4,303 research outputs found
Au commencement était le Crime, et le Crime était avec la Société, et le Crime était la Société : le criminel comme Christ démoniaque de la paternité sociale
Nous nous proposons de dĂ©velopper lâhypothĂšse selon laquelle lâimaginaire diabolique, attachĂ© au criminel dans Ferragus et le « cycle Vautrin », viendrait non pas caractĂ©riser la dimension anomale du personnage mais dĂ©finir son appartenance Ă la sociĂ©tĂ© mĂȘme, exprimant lâirrĂ©mĂ©diable association de celle-ci avec le Mal et le Crime. Le diabolique dĂ©passerait donc chez Balzac la simple mĂ©taphore topique du Mal moral pour devenir le symbole dâun fonctionnement social perverti.Cette alliance est illustrĂ©e, de maniĂšre allĂ©gorique et exemplaire, par le motif du pacte diabolique, contractĂ© entre un criminel â avatar du serpent tentateur ainsi que personnage anti-social â et un jeune homme en quĂȘte de pouvoir â ĂȘtre social â qui se damne. Ce couple, dont Balzac souligne lâessentielle unitĂ©, constituerait ainsi lâanalogon dâun fonctionnement devenu celui du monde parisien dans lequel le pouvoir et la fortune â Ă tout prix â ont remplacĂ© les hiĂ©rarchies et valeurs des siĂšcles prĂ©cĂ©dents. Lâassociation du criminel et de lâarriviste mettrait ainsi au jour les mĂ©canismes obscurs de lâascension sociale en devenant lâimage spĂ©culaire et Ă©piphanique de la naissance dâune sociĂ©tĂ© dĂ©naturĂ©e, oĂč toutes les mĂ©tamorphoses sociales sont dĂ©sormais possibles par lâintermĂ©diaire du crime. Car il sâagit bien dâune naissance, exprimĂ©e dans les termes dâune crĂ©ation qui fait du criminel un vĂ©ritable dĂ©miurge, modelant le jeune initiĂ© Ă son image. Au rapport tentateur/ damnĂ© succĂšde celui de crĂ©ateur/ crĂ©ature, rapport qui fait du criminel un nouvel avatar du PĂšre : diabolique et divin se confondent alors en un syncrĂ©tisme blasphĂ©matoire qui nâest autre que celui de la sociĂ©tĂ© post-rĂ©volutionnaire française. Mais lâallĂ©geance de la sociĂ©tĂ© au Mal et au Crime constitue un vĂ©ritable pĂ©chĂ© originel dont la tache doit ĂȘtre lavĂ©e : « sachez seulement vous bien dĂ©barbouiller : lĂ est toute la morale de notre Ă©poque », tel est lâultime conseil de Vautrin Ă Rastignac pour parvenir. Mais cette purification est opĂ©rĂ©e par lâinstigateur mĂȘme du pacte diabolique, ce qui transfigure le personnage dĂ©moniaque en un Christ faisant propitiation en lavant sa crĂ©ation de lâopprobre attachĂ©e Ă son origine. Il sâagirait alors de voir en quoi les rapports de force sâinversent, le pacte diabolique faisant de lâenchanteur lâenchantĂ© et du damnĂ© lâidole malĂ©fique Ă laquelle le criminel offre jusquâĂ sa vie. Le pacte diabolique balzacien aboutit en effet, dans un paradoxe vertigineux, Ă la disparition du criminel, ultime rĂ©vĂ©lation dâun transfert de la toute-puissance du crime Ă lâambition.Le criminel serait ainsi lâAlpha et lâOmĂ©ga dâune sociĂ©tĂ© dans laquelle la boue obscure et informe de lâindistinction sociale peut se transformer par lâalchimie du crime en pouvoir dorĂ©. Le pacte diabolique ne nous raconterait alors rien dâautre que la GenĂšse dâune cosmogonie sociale
Forced Migrants in Russia: An Analysis of Russian Law from a Human Rights Perspective
This paper describes the "forced return" of
Russian and Russian-speaking peoples in
the new "Republics" to Russia as a
consequence of the collapse of the USSR.
Although these migrations bear all the
earmarks of a refugee displacement, they
do not fall within the legitimate definitions
of forced migration. Consequently, these
individuals are forced to endure all the
trauma of displacement without recourse
to the normative international or human
rights remedies. The author suggests that
two new categories, "returnees" and
"returning migrants" be delineated to meet
the needs of these individuals. Several
examples of forced return are described in
the paper to clarify the parameters of the
problem and illustrate the consequences.Ce texte décrit Ie "retour force" des personnes
de nationalité ou de langue russe
des nouvelles "Republiques" vers la Russie
comme conséquence de l'effondrement de l'URSS. Bien que ces
migrations presentent toutes les
caractéristiques de la migration forcée
des réfugiés, elles n' entrent pas dans la
définition traditionnelle de la migration
forcée. Par consequent, ces individus sont
contraints d'assumer les traumatismes de
telles relocalisations sans pouvoir
invoquer les remĂšdes du droit
international humanitaire. L' auteur
suggÚre que deux nouvelles catégories,
"returnees" et "returning migrants" soient
créés pour repondre aux besoins de ces
individus. Plusieurs exempIes de retours
forcés sont donnés dans Ie texte afin de
clarifier les paramĂštres du problĂšme et en
illustrer les conséquences
University Elections Management Portal
Elections form a critical process of many social institutions which uphold principles of representational democracy such as fairness to all and the right to have equal right by way of casting a vote [Alistair McConnachie, 2003]. This paper describes a research carried out at Taita Taveta University College, an institution of higher learning in Kenya and the process undertaken to achieve development and deployment of a web based system to promote free and fair democratic electioneering process: computerizing registration, voting and tallying process involved. The system was developed using the incremental prototyping due to the adaptive nature of web based applications and the system proved that a computerized solution is possible with elimination of human related faults that are a commonplace in employment of human clerks to manage the election process. Application of the online voting has resulted in many advantages in the efficiency of the entire electioneering process and reduced costs the university used to incur using the human clerk electioneering process. Keywords: Internet Voting, Internet Securities, Fool proof
âThey Called Them Communists ThenââŠâWhat D'You Call âEm Now?ââŠâInsurgents?â. Narratives of British Military Expatriates in the Context of the New Imperialism
This paper addresses the question of the extent to which the colonial past provides material for contemporary actors' understanding of difference. The research from which the paper is drawn involved interview and ethnographic work in three largely white working-class estates in an English provincial city. For this paper we focus on ten life-history interviews with older participants who had spent some time abroad in the British military. Our analysis adopts a postcolonial framework because research participants' current constructions of an amorphous 'Other' (labelled variously as black people, immigrants, foreigners, asylum-seekers or Muslims) reveal strong continuities with discourses deployed by the same individuals to narrate their past experiences of living and working as either military expatriates or spouses during British colonial rule. Theoretically, the paper engages with the work of Frantz Fanon and Edward Said. In keeping with a postcolonial approach, we work against essentialised notions of identity based on 'race' or class. Although we establish continuity between white working-class military emigration in the past and contemporary racialised discourses, we argue that the latter are not class-specific, being as much the creations of the middle-class media and political elite
After the End Times: Postcrisis African Science Fiction
We live in a moment of âapocalyptic time,â the âtime of the end of time.â Ours is a moment of global ecological crisis, of the ever-impending collapse of capital. That we live on the brink is too clear. What is not, however, is our ability to imagine the moment after this dual crisis. In recent years, African artists have begun to articulate this âmoment after,â ushering in a new paradigm in African literature and film that speculates upon postcrisis African futures. Writers and filmmakers such as Nigeriaâs Efe Okogu and Kenyaâs Wanuri Kahiu have imagined future African topographiesâspaces that have felt the fullest effects of climate change, nuclear radiation, and the imbalances of global capitalism. Biopolitics, sovereignty, and the human have all been reconfigured in these African science fictions. Okogu and Kahiuâs futurist aesthetics are specters that loom over our present, calling for a radically reimagined politics of the now
Fanon's Letter Between Psychiatry and Anticolonial Commitment
The name of Frantz Fanon has become a symbol of anticolonial militancy and the struggles of national emancipation against colonial rule. However, Fanon was also a psychiatrist, who never abandoned clinical practice even after resigning from his post in colonized Algeria in 1956. The coexistence, in Fanon, of medicine and political involvement represents one of the most productive and contradictory aspects of his life and work. Fanon was highly critical of colonial ethnopsychiatry, but never abandoned his commitment to improving the condition of psychiatric patients. After his escape from Algeria, he wrote extensively for El Moudjahid, the journal of the anticolonial resistance, but also practised in the hospital of Charles Nicolle in Tunis. In this essay I propose a new assessment of the relation between psychiatry and politics by addressing Fanon's influence on Franco Basaglia, leader of the anti-institutional movement in Italian psychiatry in the 1960s and 1970s. Basaglia was deeply inspired by the example of Fanon and the contradictions he had to confront. Rereading Fanon through the mirror of Italian anti-institutional psychiatry will define a new understanding of Fanon as committed intellectual. Indeed, this may suggest a new perspective on the function of intellectuals in contexts signed by the aftermath of colonial history, drawing on the example of two psychiatrists who never ceased to inhabit the borderline between the clinical and the critical, medicine and militancy, the necessity of cure and the exigency of freedom
Locating the âradicalâ in 'Shoot the Messenger'
This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below, copyright 2013 @ Edinburgh University Press.The 2006 BBC drama Shoot the Messenger is based on the psychological journey of a Black schoolteacher, Joe Pascale, accused of assaulting a Black male pupil. The allegation triggers Joe's mental breakdown which is articulated, through Joe's first-person narration, as a vindictive loathing of Black people. In turn, a range of common stereotypical characterisations and discourses based on a Black culture of hypocrisy, blame and entitlement is presented. The text is therefore laid wide open to a critique of its neo-conservatism and hegemonic narratives of Black Britishness. However, the drama's presentation of Black mental illness suggests that Shoot the Messenger may also be interpreted as a critique of social inequality and the destabilising effects of living with ethnicised social categories. Through an analysis of issues of representation, the article reclaims this controversial text as a radical drama and examines its implications for and within a critical cultural politics of âraceâ and representation
Feeling, Knowledge, Self-Preservation: Audre Lordeâs Oppositional Agency and Some Implications for Ethics
Throughout her work, Audre Lorde maintains that her self-preservation in the face of oppression depends on acting from the recognition and valorization of her feelings as a deep source of knowledge. This claim, taken as a portrayal of agency, poses challenges to standard positions in ethics, epistemology, and moral psychology. This article examines the oppositional agency articulated by Lordeâs thought, locating feeling, poetry, and the power she calls âthe eroticâ within her avowed project of self-preservation. It then explores the implications of taking seriously Lordeâs account, particularly for theorists examining ethics and epistemology under nonideal social conditions. For situations of sexual intimacy, for example, Lordeâs account unsettles prevailing assumptions about the role of consent in responsibility between sexual partners. I argue that obligations to solicit consent and respect refusal are not sufficient to acknowledge the value of agency in intimate encounters when agency is oppositional in the way Lorde describes
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