This article marks a decisive step towards the recovery of the French woman writer, journalist, and aviation pioneer Louise Faure-Favier, who today is virtually forgotten. The article begins by sit...

Documentary film, in the words of Bill Nichols, is one of the "discourses of sobriety" that include science, economics, politics, and history-discourses that claim to describe the "real," to tell the truth. Yet documentary film, in more obvious ways than does history, straddles the categories of fact and fiction, art and document, entertainment and knowledge. And the visual languages with which it operates have quite different effects than does the written text. In the following interview conducted during the winter of (...) 1997, historian Ann-Louise Shapiro raises questions about genre-the relationship of form to content and meaning-with documentary filmmaker Jill Godmilow.In order to explore the possibilities and constraints of non-fiction film as a medium for representing history, Godmilow was asked: What are the strategies and techniques by which documentary films make meaning? In representing historical events, how does a non-fiction filmmaker think about accuracy? authenticity? invention? What are the criteria you have in mind when you call a film like The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl "dishonest"? How does the tension between making art and making history affect documentary filmmaking? Should documentary filmmakers think of themselves, in the phrase of Ken Burns, as "tribal storytellers"? What kind of historical consciousness is produced by documentary film? (shrink)

Documentary film, in the words of Bill Nichols, is one of the "discourses of sobriety" that include science, economics, politics, and history-discourses that claim to describe the "real," to tell the truth. Yet documentary film, in more obvious ways than does history, straddles the categories of fact and fiction, art and document, entertainment and knowledge. And the visual languages with which it operates have quite different effects than does the written text. In the following interview conducted during the winter of (...) 1997, historian Ann-Louise Shapiro raises questions about genre-the relationship of form to content and meaning-with documentary filmmaker Jill Godmilow.In order to explore the possibilities and constraints of non-fiction film as a medium for representing history, Godmilow was asked: What are the strategies and techniques by which documentary films make meaning? In representing historical events, how does a non-fiction filmmaker think about accuracy? authenticity? invention? What are the criteria you have in mind when you call a film like The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl "dishonest"? How does the tension between making art and making history affect documentary filmmaking? Should documentary filmmakers think of themselves, in the phrase of Ken Burns, as "tribal storytellers"? What kind of historical consciousness is produced by documentary film? (shrink)

Retrospective rule-making has few supporters and many opponents. Defenders of retrospective laws generally do so on the basis that they are a necessary evil in specific or limited circumstances, for example to close tax loopholes, to deal with terrorists or to prosecute fallen tyrants. Yet the reality of retrospective rule making is far more widespread than this, and ranges from ’corrective’ legislation to ’interpretive regulations’ to judicial decision making. The search for a rational justification for retrospective rule-making necessitates a reconsideration (...) of the very nature of the rule of law and the kind of law that can rule, and will provide new insights into the nature of law and the parameters of societal order. This book examines the various ways in which laws may be seen as retrospective and analyses the problems in defining retrospectivity. In his analysis Dr Charles Sampford asserts that the definitive argument against retrospective rule-making is the expectation of individuals that, if their actions today are considered by a future court, the applicable law was discoverable at the time the action was performed. The book goes on to suggest that although the strength of this ’rule of law’ argument should prevail in general, exceptions are sometimes necessary, and that there may even be occasions when analysis of the rule of law may provide the foundation for the application of retrospective laws. (shrink)

When a chimpanzee stockpiles rocks as weapons or when a frog sends out mating calls, we might easily assume these animals know their own motivations--that they use the same psychological mechanisms that we do. But as Beyond the Brain indicates, this is a dangerous assumption because animals have different evolutionary trajectories, ecological niches, and physical attributes. How do these differences influence animal thinking and behavior? Removing our human-centered spectacles, Louise Barrett investigates the mind and brain and offers an alternative (...) approach for understanding animal and human cognition. Drawing on examples from animal behavior, comparative psychology, robotics, artificial life, developmental psychology, and cognitive science, Barrett provides remarkable new insights into how animals and humans depend on their bodies and environment--not just their brains--to behave intelligently. Barrett begins with an overview of human cognitive adaptations and how these color our views of other species, brains, and minds. Considering when it is worth having a big brain--or indeed having a brain at all--she investigates exactly what brains are good at. Showing that the brain's evolutionary function guides action in the world, she looks at how physical structure contributes to cognitive processes, and she demonstrates how these processes employ materials and resources in specific environments. Arguing that thinking and behavior constitute a property of the whole organism, not just the brain, Beyond the Brain illustrates how the body, brain, and cognition are tied to the wider world. (shrink)

This book is a translation into English of La religion grecque by Louise Bruit Zaidman and Pauline Schmitt Pantel, described by Dr Simon Price as 'an excellent book, by far the best introduction to the subject in any language'. It is the purpose of the book to consider how religious beliefs and cultic rituals were given expression in the world of the Greek citizen - the functions performed by the religious personnel, and the place that religion occupied in individual, (...) social and political life. The chapters cover first ritual and then myth, rooting the account in the practices of the classical city while also taking seriously the world of the imagination. For this edition the bibliography has been substantially revised to meet the needs of a mainly student, English-speaking readership. The book is enriched throughout by illustrations, and by quotations from original sources. (shrink)

Many children and adults experience significant breakdown in the use of language. The resulting pragmatic disorders present a considerable barrier to effective communication. This book is the first critical examination of the current state of our knowledge of pragmatic disorders and provides a comprehensive overview of the main concepts and theories in pragmatics. It examines the full range of pragmatic disorders that occur in children and adults and discusses how they are assessed and treated by clinicians. Louise Cummings attempts (...) to integrate the fields of pragmatics, language pathology and cognitive science by examining the ways in which pragmatics can make a useful contribution to debates about cognitive theories of autism. The reader is encouraged to think in a critical fashion about how clinicians, experimentalists and theorists deal with pragmatic issues. (shrink)

Given his heralding of the "death of Man" or the "death of the subject", Michel Foucault's work is thought by many to be too fragmentary and anti-foundationalist to be much use for building any sort of ethical or political theory. Chris Falzon challenges this position, arguing that the proper alternative to foundationalism is not fragmentation but dialogue and that concept can be found in Foucault's work. Such a reading of Foucault allows us to see the ethical and political position (...) implicit his work, and how his work contributes to the larger debate concerning the death of Man. This book also presents a rethinking of the debates between Habermas and Foucault and shows how Foucault's work can be used to effectively challenge Habermas' position. Foucault and Social Dialogue provides a compelling reinterpretation of Foucault's legacy. (shrink)

Foucault and Social Dialogue; Beyond Fragmentation is a compelling yet extremely clear investigation of these options and offers a new way forward. Christopher Falzon argues that the proper alternative to foundationalism is not fragmentation but dialogue and that such a dialogical picture can be found in the work of Michel Foucault. Such a reading of Foucault allows us to see, for the first time, the ethical and political position implicit in Foucault's work and how his work contributes to the (...) larger debate concerning the death of man. (shrink)

Among semanticists and philosophers of language, there has been a recent outburst of interest in predicates such as delicious, called predicates of personal taste (PPTs, e.g. Lasersohn 2005). Somewhat surprisingly, the question of whether or how we can distinguish aesthetic predicates from PPTs has hardly been addressed at all in this recent work. It is precisely this question that we address. We investigate linguistic criteria that we argue can be used to delineate the class of specifically aesthetic adjectives. We show (...) that there are, in fact, good motivations for keeping PPTs and aesthetic predicates apart: the semantic structure of the former, but not the latter, entails an experiencer. There are many adjectives whose semantic structure arguably also entails an experiencer, yet which are readily used in expressing aesthetic judgments. Adjectives such as provocative or moving are a case in point, since as adjectives they arguably maintain the experiencer argument from the verb they are derived from. Nevertheless, when we describe, say, a sculpture as provocative, or a theater performance as moving, we clearly make aesthetic judgments. The difficult question, then, is to articulate the relationship between an aesthetic predicate (of which beautiful and ugly are paradigms) and other predicates that just happen to be used in making an aesthetic judgment. Tightly related to this point is the more general question of the relationship between an evaluative predicate and a predicate that occurs in an evaluative judgment. One of our aims is to make some progress in addressing these questions. (shrink)

It is natural to think that sight is distinctive amongst the senses in that we typically see ordinary objects directly, rather than seeing a visual equivalent to a sound or odour. It is also natural to think that sounds and odours (like rainbows and holograms) are sensibilia, in that they are each intimately related to just one of our senses. In this chapter, I defend these natural-seeming claims. I present a view on which odours are indeed sensibilia, a claim that (...) is in need of defence when confronted with the suggestion that they are clouds of molecules. Furthermore, I argue that odours and rainbows, whilst both sensibilia, differ in ways that reflect their different roles for perceivers. (shrink)

The former Bush administration in the United States was accused by some at the time of exhibiting a “Dirty Harry ethics.” The charge here is that the administration showed a willingness to depart from many standard ethical constraints in its response to terrorism, on the principle that the end, preventing further terrorist attacks, justified any means, including preventive war and torture. What this also suggests is that Don Siegel’s 1971 crime thriller Dirty Harry has become synonymous in the popular imagination (...) with the practice of a certain kind of brutal utilitarian logic, in which the ends justify any means, however shocking, as long as they contribute to the greater good.But whatever... (shrink)

This article looks at the 2014 Swedish comedy-drama Force Majeure as a kind of moral thought experiment, but also insofar as it might not fit such a model. The idea of a cinematic ethics, of cinema as providing an avenue for thinking through ethics and exploring ethical questions, finds at least one expression in the idea of film as experimental in this sense. At the same time, simply subsuming film to the philosophical thought experiment risks forgetting what film itself brings (...) to the proceedings; and how the cinematic medium might allow for an experimentation that goes beyond what can be done within the philosophical text. As experimental in a broad sense, Force Majeure evokes an experience, the extraordinary event beyond one's control, capable of putting a moral agent to the test, challenging one's sense of who one is and what one stands for. The film unfolds as a reflection on the results of this encounter with experience, and on the kind of moral self this experiment brings to light; and in the cours... (shrink)

In her latest book, Dr. Louise Kaplan, author of the groundbreaking Female Perversions, explores the fetishism strategy, a psychological defense that aims to tame, subdue, and if necessary, murder human vitalities. Through an exploration of such cultural phenomena as footbinding, reality television, and the construction of robots, Kaplan demonstrates how, in a technology-driven world, an understanding of the fetishism strategy can help to preserve the human dialogue that is the basis of all human relationships. Kaplan writes from the heart (...) as well as from the intellect. (shrink)

Now emulated in several competing publications, but still unsurpassed in clarity and insight, _Philosophy Goes to the Movies: An Introduction to Philosophy, Third Edition_ builds on the approach that made the two earlier editions so successful. Drawing on many popular and some lesser known films from around the world, Christopher Falzon introduces students to key areas in philosophy, like: • Ethics • Social and Political Philosophy • The Theory of Knowledge • The Self and Personal Identity • Critical Thinking (...) Perfect for beginners, this book guides the reader through philosophy using illuminating cinematic works, like Avatar, Inception, Fight Club, Wings of Desire, Run Lola Run, A Clockwork Orange, Blade Runner, Dirty Harry and many other films. The fully revised and updated Third Edition features: an expanded introduction that provides a new discussion of the relationship between film and philosophy; new material on notable philosophers such as Aristotle, Merleau-Ponty and Rawls; and coverage of new topics like virtue ethics and what Socrates offers for critical thinking. An updated glossary, references and bibliography, and a filmography, are also included in the Third Edition. (shrink)

Louise Keralio-Robert began publishing translations, novels, history, and a collection of women’s works in the decade prior to the French Revolution. She was a republican journalist during its initial stages and then, after a period of obscurity, returned to publishing translations and novels at the end of the first decade of the nineteenth century. This article offers an overview of the works produced during these three periods of her literary endeavour and defends her against the charge of having been (...) ‘une pionnière du républicanisme sexiste’. It argues that Keralio-Robert sees certain traditional feminine characteristics as valuable antidotes to pre- and post-revolutionary fanaticism and that she proposes that an ideally virtuous character will combine ‘masculine’ greatness of heart and firmness of spirit with ‘feminine’ sweetness, modesty, and charity. (shrink)

Works by one of the most important artists working in America today—photographs, collaborative projects, ephemeral objects, and trenchant and witty institutional critique. For the past two decades Louise Lawler has been taking photographs of art in situ, from small poignant black-and-white images of art in people's homes to large format glossy color pictures of art in museums and in auction houses. In addition she has produced a variety of objects—paperweights, etched drinking glasses, matchbooks, gallery announcements—all of which cleverly describe (...) how art comes to accrue value as it moves through various systems of exchange. Lawler's oeuvre was essential in creating an expanded field for photography, it was crucial in postmodern debates over theories of representation, it remains indelible within the field of institutional critique, and it has always been trenchant and witty in its sustained commitment to a feminist vision of art, art history, and contemporary art practice. But Lawler is also an old-fashioned "artist's artist," long overdue for the kind of serious reconsideration and recognition that this volume affords. The very self-effacing nature of Lawler's practice, however, her continual suspicion about notions of authorship—and her sly disregard for museological conventions—have meant that she has resisted precisely the usual mid-career retrospective. Twice Untitled and Other Pictures, published in conjunction with Lawler's first major museum exhibition in the United States, organized by the Wexner Center for the Arts, eats away at the standard museum practices of chronology, linear development, and the presentation of masterpieces, opting instead to explore such dynamic themes and undercurrents in Lawler's practice as her relationship to sculpture, her long history of collaborative projects, her production of such ephemera as napkins, matchbooks, and announcement cards, and the steady political dimension of her work—which culminated most recently in works that are deeply critical of the American invasion of Iraq. With essays by art historian and political theorist Rosalyn Deutsche and curators Ann Goldstein and Helen Molesworth, Twice Untitled and Other Pictures promises to be an essential volume for anyone interested in late twentieth- and early twenty-first- century art. (shrink)

This paper discusses the relationship between internationalisation, mobility, quality and equality in the context of recent developments in research policy in the European Research Area (ERA). Although these developments are specifically concerned with the growth of research capacity at European level, the issues raised have much broader relevance to those concerned with research policy and highly skilled mobility. The paper draws on a wealth of recent research examining the relationship between mobility and career progression with particular reference to a recently (...) completed empirical study of doctoral mobility in the social sciences (Ackers et al. Doctoral Mobility in the Social Sciences. Report to the NORFACE ERA-Network, 2007). The paper is structured as follows. The first section introduces recent policy developments including the European Charter for Researchers and Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers and the European Commission’s Green Paper on the ERA. The discussion focuses on concerns around the definition of ‘mobility’ and the tendency (in both policy circles and academic research) to conflate different forms of mobility and to equate these with notions of excellence or quality. Scientific mobility is shaped as much by ‘push’ factors (limited opportunity) as it is by the ‘draw’ of excellence. Scientists are exercising a degree of ‘choice’ within a specific and individualised framework of constraints. The following sections consider some of the ‘professional’ and ‘personal’ factors shaping scientific mobility and the influence that these have on the relationship between mobility, internationalisation and excellence. The paper concludes that mobility is not an outcome in its own right and must not be treated as such (as an implicit indicator of internationalisation). To do so contributes to differential opportunity in scientific labour markets reducing both efficiency and equality. (shrink)

The topics discussed in this book are important to South Africans as they search for a new identity in a so-called secular community. A useful reader for academics and lay-people alike, this study empowers one to make up one's own mind with regard to ethical issues and related Biblical guidelines.

Philosophy goes to the Movies is a new kind of introduction to philosophy that makes use of movies including The Matrix , Antz , Total Recall and Cinema Paradiso , to explore philosophical ideas. Topics covered include: *the theory of knowledge *the self and personal Identity *moral philosophy *social and political philosophy *philosophy of science and technology *critical thinking. Ideal for the beginner, this book guides the student through philosophy using lively and illuminating cinematic examples. It will also appeal to (...) anyone interested in the philosophical dimensions of cinema. (shrink)

L'environnement numérique oblige à revoir les modèles sur lesquels se fondent les sciences de l'information et de la communication. La pensée du signe, du message et du document doit en effet évoluer vers une pensée de la traçabilité. Indicielle et détachable, automatique et malléable, la trace est un objet paradoxal, qui atteste le caractère indissociablement technique et politique de la présence numérique. Dans le règne de l'information sur mesure, la personnalisation nous rend plus actifs, tout en nous exposant au profilage. (...) Elle va jusqu'à redéfinir l'identité comme une collection de traces que nous devons apprendre à protéger, mais aussi à administrer. Cette nouvelle économie des empreintes enchevêtre les hiérarchies entre stock et flux comme entre contenu et relation. Recyclant nous-mêmes les traces que d'autres ont déposées, c'est désormais dans l'ombre numérique de la cité que nous sommes appelés à naviguer. Au-delà de la défense de la vie privée, il en va donc aussi de la mémoire et de l'oubli qui nous relient. (shrink)