inspire obéissent à un protocole évolutif. Mes conclusions se présentent comme une défense et illustration d’une « théorie générale de la dérive », un work in progress qui avalise les données dégagées plus en amont, qui sont supportées pas une conception évolutive et non déterministe de la traduction. Cette modélisation souple et ouverte de la traduction comme activité cognitive évolue en direction d’une intelligibilité holistique du champ réflexif de la traduction que que je désigne comme la métatraduction. Je partirai d’un énoncé de principe qui, pour moi, a valeur d’axiome : il est désormais interdit de réduire l’exercice de la traduction à une portion congrue qui en ferait l’estafette entre une présumé « original » et son produit « dérivé » : la traduction est un vecteur de transformation des valeurs et d’élargissement des horizons, non moins qu’une amorce discrète mais effective des mutations de paradigme et des révolutions conceptuelles.This thesis proposes a series of tangential readings in the fields of epistemology, historiography and critical theory of translation.. So I come to three conclusions: 1) any processing of data in translation studies is based on an a posteriori knowledge and should be implemented with “soft” axiomatics dealing with trends and regularities with¬out any necessary binding to strong causal or final conditions; 2) any proposition formu¬lated in this framework should keep a non deterministic profile; 3) translation as experience and self-examination is governed by an evolutive protocol. My conclusions are evolving toward a “general theory of drifting”, a work in progress that synthesizes the data scrutinized and fleshed out in the former series of essays. I will start with a personal tenet that should earn for me the status of an axiom: we can no more reduce the experience of translation to an ancillary role oscillating back & forth between a so called “original” and an end product bound by the double bind between formal equivalence (source-oriented) and dynamic equivalence (target-oriented). As put forth by Walter Benjamin, translation evolves in a medium forming a continuum of metamorphoses, being as such a seminal vector of transformation of values and expanding the horizons as well as a discrete but effective trigger of paradigm shifts and conceptual revolutions.. What I call here “general theory of drifting” is nothing else than the principle according to which translation is not a “derivative by-product” of a so called original, but an agent and matrix of its drifting.

Manufacturing Enterprise Systems

this paper consists of Object Management Group (OMG) members, representing the majority of object technology suppliers. The purpose of targeting this group is to obtain information about feasible application architectures and system designs that meet the manufacturing requirements as outlined in this white paper. Technical and managerial staff within the industry who are interested in learning more about Manufacturing Special Interest Group activities have also been targeted. What Is an OMG Special Interest Group