Dialogues With the Dead: Enlightened Selves, Suicide, and Human Rights

Since ancient times, the theme of suicide has been linked to the concept of a «dialogue with the dead». That genre, made popular by Lucian and widespread in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, comes to represent the possibility of transcending the limits of selfhood and of local customs. In neoclassical literature, the contrasts and comparisons inherent in the dialogue form or in epistolary fictions enable the exploration of universal truths about natural law and natural rights. The realm of the dead is ultimately democratic. The narrative displacement of the scene to an encounter on the margins with the Ancients or with heroic rebels in the New World permitted Enlightened political writers such as Montesquieu, Voltaire, or Condorcet to escape censorship. In exploring the philosophic grounds for republican thought, eighteenth-century writers draw on suicidal protagonists who are not only geopolitically «Other» but female, to dramatize their claims to universal human rights.Desde antiguo, el tema del suicidio ha estado vinculado al concepto de «diálogo con los muertos». Este género, popularizado por Luciano y difundido durante los siglos XVII y XVIII, representa la posibilidad de trans- cender los límites del yo y las costumbres locales. En la literatura neoclásica, los contrastes y comparaciones inherentes al diálogo o en las epístolas fic- cionales permitieron explorar verdades universales acerca de la ley natural y los derechos humanos. El dominio de los muertos es en última instancia democrático. El desplazamiento narrativo de la escena a un encuentro en los márgenes con los antiguos o con los rebeldes heroicos del Nuevo Mundo hizo posible que los escritores políticos de la Ilustración, como Montesquieu, Voltaire o Condorcet, sortearan la censura. Al explorar los fundamentos filosó- ficos del pensamiento republicano, los escritores del siglo XVIII recurrieron a protagonistas suicidas que no son sólo el Otro en términos geopolíticos, sino también femeninos con el fin de dramatizar sus argumentos sobre los derechos humanos universales

X-Ray Vision: Women Photograph War

Les innovations technologiques qui accompagnaient la Première Guerre Mondiale ont donné lieu non seulement à un nouveau type de guerre “totale”, aux effets dévastateurs, mais ont également modifié le regard porté sur cette guerre, d'un point de vue médical et militaire. Alors que le regard médical se glissait à l'intérieur du corps, le regard militaire, lui, s'éloignait, se distanciant du regard direct du combattant. Simultanément, la révolution dans les relations homme-femme donnait une nouvelle place à la femme sur le front, mais aussi derrière l'objectif de son appareil photographique. En s'appuyant sur les travaux de la photographe professionnelle, Olive Edis, cet article propose d'abord une exploration des trois fonctions testimoniales de la photographie, concernant l'identité, le travail et l'inscription dans un lieu de la photographe, pour aborder ensuite les mémoires de deux femmes ayant travaillé avec la Croix Rouge, Florence Farmborough et Margaret Hall : leurs témoignages nous révèlent l'avènement d'un nouveau genre, un collage juxtaposant récits et photos de guerre : le “photo-texte”.During World War I not only did technical revolutions produce a new, devastatingly “total” type of war, but they also changed the way war was seen, both from a medical and a military perspective. While the medical gaze probed the interior of bodies, the military gaze pulled away from the immediacy of the combatant’s gaze. The accompanying gender revolution placed women in new positions, both on the front line and behind the camera. Using the work of professional photographer Olive Edis this article first explores the three testimonial functions of photography concerning the photographer’s identity, tasks and physical location, before turning to the memoirs of two Red Cross workers, Florence Farmborough and Margaret Hall, which suggest that a particular war genre arose at the moment when women created scrapbooks that combined photographs with their memoirs: the “photo-text”

Civilité et citoyenneté

The French Revolution attempted to make the child a political participant by conferring meaning on its personal dimension and social role. This constrasts with the books on good manners for children which appeared in preceeding periods and throughout the nineteenth century. In this later period, the doubling of the text between word and picture facilitates, respectively, the expression of what is expected of the child and of its transgressions.La Révolution s'efforce défaire de l'enfant un acteur politique en lui donnant le sens de sa dimension propre et de sa valeur agissante. Ceci contraste avec les livres de civilité pour enfants des siècles précédents ou ceux qui suivront au XIXe siècle. Dans ces derniers cependant, le dédoublement entre texte et image permet d'exprimer par l'écrit ce qu'on attend de l'enfant, par les illustrations les transgressions possibles.Higonnet Margaret. Civilité et citoyenneté. In: Enfance, tome 43, n°1-2, 1990. pp. 197-202

Conclusion et synthèse du colloque

Higonnet Margaret. Conclusion et synthèse du colloque. In: Diplômées, n°172, 1995. Jeunesse américaine, jeunesse française, jeunesse européenne. Quelles images ont-elles les unes des autres dans un monde en pleine mutation ? Séminaire AFFDU-Currier 13-14 octobre 1994. pp. 123-128

X-Ray Vision: Women Photograph War

During World War I not only did technical revolutions produce a new, devastatingly “total” type of war, but they also changed the way war was seen, both from a medical and a military perspective. While the medical gaze probed the interior of bodies, the military gaze pulled away from the immediacy of the combatant’s gaze. The accompanying gender revolution placed women in new positions, both on the front line and behind the camera. Using the work of professional photographer Olive Edis this article first explores the three testimonial functions of photography concerning the photographer’s identity, tasks and physical location, before turning to the memoirs of two Red Cross workers, Florence Farmborough and Margaret Hall, which suggest that a particular war genre arose at the moment when women created scrapbooks that combined photographs with their memoirs: the “photo-text”

Borderwork: Feminist Engagements with Comparative Literature

The first book to assess the impact of feminist criticism on comparative literature, Borderwork recharts the intellectual and institutional boundaries on that discipline. The seventeen essays collected here, most published for the first time, together call for the contextualization of the study of comparative literature within the areas of discourse, culture, ideology, race, and gender. Contributors: Bella Brodzki, VèVè A. Clark, Chris Cullens, Greta Gaard, Sabine Gölz, Sarah Webster Goodwin, Margaret R. Higonnet, Marianne Hirsch, Susan Sniader Lanser, Françoise Lionnet, Fedwa Malti-Douglas, Lore Metzger, Nancy K. Miller, Obioma Nnaemakea, Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, Anca Vlasopolos