History and Narrative: An Overview

The articles in this section draw on the texts of plenary lectures presented at the seventh Narrative Matters Conference, Narrative Knowing/Récit et Savoir, organized at the Université Paris Diderot, in partnership with the American University of Paris, from June 23-27, 2014. Philippe Carrard’s article, “History and Narrative: An Overview,” is a sequel to his latest book, Le Passé mis en texte: Poétique de l’historiographie française contemporaine [The Past in Textual Form: A Poetics of Contemporary French Historiography]. In this work, Carrard (2014) sets himself the task of examining, as a scholar of poetics, the writing protocols and conventions used by historians when they finally present the data they have gathered in textual form. One of the major questions of the work concerns to what extent the authors resort to narrative form: does the discourse of the historian always take the form of a narrative and, if not, under what non-narrative forms can it be structured? In the article presented here, Carrard begins by providing an overview of the Anglo-American debate over the cognitive value of narrative in historiography. He opposes this debate, involving mostly analytical philosophers, to the controversies about the relations between narrative and historiography in France, which involve trade historians (starting with the anti-narrativist position of the Annales School). Then he wonders whether literary theory can contribute to these debates. Whereas philosophers and historians raised the question, “Does narrative provide a legitimate kind of knowledge?” literary theorists will simply ask, “Do historians rely on narrative? And if they do, on what kind of narrative?” Answering these questions, of course, includes defining what is meant by “narrative,” something which philosophers and historians, who seem to take the term for granted, often fail to do and which Carrard succeeds in doing, using the works of Gerald Prince, James Phelan, and other theorists of literary narrative. He then shows that a large part of the historians’ production does not fall under narrative, at least not as this term is defined in literary theory, but rather presents itself as what he calls “pictures” (“tableaux”), “analyses,” or “anthropological descriptions.” In his conclusion, he reviews some of the epistemological problems raised by the modes of disposition or arrangement he has described. (Patron & Schiff, 2015

Writing the Past: Le Roy Ladurie and the Voice of the New History

Just as in fiction, discursive strategies in history can reveal the very nature of a project. The positivist historiography that prevailed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries regarded historical facts as givens. Accordingly, it held as its ideal of writing the objective text, that is. the text from which the historian\u27s mediation would be carefully erased. The New History, on the other hand, considers all research to be grounded in a researcher and seeks to indicate by various means that the text does not generate itself. In Carnival in Romans, for example, Le Roy Ladurie explicitly resorts to various facets of the I : that of the histor, going about the job of uncovering the evidence: that of the commentator, providing historical parallels and explanations; and even that of the emotional self (Barthes\u27 personne passionnelle), making judgments on events and people in the narrative. These changes in writing conventions point to the emergence of a new historical paradigm. At the same time, they overturn the view of the historical text as a non-problematic vehicle for reporting reality : this text, for the New Historians, becomes a construct, and is presented as such

Hayden White, Postmodern Anxieties, and the Linguis-tic Turn

This essay examines what remains of the Linguistic turn (LT) after Hay-den White, in the two meanings of the preposition “after”: “subsequent to” and “according to”. For White, the LT (under the umbrella of post-modernism) has made it possible to transcend a number of distinctions, such as those between text and context, fact and fiction, and history and literature. Those distinctions, however, are still defended by a large part of the historical community, including by scholars involved in exper-imental works, such as I. Jablonka. Furthermore, some philosophers hold the debates about the LT to be irrelevant. The specificity of history, for them, does not reside in its formal aspects (e.g., its use of narra-tive), but in its relations to evidence. History, like all scientific disciplines, must validate its statements, namely, establish that they are well founded and justified

Legal and institutional arrangements for urban sanitation and hygiene in Bhutan

This review explores the legal and institutional frameworks guiding urban sanitation and hygiene in Bhutan. It was commissioned in April 2012 to inform the Sustainable Sanitation and Hygiene for All in Small Towns (SSH4A in Small Towns) programme being undertaken by SNV Bhutan and the Ministry of Works and Human Settlements (MoWHS). This review is the product of a desktop review and consultations with key informants to assess the policy, legal and institutional arrangements for urban sanitation and hygiene in Bhutan, with a particular focus on situation in smaller urban centres

Gender in patient-physician interactions

Female leaders are typically evaluated less favorably than their male counterparts. Since physicians are perceived as being high in status and power just like leaders, we propose to examine to what extent female doctors are affected by the same evaluations as female leaders in general. We present a review of the literature showing how the sex of the physician and the patient, as well as the sex composition of the physician-patient dyad affect the interaction behaviour of physicians and patients during the medical interaction and the interaction outcomes. Moreover, there are differences in how female and male doctors are perceived and evaluated by their patients and both of these aspects affect consultation outcomes. We examine how gender stereotypes can explain those differences of perception and evaluation of male and female physicians

Food addiction: conceptualisation, liens avec les troubles des conduites alimentaires et implications : travail de Bachelor

Introduction : Le concept d’addiction à l’alimentation (FA) est très populaire depuis une quinzaine d’années et beaucoup de littérature traite du sujet. Cependant, ce concept reste peu clair et très controversé. Beaucoup de questions restent également en suspens sur le lien possible entre l’addiction à l’alimentation et les troubles des conduites alimentaires (TCA). But et questions de recherche : Dans ce contexte, ce travail de Bachelor a pour but de contribuer à explorer ce lien. Pour ce faire, deux questions de recherche ont été posées : 1. Quelles sont les corrélations entre addiction à l’alimentation et troubles des conduites alimentaires dans une population adulte ? 2. Que pensent différents professionnels de la santé de l’addiction à l’alimentation, reconnaissent-ils son existence, quels liens font-ils avec les troubles des conduites alimentaires et quelles implications voient-ils pour la prise en charge et les traitements ? Méthodologie : Ce travail est composé d’une revue de littérature, en première partie, afin d’effectuer un état des lieux du lien entre la FA et les TCA. En complément, une deuxième partie a été réalisée sous forme d’enquête qualitative auprès de divers professionnels de la santé afin de répondre à la deuxième question de recherche. Résultats : La FA est effectivement corrélée aux TCA, mais le chevauchement entre les deux n’est pas total. La boulimie nerveuse et les accès hyperphagiques sont les deux TCA où la FA est la plus prévalente. Les professionnels ne voient pas l’intérêt d’un diagnostic à part entière pour la FA et pensent que la FA et les TCA sont identiques suivant les critères utilisés pour les définir. De plus, ils ne pensent pas que les traitements changeraient de manière significative si le diagnostic de FA était reconnu. Conclusion : Il subsiste une absence de consensus pour définir le concept de FA. Ce travail qui englobe la littérature scientifique ainsi que les avis des professionnels du terrain, aide néanmoins à la compréhension du concept de FA et donne des pistes pour les recherches futures