Le regard du mal chez Philippe Renonçay

Les quatre romans publiés à ce jour par Philippe Renonçay composent ensemble une oeuvre d’une grande cohérence. L’auteur pose la question du mal. Le sujet n’est sans doute pas original ; Gide l’a dit : on ne fait pas de bonne littérature avec de bons sentiments. L’entreprise de Renonçay est cependant plus radicale. Elle s’inscrit dans le contexte de certaines recherches littéraires actuelles qui placent le mal au centre de leurs préoccupations : Dantec, Jauffret, Germain, Nobécourt, et bien d’autres. Peut-être un signe des temps, l’originalité de Renonçay est à chercher, au moins en partie, dans l’intempérance avec laquelle ses personnages centraux mettent en question notre déréliction : une violence nue, sans pudeur, oscille entre le règlement de comptes avec Dieu et la volonté d’en finir une fois pour toutes avec une inexpiable humanité.The four novels published thus far by Philippe Renonçay compose a work of great coherence. They focus mainly on the question of evil. While this is not an original topic—one does not write good literature with good sentiments, said Gide—, Renonçay’s treatment of it, however, is far more radical. It finds itself in the context of one of today’s literary concerns which centers around the depiction of evil: Dantec, Jauffret, Germain, Nobécourt, among others, come to mind. Perhaps a sign of the times, Renonçay’s originality is to be found, at least in part, in the intemperance with which the characters of his novels address our dereliction: an uncompromising, unrestrained violence oscillates between the impulse to settle the score with God and the unwavering decision to do away with a corrupt humanity once and for all

Maurice Blanchot: Littérature et ruine de l'écriture

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L’écriture ou la vie. Essai sur la biographie

II peut sembler paradoxal de poser à partir de la réflexion blanchotienne la question de la relation entre écriture et vie. Nul écrivain plus que Blanchot ne semble avoir plus catégoriquement évacué de la littérature toute problématique liée à l'autobiographie, au sens que Philippe Lejeune donne à ce mot. Le travail présent s'efforce d'explorer les modalités et conséquences de cette exclusion qui doit d'abord être entendue, et cela dès les premiers écrits de Blanchot, comme la responsabilité de l'écrivain en proie à l'impossibilité d'une origine qui est aussi son origine. Ainsi, si le thème de l'enfance est remarquablement absent de ses romans et récits, ils revient souvent sous sa plume du critique qui l'insère dans la thématique plus générale de l'expérience de l'exil. C'est justement dans ce « jeu » de l'écriture que doit prendre place la réflexion sur ce que Roger Lapone appelle la « biographie »

A Shallow Water Analogue of the Standing Accretion Shock Instability: Experimental Demonstration and Two-Dimensional Model

Despite the sphericity of the collapsing stellar core, the birth conditions of neutron stars can be highly non spherical due to a hydrodynamical instability of the shocked accretion flow. Here we report the first laboratory experiment of a shallow water analogue, based on the physics of hydraulic jumps. Both the experiment and its shallow water modeling demonstrate a robust linear instability and nonlinear properties of symmetry breaking, in a system which is one million times smaller and about hundred times slower than its astrophysical analogue.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Letters. Supplementary Material (6 movies) available at http://irfu.cea.fr/Projets/SN2NS/outreach.htm

Dielectric properties of CaCu3Ti4O12 based multiphased ceramics

A “soft chemistry” method, the coprecipitation, has been used to synthesize the perovskite CaCu3Ti4O12 (CCT). Three main types of materials were obtained for both powders and sintered ceramics: a monophased consisting of the pure CCT phase, a biphased (CCT + CaTiO3), and a three-phased (CCT + CaTiO3 + copper oxide (CuO or Cu2O)). These ceramics, sintered at low temperature, 1050 °C, present original dielectric properties. The relative permittivity determined in the temperature range (−150 < T < 250 °C) is significantly higher than the one reported in the literature. Internal barrier layer capacitor is the probable mechanism to explain the particular behaviour. Moreover, the presence of a copper oxide phase beside the perovksite CCT plays an important role for enhancing the dielectric properties

Hydrothermal synthesis of nanosized BaTiO3 powders and dielectric properties of corresponding ceramics

BaTiO3 fine powders were synthesized by hydrothermal method at 150 °C or 250 °C for 7 h, starting from a mixture of TiCl3 + BaCl2 or TiO2 + BaCl2. The size of the crystallites is close to 20 nm whatever the starting mixture and the reaction temperature. These powders are well crystallized and constituted of a mixture of the metastable cubic and stable tetragonal phases. The ceramics obtained after uniaxial pressing and sintering at 1250 °C for 10 h or 20 h present high densification (up to 99.8%). The Curie temperature (Tc) and the electrical permittivity ( r) of the ceramics strongly depend on the type of titanium source that has been used for preparing the powder and on the sintering dwell time. Particularly, Tc is shifted towards lower temperature when TiCl3 is used. The permittivity value at Tc of BaTiO3 sintered at 1250 °C for 10 h reaches 7000 and 11,000 with respectively TiCl3 and TiO2 used as titanium source

Grain Growth-Controlled Giant Permittivity in Soft Chemistry CaCu3Ti4O12 Ceramics

We report a dielectric constant of up to 5.4105 at room temperature and 1 kHz for CaCu3Ti4O12 (CCTO) ceramics, derived from multiphase powders (coprecipitation products), made by a ‘‘chimie douce’’ (coprecipitation) method, and then sintered in air. The sintered products are pure-phase CCTO ceramics. The high dielectric constant is achieved by tuning the size of grains and the thickness of grain boundaries. The grain growth is controlled by varying the concentration of excess CuO in the initial powder (calcined coprecipitation products) between 1 and 3.1 wt%. The dielectric constant of pure CCTO ceramics increases with the initial CuO concentration, reaching its maximum at 2.4 wt% of CuO. A further increase of excess CuO in powders results in a permittivity decrease, accompanied by the formation of CuO as a separate phase in the sintered products. The unusual grain growth behavior is attributed to a eutectic reaction between CuO and TiO2 present in the initial powder

Ecological significance of a species-area relationship in Helminth communities of the Alpine Chamois (Rupicapra r. rupicapra Linné, 1758)

From 1994 to 1996, an actual and retrospective inquest on pastoral practices and Alpine Chamois (Rupicapra r. rupicapra) home ranges was performed in Vanoise National Park, Écrins National Park and in the Bauges Game Reserve (France), to investigate the patterns of inter specifie cohabitation between livestock and wild ungulates. Statistical treatments performed on a sanitary data base, recording the results of parasitological exarninations performed on 307 Chamois, perrnitted an estimation of parasite diversity in ten groups of chamois populations. Looking for the influence of environmental factors on diversity indices, we revealed significant species-area relationships . Whereas no correlation was found between diversity indices and the total surface of Chamois home range, H' (Shannon & Weaver) and N 1 (Hill) were significantly correlated with the surface of spring home ranges of Chamois and with the surface grazed by 1ivestock within spring preferential ranges . Moreover, a significant correlation between species richness (S) and the surface grazed by livestock in chamois summer preferential home ranges is noted. These results suggest an influence of cattle breeding on diversity fluctuations in helminth communities of RupicaprinaeDe 1994 à 1996, des enquêtes instantanées et rétrospectives portant, d'une part sur les pratiques pastorales et d'autre part sur l'étendue du domaine vital du Chamois (Rupicapra r. rupicapra, Linné, 1758), ont été conduites, dans le Parc National de la Vanoise, le Parc National des Écrins et la Réserve Nationale de Chasse et de Faune sauvage des Bauges. Cette étude visait à analyser certains aspects de la cohabitation entre ongulés sauvages et cheptels domestiques. Des traitements statistiques réalisés à partir d'une banque de données sanitaires contenant les résultats de bilans parasitaires pratiqués sur 307 Chamois, ont permis, parallèlement, d'estimer la diversité parasitaire en helminthes digestifs dans les différents groupes de populations de Chamois. L'étude de la relation entre environnement pastoral et indices de diversité a montré des relations surface - diversité significatives. Alors qu'aucune corrélation n'a été trouvée entre les indices de diversité et la surface totale du domaine vital du Chamois, H' (Shannon-Weaver) et N1 (Hill) sont corrélés significativement avec la surface totale des quartiers saisonniers de printemps et avec la surface pâturée par les troupeaux à l'intérieur des quartiers saisonniers préférentiels de printemps. Qui plus est, une corrélation significative est trouvée entre la richesse spécifique (S) et la surface pâturée par les troupeaux dans les quartiers préférentiels d'été du Chamois. Ces résultats suggèrent une influence du pastoralisme sur les fluctuations de la diversité parasitaire dans les communautés d'helminthes des Rupicaprinae

A metapopulation model to simulate West Nile virus circulation in Western Africa, Southern Europe and the Mediterranean basin

In Europe, virological and epidemiological data collected in wild birds and horses suggest that a recurrent circulation of West Nile virus (WNV) could exist in some areas. Whether this circulation is permanent (due to overwintering mechanisms) or not remains unknown. The current conception of WNV epidemiology suggests that it is not: this conception combines an enzootic WNV circulation in tropical Africa with seasonal introductions of the virus in Europe by migratory birds. The objectives of this work were to (i) model this conception of WNV global circulation; and (ii) evaluate whether the model could reproduce data and patterns observed in Europe and Africa in vectors, horses, and birds. The model was calibrated using published seroprevalence data obtained from African (Senegal) and European (Spain) wild birds, and validated using independent, published data: seroprevalence rates in migratory and resident wild birds, minimal infection rates in vectors, as well as seroprevalence and incidence rates in horses. According to this model, overwintering mechanisms are not needed to reproduce the observed data. However, the existence of such mechanisms cannot be ruled out