Local dynamics of a randomly pinned crack front: A numerical study

We investigate numerically the dynamics of crack propagation along a weak plane using a model consisting of fibers connecting a soft and a hard clamp. This bottom-up model has previously been shown to contain the competition of two crack propagation mechanisms: coalescence of damage with the front on small scales and pinned elastic line motion on large scales. We investigate the dynamical scaling properties of the model, both on small and large scale. The model results compare favorable with experimental results

Voix, silences et colonialisme

Asking whether silence necessarily equals oppression, and (giving) voice necessarily assures agency, Jorunn Svensen Gjerden’s paper examines voices and silences related to colonial power structures in three francophone literary texts belonging to different historical periods and geographies. In her seminal essay “Can the subaltern speak?”, Gayatri Spivak shows that the pitfalls of colonial and/or gendered epistemic violence are difficult to avoid when speaking on behalf of others. In a similar vein, Édouard Glissant paradoxically suggests that dilemmas of invisibilisation may best be resolved by way of other forms of silence, arguing that the right to psycho-cultural opacity ensures the integrity of individuals through the formation of non-assimilative relationships. Against this backdrop, Gjerden analyses La Vénus Hottentote, ou Haine aux Françaises, a Parisian vaudeville from 1814, which thematises the Khoisan woman Sara Baartman’s performances as the ‘Hottentot Venus’ in Paris the same year. The play constitutes an extreme case of colonial silencing and stereotypical othering that comes across as purely instrumental and therapeutic for its French audience at a moment of national humiliation and division. However, when read alongside J.M.G. Le Clézio’s Le Chercheur d’or (1985) and Kamel Daoud’s Meursault, contre-enquête (2014), two postcolonial novels that in different ways focus on the role of silence for allowing every voice to be heard in a globalised world, the silencing of the vaudeville lends itself to new interpretations. Arguing that the claimed silence of postcolonial theory and literature may thus offer insights into hidden subversive dynamics of silence in colonial literary texts such as the Hottentot Venus vaudeville, Gjerden calls attention to the play’s latent surprising modernity with regard to issues of identity and multiculturalism.publishedVersio

Voix, silences et colonialisme

Asking whether silence necessarily equals oppression, and (giving) voice necessarily assures agency, Jorunn Svensen Gjerden’s paper examines voices and silences related to colonial power structures in three francophone literary texts belonging to different historical periods and geographies. In her seminal essay “Can the subaltern speak?”, Gayatri Spivak shows that the pitfalls of colonial and/or gendered epistemic violence are difficult to avoid when speaking on behalf of others. In a similar vein, Édouard Glissant paradoxically suggests that dilemmas of invisibilisation may best be resolved by way of other forms of silence, arguing that the right to psycho-cultural opacity ensures the integrity of individuals through the formation of non-assimilative relationships. Against this backdrop, Gjerden analyses La Vénus Hottentote, ou Haine aux Françaises, a Parisian vaudeville from 1814, which thematises the Khoisan woman Sara Baartman’s performances as the ‘Hottentot Venus’ in Paris the same year. The play constitutes an extreme case of colonial silencing and stereotypical othering that comes across as purely instrumental and therapeutic for its French audience at a moment of national humiliation and division. However, when read alongside J.M.G. Le Clézio’s Le Chercheur d’or (1985) and Kamel Daoud’s Meursault, contre-enquête (2014), two postcolonial novels that in different ways focus on the role of silence for allowing every voice to be heard in a globalised world, the silencing of the vaudeville lends itself to new interpretations. Arguing that the claimed silence of postcolonial theory and literature may thus offer insights into hidden subversive dynamics of silence in colonial literary texts such as the Hottentot Venus vaudeville, Gjerden calls attention to the play’s latent surprising modernity with regard to issues of identity and multiculturalism.publishedVersio

Onset of Localization in Heterogeneous Interfacial Failure

We study numerically the failure of an interface joining two elastic materials under load using a fiber bundle model connected to an elastic half space. We find that the breakdown process follows the equal load sharing fiber bundle model without any detectable spatial correlations between the positions of the failing fibers until localization sets in. The onset of localization is an instability, not a phase transition. Depending on the elastic constant describing the elastic half space, localization sets in before or after the critical load causing the interface to fail completely, is reached. There is a crossover between failure due to localization or failure without spatial correlations when tuning the elastic constant, not a phase transition. Contrary to earlier claims based on models different from ours, we find that a finite fraction of fibers must fail before the critical load is attained, even in the extreme localization regime, i.e.\ for very small elastic constant. We furthermore find that the critical load remains finite for all values of the elastic constant in the limit of an infinitely large system.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Gardien du frère – fils du gardien. Frères et étrangers dans Meursault, contre-enquête de Kamel Daoud

Under embargo until: 2021-10-20Dès la publication de Meursault, contre-enquête (en 2013 en Algérie, en 2014 en France), la critique a noté le double rôle de l’oeuvre d’Albert Camus dans le roman de Kamel Daoud. À première vue, le roman est une réécriture postcoloniale de L’Étranger, reprenant la critique des stéréotypes coloniaux dans l’oeuvre de Camus, telle qu’on la trouve notamment dans Culture et impérialisme d’Edward Saïd. En même temps, Meursault, contre-enquête peut se lire comme un hommage à Camus, le réhabilitant comme l’un des plus grands écrivains algériens. Notre article met ce rôle ambigu de Camus dans Meursault, contre-enquête en rapport avec l’introduction du frère de la victime de Meursault en tant que narrateur-protagoniste. Nous établissons ainsi que ce procédé narratif est intrinsèque au projet de contre-enquête et de réécriture. Car un frère, n’est-il pas l’antithèse de l’étranger ? Par des allusions à des épisodes de rivalité entre frères, communs à la Bible et au Coran, le roman brouille progressivement la distinction entre frères et étrangers, entre assassins et gardiens de la vie d’autrui. Une réflexion sur les notions de fraternité, de communauté et de filiation puise dans d’autres oeuvres camusiennes, notamment dans L’homme révolté et Le premier homme. Le motif du frère, soutenu par un réseau complexe de renvois aux textes littéraires et religieux, s’avère ainsi décisif pour faire de Meursault, contre-enquête un commentaire allégorique de la signification et des retentissements du colonialisme et de la décolonisation en Algérie aujourd’hui.publishedVersio