Les séminaires se déroulent, sauf indication contraire, en salle 830 (8e étage, Olympe de Gouges), Université de Paris, Place Paul Ricoeur, 75013 Paris.
- Lundi 4 novembre – 17-19: Seloua Luste Boulbina (directrice de programme au Collège International de Philosophie). En collaboration avec la traverse « Savoirs Périphériques ». Decolonial Knowledges: Texts and Contexts.
C’est à partir d’une réflexion sur l’idée même de colonie, et de sa subjectivation par ceux-là et celles-là mêmes qui vivaient sous l’oppression coloniale que j’ai commencé à à me demander comment penser la décolonisation. Sur un mode historique, le terrain est largement déblayé. Sur le plan philosophique, c’est tout autre chose. D’autant qu’il faut tenir compte des différences d’espace. On sait que l’école postcoloniale est fondée sur l’expérience indienne, que les penseurs décoloniaux se sont basés sur la situation en Amérique latine. Leurs enseignements sont intéressants. Reste que l’état de l’Afrique est singulier et qu’il s’agit de concevoir ce qui s’y passe de la façon la plus appropriée. C’est à l’intérieur de ce cadre, postcolonial au sens strict, et non post-impérial, que je présenterai la façon dont je conçois la décolonisation et ses obstacles.
- Lundi 18 novembre, 17-19: Laura Mulvey. En collaboration avec l’axe Genre et l’axe Frontières du Littéraire.
The seminar will draw on material from a few films directed by women, produced within very divergent social and cultural contexts, but all revolving around the figure of the mother. These films have given me new ways of thinking about a topic that has always been close to me, dating back to my early interest in Hollywood melodrama and to Riddles of the Sphinx (Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen 1977); I will return to that period at the beginning of the seminar. The films I then discuss, rather than simply sites of story-telling or accounts of women’s lives (however effective they may be as such), break away from a neutral lens and narrative transparency; experimenting with time and space, they reconfigure the idea of the maternal conceptually and from a feminist perspective. Ultimately, the films address the ‘ineffable’ and the ‘unspeakable’ through the material of film itself, exploiting its potential as a visual and conceptual medium that can challenge patriarchal representations. And these formal challenges are indissolubly linked to issues of women’s cultural silence.
- Dans le cadre du séminaire franco-britannique: Jeudi 28 novembre, 28 rue Serpente, Paris (6e), salle D421 – Dr. Jackie Uí Chionna (National University of Ireland, Galway), “Family Networks in the Revolutionary Generation: The Ryans of Tomcoole, A Case Study”.
‘The story of the Ryan girls is a fabulous family saga about a group of young women who were liberated by education and their own affirmative personalities in the early years of the 20th century…The standard biographies of Irish lives often ignore spouses and family connections, but these women were clearly influential on that revolutionary generation around them.’ (Belfast Newsletter, 7 October 2014. Mary Kenny). Mary Kate (Kit), Josephine Mary (Min), Christina and Phyllis Ryan were sisters, and part of a close family circle, the Ryans, fromToomcoole, Co. Wexford, Ireland. Brought up in a strongly nationalist family, all of the sisters progressed to university, and their education, relationships and social circles placed them at the very heart of the revolutionary movement in the period 1912-1922. Three of the sisters were in relationships with leading figures in the 1916 Rising – Phyllis and Min themselves served as messengers during the Rising. But they were also bright young women, who studied abroad, and whilst studying in London and Paris, they communicated with each other by way of a writing book or jotter, which was then circulated from one sister to another. They also wrote copious amounts of letters to each other, comparing notes on everything from political movements to their latest boyfriends and social lives. This lecture will examine the correspondence of the Ryan sisters as a case study in the significance of family networks for the revolutionary generation in British and Irish history.
- Lundi 9 décembre – 17-19 : Ariane Mak (Université de Paris) – « Enquêter en temps de guerre. De la crainte de l’espion à la controverse ‘Cooper’s Snoopers’ »
Comment enquêter en temps de guerre quand la figure de l’espion hante les esprits ? L’intervention se penche sur un point aveugle de l’histoire du Mass-Observation (1937-1949) – à savoir la manière dont cette organisation britannique de sciences sociales a dû faire face à une suspicion généralisée durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Celle-ci s’exprime en premier lieu dans l’enquête de terrain, alors que les enquêteurs du Mass-Observation, soupçonnés d’espionnage, se voient pris en filature par une population aux aguets, voire emmenés au poste. Cette méfiance se dit à un autre niveau dans la controverse médiatico-politique des « Cooper’s Snoopers » qui éclate autour de l’usage d’enquêtes scientifiques – et de l’enquête d’opinion en particulier – par l’État. Entre suspicion de surveillance politique et moqueries face à la prétendue scientificité des méthodes employées, le scandale s’étale dans la presse avant de s’inviter dans les débats de la Chambre des Communes. Ce faisant, l’intervention interroge les rapports entre science et politique, et éclaire la figure ambivalente du scientifique et de l’enquêteur de terrain dans le Royaume-Uni des années 1940.
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Lundi 3 février – présentation de leurs travaux de thèse par Nicolas Garnier (1) et Ali Hatapçı (2).
(1) Le travail des femmes missionnaires britanniques en Chine de 1865 à 1914 : maternalisme impérial ou alliance féministe ?
Cette présentation étudiera les rapports hiérarchiques qui existèrent entre femmes missionnaires britanniques et femmes chinoises converties au Christianisme ou non sur la période 1865-1914. Les femmes missionnaires britanniques dénoncèrent ce qu’elles qualifièrent de pratiques néfastes à l’égard de leurs consœurs chinoises, particulièrement la pratique des pieds bandés, l’infanticide frappant les petites filles et la vente de femmes et d’enfants à des réseaux de prostitution afin de financer une addiction à l’opium. De plus, les femmes missionnaires de plusieurs missions britanniques soulignèrent l’isolement dont soufrèrent les femmes chinoises. Cette présentation comparera ces considérations genrées afin de comprendre de quelle manière les femmes missionnaires ont pu évaluer leurs positions à la lumière des souffrances de leurs consœurs. Se sentaient-elles privilégier de pouvoir évoluer en public dans un territoire étranger ? Ont-elles remis en cause leurs conditions de vie en métropole en assimilant cette subordination à celle dont souffrait leurs concitoyennes ? Ont-elles profité d’une position de supériorité due à leurs origines géographiques et sociales ? Afin de répondre à ces questions, une attention particulière sera portée sur le rôle des ‘Biblewomen’ : ces femmes chinoises chrétiennes qui accompagnèrent les femmes missionnaires, leur servant principalement d’interprètes, et qui travaillèrent également en autonomie, parvenant même à trouver leurs propres financements.(2) Geographies and Communities of Science: Natural History in the VictorianMidlands:
How did the practice of science in nineteenth-century provincial England relate to geography? Due to its considerable popularity in Victorian Britain, the history of natural history provides an apt point of access to such a question. The majority of the votaries of this ‘popular’ science—in the sense that it was accessible to many, both to participate in knowledge creation and to appreciate—were provincials who formed societies and clubs dedicated to ‘working out’ the natural history of their vicinities. Motivated to emulate other towns and to make their contribution to science, societies and clubs established museums and published the outcome of their fieldwork. While the subject of their inquiry was adamantly local (natural history), county being the limit, some provincial natural history societies and periodicals made attempts to ‘imagine’ larger communities of naturalists beyond their towns or counties. One such example was the Midland Naturalist, a monthly magazine published by the Midland Union of Natural History Societies between 1877 and 1893. This magazine aimed at creating a regional community of naturalists in the central counties of England. Another example was the Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club in Hereford, on whose agenda from 1867 onwards popularisation of mycology in Britain became prominent, and Hereford remained the centre of mycological research for two decades in Britain. By looking at the Midland Naturalist and the Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club, I will discuss the communities that they imagined.
- Lundi 10 février – 17-19 : Thibault Clément (Paris 4 – délégation LARCA 2018-19) – Malls et planification urbaine à Los Angeles : les centres commerciaux, prototypes d’un nouveau partenariat public-privé
Cette présentation se penchera sur les centres commerciaux au prisme des politiques urbaines du Los Angeles d’après-guerre: fidèles en cela à une certaine tradition américaine, les municipalités locales trouveront dans les malls l’occasion de déléguer les missions de planification à des acteurs privés (promoteurs, chambres de commerce, …), lesquels hisseront bientôt les enclaves autocentrées des centres commerciaux au rang de prototype pour des master planned communities entières. Censés témoigner de la supériorité du secteur privé, ces développements s’appuient en vérité grandement sur les ressources et compétences du secteur public, mettant au jour les termes ambigus d’un exemple inédit de coopération public-privé.
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Lundi 2 mars – 17-19 : Joy Damousi (Professor of History, School of History and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne– Professeure invitée au LARCA, février-mars 2020) : ‘Cecilia John and Florence Grylls: Shifting meanings of humanitarianism in Save the Children Fund, 1919-1960’Through a biographical framework, this paper considers the shifting meanings of the humanitarianism of Save the Children Fund (SCF) during the twentieth century. It does so by focusing on a branch of the SCF outside of its centre in Britain to chart the changing relationship of international branches to the imperial project of the SCF. The Australian branch of the SCF began in 1919 through the efforts of the feminist, internationalist, and pacifist, Ceclia John (1877-1955). Persuaded by the sentimental images of impoverished children, John saw Australia’s place firmly within the British Empire despite her earlier anti-empire sentiments. The war nurse Florence Grylls (1888-1962) led the Australian SCF from 1937 and transformed it from one which exclusively served its imperial forebears to one which began to shape an identity of its own by confronting national issues relating to children. By mid-century, the meaning of humanitarianism in the Australian SCF included Aboriginal children and child refugees from Europe. By focusing on biographical studies of John and Grylls, I develop three arguments.
First, the fundraising campaigns for Armenian, Russian and Greek children formed the core work of the Australian SCF in the inter-war years. The focus on national communities in post-1945 gave the Australian organisation a degree of independence, but only to a point. This paper argues that despite these shifts during the post-war period the SCF did not entirely shake its imperial beginnings. Instead, these found new expression through the promotion of assimilationist programmes which promoted white Britishness.
Second, a study of John and Grylls captures a generation whose connection to humanitarianism was formed during the First World War. They were born a decade apart, but they were both active in the war. A biographical perspective points to how this legacy endured long after the first decade after the war. It also suggests the SCF’s message was not static or fixed, but as an enterprising organisation it ensured it remained relevant, dynamic and contemporary.
Finally, this paper responds to the recent call for lesser known activists to be more fully studied in order to consider humanitarianism in action, develop a more nuanced understanding of humanitarians themselves and the remarkable adaptability of humanitarianism over time.
- Lundi 9 mars – 17-19 : Sébastien Mort (Université de Lorraine – délégation LARCA 2018-19) : Bullying the News Media : Authoritarianism, Political Intimidation, and Journalistic Practice in the Trump Era
Starting from the premise that Donald Trump follows an authoritarian style of rule, this talk addresses the strategies that he and his allies have unfurled to intimidate the news media. It proposes that journalism’s difficulty to effectively respond to Trump’s intimidation can be accounted for by both the vulnerabilities of the US news media system in the postbroadcast media regime and the profession’s failure to update professional practices and conventions.
- Dans le cadre du séminaire franco-britannique – Jeudi 26 mars – 28 rue Serpente, Paris (6e), salle D421: Ben Griffin (Girton College, Cambridge), “The gender order and the judicial imagination: masculinity, liberalism and governmentality in modern Britain”
In this paper I will explore the strange absence of the judiciary from the literature on modern British politics, and ask how we ought to write the history of the law. I propose that a fruitful line of inquiry is to write not a history of legal doctrines, but a history of judicial mentalities. I will illustrate this by looking at the role of the judiciary in sustaining sexual inequality in modern Britain. The argument is that the nineteenth-century gender order was continually unsettled by changing ideas about the nature of law, the transformation of the juridical state, and shifting ideas about fatherhood, childhood and femininity. That meant that judges had to perform considerable intellectual work to reconstruct familiar inequalities on new foundations. Given the peculiarities of the common law system, sustaining inequalities required judges actively to manipulate a body of case law in order to produce a coherent doctrine. For this reason we should not see the law as a stable patriarchal monolith but as a gendered system that was continuously being reconstructed at the point of use by actors with considerable freedom of manoeuvre. Seen from this perspective, the inequalities confronting the Victorian women’s movement were not timeless prejudices or ancient laws, but modes of discrimination recently reconstructed by a male judicial elite on whom historical judgement has been suspended for too long. - Séminaire autour de Alison Light pour son nouvel ouvrage ‘A Radical Romance : A Memoir of Love, Grief and Consolation’ (2019).
Salle 830 – Olympe De Gouges – Lundi 20 avril – 17h – 19h.
La discutante sera Ariane Mak.