Préface à la révolution. C.L.R. James, lecteur de Melville

In 1953, C.L.R. James, the Trinidadian historian and Marxist intellectual, publishes a book on Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. This paper shows that this book takes its roots in James’s wider project of a study of « American Civilization ». James conceives of captain Achab as a prefiguration of the « totalitarian type » and argues that, in Moby Dick, resistance does not come from Ismaël, the « intellectual », but rather from the ship’s crew composed of « mariners, renegades and castaways » coming from all over the world. A century later, according to James, the crucial task of putting an end to totalitarism falls to the working and colonized masses.En 1953, l'historien et théoricien marxiste trinidadien C.L.R. James publie un ouvrage sur le roman d'Her-man Melville Moby Dick. Le présent article resitue la genèse de ce livre dans le cadre du projet jamesien d'une étude de la « civilisation américaine ». Faisant du capi-taine Achab une préfiguration du « type totalitaire », James affirme que, dans Moby Dick, la résistance ne vient pas de l'« intellectuel » Ismaël, mais de l' équipage du navire, ces « marins, renégats et autres parias » venus du monde entier. Un siècle plus tard, c' est aux masses ouvrières et colonisées que revient selon James la tâche de mettre fin au totalitarisme

¿Puede haber una filosofía decolonial de la historia?

This article is an attempt to articulate a series of scattered reflections on the relations between historical thought and criticism of Eurocentrism; or to put it another way, by paraphrasing the title of an essay by Santiago Castro-Gómez, it aims at introducing a set of "open questions" concerning the possibility, or impossibility, of making a decolonial philosophy of history.Este artículo intenta articular una serie de reflexiones dispersas sobre las relaciones entre el pensamiento de la historia y la crítica del eurocentrismo; o para decirlo de otra manera, y parafraseando el título de un ensayo de Santiago Castro-Gómez, se trata de proponer un conjunto de preguntas o “cuestiones abiertas” relativas a la posibilidad o imposibilidad de hacer una filosofía decolonial de la historia

Corps à corps: Frantz Fanon's Erotics of National Liberation

In this short essay, I will endeavour to show that Frantz Fanon's well-known conception of struggles for national liberation is intimately linked to an erotics of liberation. This one takes its roots in a shift, or better a reversal, of theories of racism. As Etienne Balibar argues, "racism," as a category, appears at mid 19th century, especially under the aegis of the UNESCO, as a break with the conceptions of "race," considered to be a pure "myth" or "prejudice." A better example of such an epistemological rupture is probably Sartre's Antisemite and Jew and its motto: "the Jew is a man whom other men consider a Jew…it is the anti-Semite who makes the Jew." In other words, race is nothing but the product of racism. The biological arguments that underlie the theories of race are "false" arguments inasmuch as they depend on ideological and/or psychological premises

Festival culturel panafricain d’Alger (7-8 juillet 2009)

La Bibliothèque nationale d’Algérie a accueilli les mardi 7 et mercredi 8 juillet un colloque dédié à Frantz Fanon, acteur éminent de la lutte de libération nationale algérienne, théoricien du colonialisme et des décolonisations, penseur de la libération et du panafricanisme ainsi que le mettait en avant l’argumentaire du colloque. Ce dernier, organisé par le Centre national de recherches préhistoriques, anthropologiques et historiques (CNRPAH) s’inscrivait dans le cadre du 2e Festival cultur..

Le web matrimonial des migrants:L'économie du profilage au service d'une nouvelle forme de commerce ethnique

Cet article se propose d'engager une réflexion sur le web matrimonial des migrants (WMM) en tant que forme inédite de commerce ethnique posant l'égalité « faire du commerce » = « faire du réseau » (et non plus s'appuyer sur des réseaux ethniques préexistants). Le WMM est fondée sur une économie du profilage singulière puisque dépendante d'une ethnicisation des profils (et donc des utilisateurs): « faire du réseau » = « ethniciser ». Enfin, le WMM implique mobilité et migrations (avec des différences capitales en terme de genre): « faire du réseau » = « naviguer, bouger, migrer ».This article analyses the 'migrants' matrimonial Web'? as an original form of ethnic business that equates 'doing business'? to 'networking'? (i.e. creating new networks rather than relying on existing ethnic ones). The authors show that it is based on an unusual profiling economy in which profiles (and therefore users) are ethnicized: 'networking'? = 'ethnicizing'?. As the matrimonial Web implies mobility and migration (with significant gender differences), 'networking'? also means 'surfing, moving, and migrating'?

TIC et parrainage dans les mouvements militants de défense des sans-papiers en France

Cet article a pour objet les usages d’internet – et tout particulièrement des listes de discussion – dans le Réseau Éducation sans frontières, réseau de soutien aux sans-papiers. Ces usages sont étroitement liés à la forme de militantisme à l’œuvre dans RESF, un militantisme de solidarité fondé sur le parrainage et rendant possible une intégration par le bas des sans-papiers. Cette prévalence du soutien pose enfin la question des relations entre TIC et politiques de représentation.This article deals with uses of the Internet – in particular discussion lists – in the Education Without Borders Network (Réseau Éducation sans Frontières, RESF), a network dedicated to supporting illegal migrants (« sans-papiers »). These uses are closely connected to the kind of activism at work within RESF, a solidarity activism based on sponsorship and which enables a bottom-up integration of the « sans-papiers ». Finally, this prevalence of support raises the issue of the relation between ICT and politics of representation.El presente artículo tiene por objeto los usos de Internet, y, en especial, de las listas de discusión en la Red Educación sin Fronteras (RESF), red de apoyo a los sin papeles. Estos usos están estrechamente ligados al militantismo que caracteriza a dicha red – militantismo de solidaridad – basado en el apadrinamiento y que permite una integración por lo bajo de los sin papeles. Este tipo de apoyo suscita la cuestión sobre las relaciones entre las TIC y las políticas de representación

The Arabidopsis pop2-1 mutant reveals the involvement of GABA transaminase in salt stress tolerance

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>GABA (γ-aminobutyric acid) is a non protein amino acid that has been reported to accumulate in a number of plant species when subjected to high salinity and many other environmental constraints. However, no experimental data are to date available on the molecular function of GABA and the involvement of its metabolism in salt stress tolerance in higher plants. Here, we investigated the regulation of GABA metabolism in <it>Arabidopsis thaliana </it>at the metabolite, enzymatic activity and gene transcription levels upon NaCl stress.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We identified the GABA transaminase (GABA-T), the first step of GABA catabolism, as the most responsive to NaCl. We further performed a functional analysis of the corresponding gene <it>POP2 </it>and demonstrated that the previously isolated loss-of-function <it>pop2-1 </it>mutant was oversensitive to ionic stress but not to osmotic stress suggesting a specific role in salt tolerance. NaCl oversensitivity was not associated with overaccumulation of Na⁺and Cl^-but mutant showed a slight decrease in K⁺. To bring insights into <it>POP2 </it>function, a promoter-reporter gene strategy was used and showed that <it>POP2 </it>was mainly expressed in roots under control conditions and was induced in primary root apex and aerial parts of plants in response to NaCl. Additionally, GC-MS- and UPLC-based metabolite profiling revealed major changes in roots of <it>pop2-1 </it>mutant upon NaCl stress including accumulation of amino acids and decrease in carbohydrates content.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>GABA metabolism was overall up-regulated in response to NaCl in <it>Arabidopsis</it>. Particularly, GABA-T was found to play a pivotal function and impairment of this step was responsible for a decrease in salt tolerance indicating that GABA catabolism was a determinant of <it>Arabidopsis </it>salt tolerance. GABA-T would act in salt responses in linking N and C metabolisms in roots.</p

Reacting to the Lucas critique: The Keynesians’ replies

In 1976, Robert Lucas explicitly criticized Keynesian macroeconometric models for their inability to correctly predict the effects of alternative economic policies. Today, most contemporary macroeconomists and some historians of economics consider that Lucas’s critique led forcefully to animmediate disqualification of the Keynesian macroeconometric approach. This narrative is based on the interpretation of the Lucas critique as a fundamental principle for economic reasoning that was (and still is) logically unquestionable. We consider that this narrative is problematic both in terms of historiography and the effects that it can have in the field as a way of assigning importance and credit to particular macroeconomists. Indeed, the point of view of the Keynesian economists is missing despite the fact that they were the target of Lucas’s paper and that throughout the 1970s and 1980s they produced a fierce reaction against it. In this article we analyze the reactions by a broad set of authors (which we label “Keynesians”) that disputed the relevance of the critique. In spite of their diversity in methodological, theoretical, and policy issues, these reactions were characterized by their common questioning of the empirical and practical relevance of the Lucas critique

Criticizing the Lucas Critique: Macroeconometricians’ Response to Robert Lucas

The standard history of macroeconomics considers Lucas (1976)– “the Lucas Critique”–as a path-breaking innovation for the discipline. According to this view Lucas’s article dismissed the traditional macroeconometric practice calling for new ways of conceiving the quantitative evaluation of economic policies. The Lucas Critique is considered, nowadays, as a fundamental principle of macroeconomic modeling (Woodford, 2003). The interpretation and the application of the Critique, however, represent still unsolved issues in economics (Chari et al., 2008). Even if the influence of Lucas’s contribution cannot be neglected, something seems to be missing in the narrative: the reactions of the economists that were directly targeted by the Critique. Modeling practices of economic policy evaluation were not overthrown immediately after Lucas (1976), creating a divide between theoretical and applied macroeconomics (Brayton et al., 1997). In the first section we propose a careful account of Lucas’s argument and of some of the previous works anticipating the substantial outline of the Critique (like Frisch’s notion of autonomy). Second, we bring our own interpretation of Lucas (1976). We find two points of view in Lucas's paper: a prescriptive one that tell how to build a good macroeconometric model (it is the standard interpretation of the article); a positive one that relies on the fact that the Lucas critique could be seen as an attempt to explain a real-world phenomenon: stagflation. Third, we classify the reactions of the Keynesian macroeconometricians following this line of interpretation. On the prescriptive side, the Keynesians protested against the New Classical solution to the Lucas critique (the use of the rational expectation hypothesis among other things). Klein, for instance, proposed an alternative microfoundational program to empirically study the formation of expectations. On the positive side, the Keynesians put into question the relevance of the Lucas Critique to explain the rise of both unemployment and inflation in the 1970s. They tried to test the impact of policy regime changes and of shifts in agents' behavior. We argue that the explanation of the stagflation was elsewhere. The purpose of this paper is to study the reactions of the macroeconometricians criticized by Lucas. We focus especially on those macroeconometricians who worked on policy evaluation and who held an expertise position in governmental institutions. We categorize the different reactions to the Critique, in order to enrich the understanding of the evolution of modeling and expertise practices through the analysis of the debates–which have not yet been completely solved

Behavioral and metabolic effects of sublethal doses of two insecticides, chlorpyrifos and methomyl, in the Egyptian cotton leafworm, Spodoptera littoralis (Boisduval) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)

International audienceInsecticides have long been used as the main method in limiting agricultural pests, but their widespread use has resulted in environmental pollution, development of resistances, and biodiversity reduction. The effects of insecticides at low residual doses on both the targeted crop pest species and beneficial insects have become a major concern. In particular, these low doses can induce unexpected positive (hormetic) effects on pest insects, such as surges in population growth exceeding what would have been observed without pesticide application. Methomyl and chlorpyrifos are two insecticides commonly used to control the population levels of the cotton leafworm Spodoptera littoralis, a major pest moth. The aim of the present study was to examine the effects of sublethal doses of these two pesticides, known to present a residual activity and persistence in the environment, on the moth physiology. Using a metabolomic approach, we showed that sublethal doses of methomyl and chlorpyrifos have a systemic effect on the treated insects. We also demonstrated a behavioral disruption of S. littoralis larvae exposed to sublethal doses of methomyl, whereas no effects were observed for the same doses of chlorpyrifos. Interestingly, we highlighted that sublethal doses of both pesticides did not induce a change in acetylcholinesterase activity in head of exposed larva