Le numéro 44 de la revue Clio, Femmes, Genre, Histoire propose un parcours de longue durée à travers l’histoire des juifs, de la judéité et du judaïsme. C’est, en effet, ce triptyque, ainsi que la vie en diaspora, qui rend l’analyse du genre dans la tradition juive si spécifique. Le judaïsme est, bien sûr, une religion, mais il n’est pas qu’une religion. « Peuple », « Nation », « Ethnie », « Culture », ou « Communauté de destin »? Les (...) juifs ne cessent depuis des siècles de débattre sur leur... (shrink)

Le projet de ce numéro est né de la recherche que nous avons menée il y a quelques années sur la généalogie comparée des « États-providence », dans lesquels la loi assignait les femmes à leur rôle de « mères des futurs citoyens ». Il nous est resté une interrogation sur les genres respectifs de la nation et de l'État. Il ne s'agit pas bien entendu de genre grammatical : par genre (gender) de la nation nous entendons, dans un premier (...) temps, la place respective des hommes et des femmes d... (shrink)

La recherche sur le genre de la nation faite aux États-Unis, même si elle ressemble beaucoup à la recherche faite en Europe, est aussi originale par des particularités liées soit à l’histoire du pays, soit aux structures de recherche. La première spécificité se voit surtout par l’intérêt porté aux questions de race ; la seconde se voit surtout par l’importance de l’interdisciplinarité, de la recherche sur la masculinité, et de l’ interaction des recherches féministe et gay. Ces trois effets...

Qu’est-ce que les objets ont à apprendre aux historiennes et historiens qui cherchent à mieux comprendre les dynamiques du genre? Ce numéro de Clio. Femmes, genre, histoire « Objets et fabrication du genre » tente de répondre à cette interrogation ; d’où le choix, atypique pour Clio, de centrer un numéro autour d’un problème de méthode plutôt que sur un thème. Habituellement nous cherchons à éclaircir comment une étape de vie, un moment historique, un métier, profession ou activité, ou encor...

En décembre 2000, le comité de rédaction de CLIO, Histoire, Femmes et Sociétés m'a donné la responsabilité fort agréable d'animer une table ronde des répresentant/e/s de six revues européennes de l'histoire des femmes. Chaque revue, Arenal (Espagne), Cender & History (Royaume Uni), L'Homme. Z.F.G. (Autriche), Sextant (Belgique), Memoria (Italie), Genesis (Italie) – et CLIO HFS elle-même – a, naturellement, une histoire bien particulière. Elles ont été créées entre 1981 et 1995, et l'une d'ent...

Close le 6 janvier 2014, cette exposition a donné lieu à deux publications : un livre collectif codirigé par Denis Chevallier, Michel Bozon, Michelle Perrot, Florence Rochefort et un petit catalogue à destination des visiteurs, illustrés tous les deux par une femme « torera » en costume de toréador chaussée de talons aiguilles de couleur rouge et tenant avec le bras gauche une cocotte-minute et de la main droite une épée : il s’agit d’un autoportrait de Pilar Albarracin qui veut (...) souligner iro... (shrink)

La Belle Juive est un livre ambitieux, motivé par trois objectifs. Le premier est de décrire la construction de l’image de la « belle Juive » ainsi que la circulation et la réception de cette image en France à travers un siècle et demi d’histoire. Le deuxième est d’établir le rapport entre cette représentation et la réalité vécue des Juives françaises, et le troisième, de déterminer si l’image a nourri ou, au contraire, servi à combattre l’antisémitisme. É. Fournier date l’apparition (...) de la f... (shrink)

Les décennies qui vont de la Première Guerre mondiale jusqu’à la fin de la Seconde Guerre ont été marquées par le développement de l’État-providence en Grande-Bretagne et en France, mais ces deux États-providence étaient fort différents. D’après Pedersen, en France, le principe de base était que les familles, et non les individus, possédaient des droits sociaux ; on définissait la justice distributive en termes d’égalisation des revenus entre familles, plutôt qu’entre les classes sociales, et...

Aborder textiles et vêtements par le biais de la culture matérielle Nombreux sont les aspects de la culture matérielle – mobilier, bijouterie, chaussures, vêtements, jouets, matériel de cuisine, bicyclettes et radios – qui ont retenu l’attention des historien.ne.s du genre et de la sexualité. Tenter de rendre compte de ce corpus foisonnant en un bref essai serait insatisfaisant, tant pour l’auteure que pour les lectrices et lecteurs : je me limiterai donc ici à l’histoire genrée des textiles,...

Félix Germain et Silyane Larcher, directeur et directrice de ce livre collectif, ont trois objectifs : rendre les femmes noires françaises visibles, tout en reflétant leur diversité dans la France métropolitaine, coloniale et postcoloniale ; présenter sur le sujet de nouveaux travaux avec un large éventail de chercheur.es ; et, préparer le terrain pour de futures études en ce domaine. Ces objectifs sont parfaitement atteints. Les contributions démontrent définitivement la place centrale des f...

Les décennies qui vont de la Première Guerre mondiale jusqu'à la fin de la Seconde Guerre ont été marquées par le développement de l'État-providence en Grande-Bretagne et en France, mais ces deux États-providence étaient fort différents. D'après Pedersen, en France, le principe de base était que les familles, et non les individus, possédaient des droits sociaux ; on définissait la justice distributive en termes d'égalisation des revenus entre familles, plutôt qu'entre les classes sociales.

Les décennies qui vont de la Première Guerre mondiale jusqu’à la fin de la Seconde Guerre ont été marquées par le développement de l’État-providence en Grande-Bretagne et en France, mais ces deux États-providence étaient fort différents. D’après Pedersen, en France, le principe de base était que les familles, et non les individus, possédaient des droits sociaux ; on définissait la justice distributive en termes d’égalisation des revenus entre familles, plutôt qu’entre les classes sociales, et...

Le goût s'apprend. Il est une construction sociale qui vient tantôt d'« en haut » tantôt d'« en bas ». Il est aussi affaire de pouvoir et de médiateurs culturels, de « professionnels du goût » (taste professionals) comme Leora Auslander le met si bien en évidence dans son analyse de l'ameublement français de la Cour de Louis XIV au tournant du XXe siècle. La chaise, le fauteuil, la commode sont autant d'objets qui prennent un nouveau sens à (...) la lecture de ce livre très bien illustré par... (shrink)

Connue pour ses travaux sur le goût, la consommation et le genre des objets, Leora Auslander nous donne ici un bel exemple d’écriture historique relativement inconnue en France. Synthétique et comparatif, le livre de l’historienne américaine aborde les trois révolutions – anglaise, américaine et française – sous l’angle de leur culture matérielle. Il s’agit pour elle de montrer combien les révolutions politiques s’appuient sur les émotions et la culture du quotidien pour fabriquer le sentimen...

Les travaux publiés sous la direction de Leora Auslander et de Michelle Zancarini-Fournel se situent dans un champ de recherche peu exploré aussi bien par l’histoire et les sciences politiques que par l’histoire sociale et l’histoire des femmes. Un champ de recherche qui est pourtant d’une importance capitale pour la compréhension non seulement des rapports sociaux de sexe et de classe mais aussi pour celle de la nature de l’État, du libéralisme et de la démocratie historique. C’est une (...) table... (shrink)

Les travaux publiés sous la direction de Leora Auslander et de Michelle Zancarini-Fournel se situent dans un champ de recherche peu exploré aussi bien par l’histoire et les sciences politiques que par l’histoire sociale et l’histoire des femmes. Un champ de recherche qui est pourtant d’une importance capitale pour la compréhension non seulement des rapports sociaux de sexe et de classe mais aussi pour celle de la nature de l’État, du libéralisme et de la démocratie historique. C’est une (...) table... (shrink)

Les travaux publiés sous la direction de Leora Auslander et de Michelle Zancarini-Fournel se situent dans un champ de recherche peu exploré aussi bien par l’histoire et les sciences politiques que par l’histoire sociale et l’histoire des femmes. Un champ de recherche qui est pourtant d’une importance capitale pour la compréhension non seulement des rapports sociaux de sexe et de classe mais aussi pour celle de la nature de l’État, du libéralisme et de la démocratie historique. C’est une (...) table... (shrink)

In this international and interdisciplinary collection of critical essays, distinguished contributors examine a crucial premise of traditional readings of Plato's dialogues: that Plato's own doctrines and arguments can be read off the statements made in the dialogues by Socrates and other leading characters. The authors argue in general and with reference to specific dialogues, that no character should be taken to be Plato's mouthpiece. This is essential reading for students and scholars of Plato.

Most people have the intuition that, when we can save the lives of either a few people in one group or many people in another group, and all other things are equal, we ought to save the group with the most people. However, several philosophers have argued against this intuition, most famously John Taurek, in his article ‘Should the Numbers Count?’ They argue that there is no moral obligation to save the greater number, and that we are permitted to save (...) either the many or the few. I argue in this article that, even if we are almost completely persuaded by these ‘numbers sceptics’, we ought not to just save the few. If the choice is simply between saving the many or the few, we ought to save the many. (shrink)

There is a common refrain in the literature on punishment that presumes the mutual exclusivity of defending retribution and adopting a humanistic or welfare-oriented outlook. The refrain, that if we want to be humane, or care about human welfare, we must abandon retributive punishment, anger, and resentment is readily repeated, endorsed, and relied upon. This article suggests that this opposition is false: retribution and welfare-orientation can not only be endorsed concomitantly, but are complimentary projects, and may even be grounded in (...) the same normative basis, such that if we endorse one we are already committed to ideas that ground reason to care about the other.My primary target will be claims that aim to undermine retributivism by demonstrating the desirability of welfare-orientation. If both can live together, demonstrating the attractiveness of one goes nowhere toward displacing the other. Further, establishing this claim invites further inquiry into classic questions about the “barbaric,” or “morally repugnant” credentials of retributivism. Confronting these claims will elucidate the consistency of adopting both retributive and welfare-oriented views, which, I suggest, can be jointly adopted and pursued. (shrink)

Leo Strauss and Emmanuel Levinas, two twentieth-century Jewish philosophers and two extremely provocative thinkers whose reputations have grown considerably over the last twenty years, are rarely studied together. This is due to the disparate interests of many of their intellectual heirs. Strauss has influenced political theorists and policy makers on the right while Levinas has been championed in the humanities by different cadres associated with postmodernist thought. In Leo Strauss and Emmanuel Levinas: Philosophy and the Politics of Revelation, Leora (...) Batnitzky brings together these two seemingly incongruous contemporaries, demonstrating that they often had the same philosophical sources and their projects had many formal parallels. While such a comparison is valuable in itself for better understanding each figure, it also raises profound questions in the current debate on the definitions of 'religion', suggesting new ways that religion makes claims on both philosophy and politics. (shrink)

This essay examines the Kastner trial and the Eichmann trial as constitutive moments in the development of Israeli collective identity. This aspect of the trials is explored by comparing the intervention of two intellectuals, Nathan Alterman and Hannah Arendt, in the two trials respectively. Both social critics challenged the terms of the collective identity that was reinforced by the trials. During the Kastner trial, the Israeli poet Alterman set out to challenge the "two paths" conception of heroism and cowardice that (...) shaped the court's - and society's - understanding of the Holocaust. The first part of the essay examines Alterman's critical intervention and the public controversy that followed in its wake. In the second part, I examine Arendt's criticism of the Eichmann trial as an attempt to construct Israeli collective identity around opposition to the demonic Nazi In this context, I discuss the famous controversy between Arendt and Gershom Scholem over the terms of her criticism. The two episodes come together in the third part of the essay, where I discuss the surprising continuities and affinities between the controversies. The two controversies offer a fascinating tale about the role of the law in the construction of collective identities and the role of the social critic in the development of a liberal society. (shrink)

One of the main characteristics of this phase of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the resort by Palestinian groups to suicidal terror. This paper focuses on the unique nature of suicidal terror, since, I believe, it is this kind of terror that presents the most immanent threat to the foundations of politics and law in the free world. The article begins with a phenomenological exploration of the effect of suicidal terror on politics in Israel, inspired by the work of Hannah Arendt. (...) It presents the various manifestations of the suicidal terror as a new Paradigm of Violence. This new paradigm poses a great threat on politics: as the terrorists waive their effort to stay alive, deterrence becomes useless; the Israeli politics, in response, redraws the boundaries of the collective according to demographic lines; the feelings of helplessness reduces politics to personal tragedies giving up on normative arguments and long term policies. Compassion replaces persuasion. The attempt of an organized army to respond effectively to suicidal terror is ridden by the dilemma of effectiveness-legitimacy, that is, the more the response is effective, the more difficult it becomes to retain the distinction between the actions of the army and the actions of the terrorist. Moreover, during the attempt to bring the actions of the army to the review of the court, the legal system itself is infected by the same dilemma. The article examines the response of the Israeli Supreme Court to several petitions that questioned the legality of the means employed by the IDF in its fight against terror. These cases provide a unique opportunity to examine the way in which terror infiltrates into the very legal system that is called upon to respond to it, mainly by changing the legal language. The question that guides my discussion is what effect terror exerts on politics and law, and can law provide a way to resist the destructive influence of terror on the political system. (shrink)

We present an axiomatization of a problem in commonsense reasoning, characterizing the proper procedure for cracking an egg and transferring its contents to a bowl. The axiomatization is mid-sized, larger than toy problems such as the Yale Shooting Problem or the Suitcase Problem, but much smaller than the comprehensive axiomatizations associated with CYC and HPKB. This size of axiomatization permits the development of non-trivial, reusable core theories of commonsense reasoning, acts as a testbed for existing theories of commonsense reasoning, and (...) encourages the discovery of new problems in commonsense reasoning.We present portions of core theories of containment, falling, and pouring, integrated into Shanahan's circumscriptive event calculus, and show how these can serve as the basis of an axiomatization that partly characterizes egg cracking. We discuss several commonsense reasoning problems encountered during this research, such as the Initial Specification Problem (a relative of the frame problem that occurs in theories in which fluents can trigger actions), and the Unobtainable State Problem (the problem of determining whether or not a theorem stating that one cannot get from one state to another is meaningful). (shrink)

When blame is understood to be emotion-based or affective, its emotional tone is standardly identified as one of anger. We argue that this conception of affective blame is overly restrictive. By attending to cases of blame that emerge against a background of a particular kind of hope invested in others, we identify a blaming response characterized not by anger but by sadness: reactive disappointment. We develop an account of reactive disappointment as affective blame, maintaining that while angry blame and disappointed (...) blame are both condemnatory responses, they have distinct evaluative foci and occupy different but complementary roles in our accountability practices. (shrink)

Is Judaism a religion, a culture, a nationality--or a mixture of all of these? In How Judaism Became a Religion, Leora Batnitzky boldly argues that this question more than any other has driven modern Jewish thought since the eighteenth century. This wide-ranging and lucid introduction tells the story of how Judaism came to be defined as a religion in the modern period--and why Jewish thinkers have fought as well as championed this idea. Ever since the Enlightenment, Jewish thinkers have (...) debated whether and how Judaism--largely a religion of practice and public adherence to law--can fit into a modern, Protestant conception of religion as an individual and private matter of belief or faith. Batnitzky makes the novel argument that it is this clash between the modern category of religion and Judaism that is responsible for much of the creative tension in modern Jewish thought. Tracing how the idea of Jewish religion has been defended and resisted from the eighteenth century to today, the book discusses many of the major Jewish thinkers of the past three centuries, including Moses Mendelssohn, Abraham Geiger, Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Zvi Yehuda Kook, Theodor Herzl, and Mordecai Kaplan. At the same time, it tells the story of modern orthodoxy, the German-Jewish renaissance, Jewish religion after the Holocaust, the emergence of the Jewish individual, the birth of Jewish nationalism, and Jewish religion in America. More than an introduction, How Judaism Became a Religion presents a compelling new perspective on the history of modern Jewish thought. (shrink)

Although Franz Rosenzweig is arguably the most important Jewish philosopher of the twentieth century, his thought remains little understood. Here, Leora Batnitzky argues that Rosenzweig's redirection of German-Jewish ethical monotheism anticipates and challenges contemporary trends in religious studies, ethics, philosophy, anthropology, theology, and biblical studies.This text, which captures the hermeneutical movement of Rosenzweig's corpus, is the first to consider the full import of the cultural criticism articulated in his writings on the modern meanings of art, language, ethics, and national (...) identity. In the process, the book solves significant conundrums about Rosenzweig's relation to German idealism, to other major Jewish thinkers, to Jewish political life, and to Christianity, and brings Rosenzweig into conversation with key contemporary thinkers.Drawing on Rosenzweig's view that Judaism's ban on idolatry is the crucial intellectual and spiritual resource available to respond to the social implications of human finitude, Batnitzky interrogates idolatry as a modern possibility. Her analysis speaks not only to the question of Judaism's relationship to modernity, but also to the generic question of the present's relationship to the past--a subject of great importance to anyone contemplating the modern statuses of religious tradition, reason, science, and historical inquiry. By way of Rosenzweig, Batnitzky argues that contemporary philosophers and ethicists must relearn their approaches to religious traditions and texts to address today's central ethical problems. (shrink)

This article analyzes the question of how the size of bribes should impact criminal sanctions. In contrast to the commonly held view that punishment should increase with the size of the bribe, we argue to the contrary: that the punishment of the bribee should decrease with the size of the bribe. Our conclusion is based both on a philosophical argument and an economic argument. We argue that all else being equal, as an agent’s reservation price for selling public interests decreases, (...) the culpability of the agent willing to receive a bribe increases. In addition, from an economic perspective, the expected social harm of an official acting with a low reservation price for bribes is much greater than one acting with a high reservation price: both the susceptibility of being bribed as well as the potential for social harm is much greater when the reservation price is low. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the difficult task of balancing access to misinformation with respect for patient decision-making. Due to its innate antagonism, the paradigm of “physician paternalism” versus “patient autonomy” may not adequately capture the clinical relationship. The authors hypothesized that most patients would, in fact, prefer significant physician input as opposed to unopinionated information when making medical decisions. There is a lack of empirical data corroborating this in the United States. To that end, a survey was distributed to (...) 650 individuals through Amazon Mechanical Turk, of which 499 responses met pre-determined quality criteria. Most respondents believed their doctor's insight would be better than their own if injured or gravely ill. When asked to affirm preferences separately, a significantly higher proportion of respondents preferred guidance from their doctor when making medical decisions compared to being presented with unopinionated information ( p < 0.001). Encouragingly, 93.1% believed that the doctor's primary goal was their health. When asked directly to compare physician guidance to unopinionated information, 69.1% respondents stated they would prefer physician guidance. We found a consistent association between educational/economic background and affirmative responses ( p < 0.001), suggesting particular attention should be paid to patients that are disadvantaged with respect to these demographic factors. The belief in a shared goal, and a consistent preference for physician input, suggests that patients endorse a more collaborative view of the clinical dynamic than is suggested by the paternalism-autonomy paradigm. This pilot study suggests physicians should not be afraid to communicate conviction with regard to treatment decisions. (shrink)

Recently some arguments against Cartesian-style skepticism have been based on causal theories of content. I hope to show that the relevance of causal theories of content to what we can know is conditional in a more complex way than has been recognized so far.