LES BELLES LETTRES Catalog 2011
Foreign Rights
LES BELLES LETTRES www.lesbelleslettres.com 95 boulevard Raspail - 75006 Paris - France Droits étrangers - Foreign Rights Marie-Pierre Ciric Téléphone 33 (0)1 43 54 47 57 E-mail : mpciric@lesbelleslettres.com Catalog translated by Carol MACOMBER macuse@ix.netcom.com Tel./Fax: (717) 355-2472
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FOREIGN RIGHTS DROITS DISPONIBLES AVAILABLE RIGHTS List in French and English Table des Matières Contents
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Histoire
- Pierre MARSONNE, La Steppe et l’Empire. La formation de la dynastie Khitan (Liao) IVe - Xe siècles - Christine FAURÉ, Ce que déclarer des droits veut dire : histoires - Anissa EL MATERI HACHED, Mahmoud El Materi, pionnier de la Tunisie moderne - Romain GRAZIANI, Les corps dans le taoïsme ancien - Salvatore D’ONOFRIO, Le sauvage et son double - Jean-Noël ROBERT, Les Romains et la mode - Tamara KONDRATIEVA, Les Soviétiques, un pouvoir, des régimes - Suzanne TEILLET, Des Goths à la nation gothique. Les origines de l’idée de nation en Occident du Ve au VIIe siècle
12 Essai
- Jean-Paul BOURRE, Ca’Dario. La malédiction d’un palais vénitien - Dany LÉVÈQUE, Angelin Preljocaj, de la création à la mémoire de la danse - Érick LAURENT, Les Chrysanthèmes roses. Homosexualités masculines dans le Japon contemporain - Bernard FAURE, L’imaginaire du Zen. L’univers mental d’un moine japonais
16 Biographie
- Lucien d’AZAY, Trois excentriques anglais - Catherine DELONS, L’idée si douce d’une mère. Caroline Aupick et Charles Baudelaire - Philippe ARTIÈRES, La vie écrite. Thérèse de Lisieux - Alain LAURENT, Ayn Rand ou la passion de l’égoïsme rationnel. Une biographie intellectuelle.
20 Médecine
- Philippe AMIEL, Des cobayes et des hommes. Expérimentation sur l’être humain et justice - Sophie CHAUVEAU, L’affaire du sang contaminé (1983-2003)
22 Figures du savoir
- Ronald BONAN, Merleau-Ponty
24 L’exception
- Serge REZVANI, La Traversée des Monts Noirs
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Histoire
La Steppe et l’Empire. La formation de la dynastie Khitan (Liao) IVe - Xe siècles The Steppe and the Empire: Emergence of the Khitan (Liao) Dynasty – Fourth through Tenth Centuries La Steppe et l’Empire allows readers to explore, through more than five centuries, the at times conflictual and at times harmonious relations between a nomadic people and its Chinese neighbour, and to gradually grasp the subtle borderline between a “civilised” world and its “barbarians.” This epic journey leads us up to the creation of the “Great Central Empire of the Khitan.” Although favourable historic circumstances may have contributed to its emergence, it was not the product of a historic coincidence but rather of the political genius of one man: Yelü Abaoji . Heir to a distinguished line of very powerful prime ministers of some sort of pre-Khitan empire, Abaoji believed that he was entrusted with a divine mission and, in a few short years, managed not only to unify his people, the neighbouring tribes and the Chinese populations, but also to found – in heaven’s name – a nation which for many years was on intimate terms with the Middle Kingdom.
The Steppe and the Empire: Emergence of the Khitan (Liao) Dynasty – Fourth through Tenth Centuries
2011 336 pages
After spending eight years helping to revise the 16,000 characters of the Grand Ricci Dictionary of the Chinese Language (published in Taipei in 1999 and in Paris by Desclée de Brouwer in 2001), Pierre Marsone received his agrégation in Chinese in 1999. Having successfully defended his doctoral thesis on the founding of the Quanzhen Taoist School, at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, he has been working since 2002 as a senior lecturer in the latter’s Historical and Philological Sciences section.
Histoire
Ce que déclarer des droits veut dire. Histoires The Significance of Declaring Human Rights: Historical Overview Human rights have been passed on to us in the form of Declarations. Despite the immense popularity of this topic, no history of such Declarations had ever been compiled. Formulated under a wide variety of circumstances, on the occasion of key political events (struggles for independence, revolutions and wars), these Declarations of Human Rights were each the outcome of unusual situations. They were the product of the collective experiences which not only encompassed the formation of nation-states, but which also inspired the many legal forms of supranational systems established in the 20th century. Declarations of Human Rights are not author-created texts, and their attributions are often disclosed after considerable delay. Drawing from reliable historical references, Christine Fauré provides an insightful response to the question: “Who drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948?” which is directly in keeping with the political context of that era. This work was awarded the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences’ Henri Texier I Prize.
A state-of-knowledge overview of the various human rights declarations, re-examined in their specific contexts
2011 544 pages
Sociologist Christine Fauré has been a Director of Research at the CNRS and a member of the Observatoire de la Parité entre les Femmes et les Hommes since 2002.
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Histoire
Mahmoud El Materi, Pionnier de la Tunisie moderne Mahmoud El Materi: A Pioneer of Modern Tunisia After lengthy and painstaking research conducted in familial and national archives, Anissa El Materi Hached paints an intimate and detailed portrait of one of modern Tunisia’s pioneers – the renowned leader in Tunisia’s fight for independence and the first President of the Neo-Destour Party, Dr. Mahmoud El Materi. As a military man and politically engaged individual destined from his early years to a career in medicine, Mahmoud El Materi played a role in the lives of all those close to him that was no less imposing than the one which he would play in 20th-century Tunisian history. His daughter’s testimony, through “snapshot” comments about a family life often disrupted by the demands of politics suddenly brings us much closer to this man than to the one we see simultaneously caught up in his larger destiny. Whether discussing Tunis after the Liberation, the reform undertaken by the initiators of the fight for independence, the obstacles which they immediately had to confront, or the circumstances surrounding the disagreements with Bourguiba and his decision not to withdraw from politics, the inescapable clarifications which this book provides are required reading for anyone wishing to understand a special era and its protagonists.
A first-rate historic document
2011 320 pages
Anissa Materi Hached graduated from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. She founded, and is now the administrator of, a professional training school in the nursing sciences, Institut Mahmoud El Materi, which is the first school of this sort created in Tunisia.
Histoire
Le corps dans le taoisme ancien The Body in Ancient Taoism Ancient Taoist texts do not abstractly expound on the human body. They broach its possible uses and inner workings in the form of fictions and fables, short stories and dialogues. If archer Lie Tseu’s feats are reduced to nothing by Count Obscure, who teaches him “the non-archer’s way of shooting” and leads him to walk upon the edge of the abyss, it is because the author of this story has conceived a use of self whose aim is to undermine the moralistic image of the body produced by a combination of ritual education and war-time discipline. Written during the Warring States period (5th to 3rd centuries BC), the first Taoist texts, the Zhuangzi and the Liezi, feature the most revered and most detested figures of ancient Chinese society. Within these pages, readers will meet, among others, a former convict who suffered amputation for his crimes, a malicious hermit, a crafty and plotting prime minister and the sullen and concupiscent Lord of Wei. How does the Taoist ethos manage to dwell on the wise while dispensing with moral concepts and conceiving of wisdom as a power system by linking it with the full spectrum of space, the work of imagination, and heavenly deeds? By means of a superficial paradox, as these are only the disabled bodies, shapeless creatures, and hideous and loathsome beings who enjoy a fundamental affinity with Tao, the Principle governing the course of beings and of things. Strange yet enlightening to Western readers, the Taoist authors’ concept of the body involves the prospect of sustainable internalisation of the breath of life, in contrast to the Olympic ideal – a concept brilliantly clarified in this book.
A study of Taoist authors’ thoughts on the body and the vital force
2011 360 pages
A professor in Chinese studies at École normale supérieure of Lyon since 2009, and editorin-chief of the magazine Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident, Romain Graziani has notably published Fictions philosophiques du Tchouang-tseu (Gallimard, 2006), Amor Fati (poetry, José Corti, 1997), Mues indigènes (poetry, Fata Morgana, 2002), L’homme qui voulait naître moi (Fata Morgana, 2004), and Legs du bègue (a story, Bibliothèque du Lion, 2005).
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Histoire
Le Sauvage et son double The Savage and his Double Le Sauvage et son Double is a comparative study of some “doubles” who are well-known figures in Western mythical literature. From the Poem of Gilgamesh to The Odyssey, and from the Bible to the Song of Roland, countless texts relate the dramatic history of two friends, two twins or two brothers, one of whom (often characterised as a savage) must die a violent death or suffer permanent injuries so that the other can found a civilisation. The introduction combines these texts under the title of “Mythical Literature,” noting the methods used and subjects discussed. The book’s five chapters respectively examine the pairs 1) Gilgamesh and Enkidu; 2) Ulysses and Polyphemus, who are compared mainly with their Mesopotamian counterparts; 3) Jean-Baptiste and Jesus, preceded by a study of a few “doubles” who are Old Testament figures: from Cain and Able to Jacob and Esau; 4) Renart and Ysengrin, whose contrasting characters are studied within the context of the incestuous relationship of the fox and the she-wolf Hersent; and 5) Roland and his doubles, particularly that of his uncle-father Charlemagne. Reading this book may remind us of the extent to which our deep-rooted attitudes towards others resemble those of the eternal “savage” dwelling within us.
From Polyphemus and Ulysses to Jean-Baptiste and Jesus, and from Ysengrin and Renard to Charlemagne and Roland, this book explores some “doubles” who are well-known figures in Western mythical literature
2011 280 pages
Salvatore D’Onofrio, who earned his degree in anthropology and ethnology from the EHESS, is now teaching at the University of Palermo and is a member of the Collège de France’s Laboratoire d’anthropologie sociale. He has already published L’Esprit de la parenté. Europe et horizon chrétien (prefaced by F. Héritier, Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme and Une pensée en mouvement (Odile Jacob, 2009), edited by Françoise Héritier.
Histoire
Les Romains et la mode Romans and fashion Like all Romans, Scipio the Elder sported a beard. One day in Sicily, in deference to Greek customs, he decided to shave it off. Almost immediately, every young and modern-minded man in Rome followed his example, thus launching the new “smooth-faced” fad. Babylonian carpets were highly popular in Cato’s time –they would sell for 800,000 sesterces apiece when a chicken would only cost 2 sesterces at the market. Roscius was a charming and talented slave, so his master decided to make him a star in the theatre. In a few years, he became the darling of Rome, and he is still remembered as one of the star System’s greatest names. As shown by these few examples, in Rome, fashion influenced daily living habits – clothing, food, the home environment – as much as it did Roman art and literature, in which the notion of imitation played a key role. Since then, Rome has remained the arbiter of elegance by becoming a benchmark model of European culture and taste.
Fashionistas and the “star system” in ancient Rome
2011 432 pages
Latinist and historian Jean-Noël Robert (has already published several works on the history of human behaviour with Les Belles Lettres (including Les Plaisirs à Rome, Les Modes à Rome, etc.) and contributed to several television documentaries. He is also the Director of Les Belles Lettres «Realia» and «Guide Belles Lettres des Civilisations» collections.
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Histoire
Les Soviétiques, un pouvoir, des régimes The Soviets : One power, multiple regimes In the Soviet Union, the population’s lifestyle and the way they organised their work in the kolkhozes, closed cities, the “creator unions,” and the military-industrial complex factories were regulated by multiple special regimes. In this book, Russian and French historians explore this particular reality which is relatively unknown and in the process show how multifaceted the Soviet regime was. Considered to be totalitarian under Stalin, and authoritarian after his death, this regime sheds its all-encompassing nature as the reader learns about the closed worlds inhabited by various categories of the USSR’s population. Beyond the administrative, national, social and professional divisions somewhat familiar to us today, the authors describe the population through the ways in which it reacted to the specific rules imposed on it by the diverse regimes in power at the time. They reveal that the Soviets are not truly a single and uniform people but are comprised of distinct unique groups whose peoples can be individually identified. Contrary to what is commonly thought to have been a leadership-imposed consensus, this book shows that a gap between personal strategies and the collective norm suddenly widened in the 1970s. This imbalance developed in reaction to a cultural organisation which was mixing ideological dogma acquired after 1917 with secular government methods. The aim of this work is to enable readers to discover the diversity of the Soviet peoples’ experiences, which depended upon the category to which they belonged. In the Soviet Union, the Party line was dominant, but it was also considerably more multifaceted than suggested by the commonly accepted impression of the country, unchanged since the Cold War.
Russian historians examine the Soviet period
January 2011 432 pages
Tamara Kondratieva is a professor of contemporary history at Université de Valenciennes and a lecturer at the EHESS. She is the author of Bolcheviks et Jacobins (1989), La Russie ancienne (1998) and of Le Paroxysme du régime soviétique (2008). Her book Gouverner et nourrir (2002) was published by Les Belles Lettres.
Histoire
Des Goths à la nation gothique. Les origines de l’idée de Nation en Occident du Ve au VIIe siècle From Goths to a gothic nation : Origins of the concept of nation in the 5th to 7th centuries of the Western world What can we learn from the history of the Goths, as presented in the Latin texts of Late Antiquity? First, that its history is inseparable from that of the Western world’s Roman Empire, even though it plays an essential role in this era’s literature. It is actually the Western history of the three centuries separating the barbarian horde’s flight before the Huns (376 A.D.) and the coronation of Wamba, the first Visigoth king (672 to 680) to be anointed in Toledo. Suzanne Teillet explores both the Romans’ political conception of the Barbarians and the role played by the Goths, whose territory was evolving from the status of a “confederation” to that of a “nation.” As a corollary, the author compares the notion of “empire” to that of “nation” in this expansive and fascinating work in which countless literary documents are examined. Readers witness the birth of the Europe of Nations, from the crossing of the Danube by the Goths to the Fall of the Roman Empire, from Constantinople to Toledo, and the Moor invasions through the writings of Orosio, Salvian, Sidonius Apollinaris, Hydatius, Marcellin, Corippus, Eugippius, Ennodius, Cassiodorus, Jordanes, Gregory the Great, Gregory of Tours, John of Biclaro, Aurelius Victor, Isidorus of Sevilla and Julian of Toledo.
A master work about the ancient origins of European nations
2011 700 pages
Suzanne Teillet was a professor at Université Sorbonne Paris IV.
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Essais
Ca’Dario. La malédiction d’un palais vénitien Ca’Dario: A Venetian Palace’s Curse If Ca’Dario’s walls could speak, they would scream. Behind the candy-coloured façade of the palace young Marietta Barbaro is walled up, having wasted away in despair; historian Rawdon Brown killed himself while gazing at his paintings; Kit Lambert, The Who’s manager, was destroyed by parties and drugs, etc. The list of the owners of this little palace leaning over the Grand Canal who experienced a tragic death is a long and bloody one. It might have ended with Woody Allen, had he not decided at the last minute not to purchase it. A great admirer of Venice, Jean-Paul Bourre exhumed the Serenissima’s libraries to relate, in the form of a police inquiry, this fantasy story about this cursed 15th-century building erected over an ossuary whose motto – engraved on the frontispiece marble – reads: “He who shall inhabit this place will go to wrack and ruin.”
The mythical and macabre story of a Venetian palace
2011 128 pages
As a writer of novels, investigative and news reports, and autobiographical accounts, JeanPaul Bourre was chief editor of the magazine L’Autre monde (1978-1980). His best-known published works include Villiers de L’Isle-Adam (2002) and Guerrier du Rêve (Les Belles Lettres, 2003), Gérard de Nerval (Bartillat) and Préceptes de vie issus de la sagesse amérindienne (Seuil “Points Sagesses” collection).
Essais
Angelin Preljocaj, de la création à la mémoire de la danse Angelin Preljocaj : Dance, from Creation to Memory How is dance notated? Unlike classical dance, which has been using the same names to designate the various steps since Louis XIV’s era (“sissonne,” “saut-de-chat,” “fouetté,” etc.), contemporary dance has no such dedicated glossary. Each creator has his own terminology, images, metaphors, and uses his or her own body to communicate to the dancers positions which are so precise that even a glance can be significant. The choreographic work is conveyed from master to pupil, sometimes to the detriment of its integrity. Although dancers typically memorise choreographies, sometimes resorting to video recordings, some companies call upon a choreologist to transcribe each movement onto a score by means of a notation system whose guidelines were laid down by Rudolf Benesh (1916-1975). This is the work which Dany Lévêque has been doing for Angelin Preljocaj for nearly twenty years. After offering readers a concise history of the use of various dance and movement notations, Dany Lévêque introduces the Benesh system, as well as its applications in today’s dance world and in dance instruction. She relates how this form of movement notation is applied daily in the Ballet Preljocaj, from the first day of studio work until a choreography is finalised. In fact, the score becomes essential during the restaging of choreographies in the troop’s repertoire, or in that of other companies. Readers will thus also learn how responsive the method is and how it enables the notator to keep track of the scenic aspects of a production by allowing the music, staging and even – where applicable – the text and the choreography, to be transcribed. Moreover, this journey behind the scenes of dance creation reveals some of the research methods of this choreographer, who resides in Aix-en-Provence. The book provides invaluable and purely technical advice on both her dance technique and on the interpretation of some of her choreographies.
Through Dany Lévêque’s experience of working with Angelin Preljocaj, readers gain insight into the profession of choreologist – the dance scribe
2011 192 pages
Dany Lévêque, a choreologist and Angelin Preljocaj’s assistant since 1992, has transposed more than thirty choreographies and restaged countless performances at the Centre Chorégraphique National of Aix-en-Provence, as well as for other dance companies.
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Essais
Les chrysanthèmes roses. Homosexualités masculines dans le Japon contemporain Pink Chrysanthemums : Male Homosexuality in Contemporary Japan This book offers readers the first anthropological analysis in French of male homosexuality in contemporary Japan. Although Japan has inspired a plethora of essentialist discourses by nonexperts, there are few reference works in French on contemporary Japan, and none concerning sexuality (let alone sexual minorities and the anthropology of sexuality). As the product of original research combining personal experience, documentation derived from archives and participating observations (with numerous testimonies from gay Japanese men), this book is also intended to be an alternative to Western gay and lesbian activism and a critical inquiry into the imposition of a single activism model, as well as into the universality of fundamental human rights.
The only work on what is a taboo subject in contemporary Japan
2011 320 pages
Érick Laurent, who was born in 1960, holds a PhD in cultural anthropology and zoology. He has been living for more than twenty years in Japan, where he teaches anthropology, gender studies and gay and lesbian studies. His current field research focuses upon the forms of masculinity in Okinawa, examines the relations between metropolitan Japan and the meridional archipelago of Ryuku, the power relations which exist in the country and between the genders, the history of colonisation in Japan, and, in broader terms, gender relations within the Japanese culture. He has already published a Lexique des mushi (Collège de France, 2002).
Essais
L’Imaginaire du Zen. L’univers mental d’un moine japonais Zen and the imaginary : The mindset of a Japanese monk The history of Zen Buddhism is still somewhat of a mystery, inasmuch as people too often remain attached to the idea of a pure, iconoclastic and anti-ritualist form of Zen. In actuality, these matters are infinitely more complicated than that, as exemplified by Keizan Jokin (1278 to 1325), one of the patriarchs of Japanese Zen. Keizan lived in a world both pragmatic and magical, with fabulous beings and local divinities, and fashioned by cosmic forces. This is the universe which the author strives to depict while highlighting its symbiotic and antagonistic relationship with Zen’s purified ideology. His approach, which involves as much “historic anthropology” as it does the history of religions, challenges the conventional interpretations of Zen, Buddhism and Japanese religion, thereby making an important contribution to a true understanding of these beliefs.
A history of mindsets, using the Dream Journal of an early 14thcentury Japanese Zen Master, Keizan Jokin, as its point of departure
January 2011 240 pages
Bernard Faure is teaching the history of religion at (NYC). He formerly taught at Stanford (California). His publications in French and English include: La Volonté d’orthodoxie dans le bouddhisme chinois (CNRS Éditions , 1988); The Rhetoric of Immediacy (Princeton, 1991); Chan Insights and Oversights (Princeton, 1993) ; The Power of Denial: Buddhisme, Purity and Gender (Princeton, 2003) and Bouddhisme et Violence (Le Cavalier Bleu, 2009).
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Biographie
Trois excentriques anglais Three Eccentric Englishmen This biographical triptych was conceived as a whole, like an altarpiece. Each of the three allegorical portraits illustrates one aesthetic and moral aspect of England by means of an eccentric figure who lived before, during and after Victorianism. These three forms of deviances, like so many contact prints, reveal in a “negative” form the society from which they wish to free themselves. The first of these eccentrics, Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803-1849), was the eeriest poet of the English Romantic period, on the cusp of Victorianism. Obsessed by death, he even referred to himself as a “phantom-wooer,” yet paradoxically his poetry is full of life, inasmuch as death was his reason for living. One principle of Romanticism presided over his moods: deadly nostalgia that led him to attempt to revive Elizabethan theatre and to indulge in morbid and subversive reverie – the major component of the English alternative culture. The second eccentric is the poet John Gray (1866-1934), a close friend of Oscar Wilde, who retrospectively made him a model for The Picture of Dorian Gray. Throughout his life, he tried to elude the Romanesque phantom who was draining his lifeblood. A wayward angel of modest background, he suffered a profound identity crisis when he broke off relations with Wilde – a crisis which led him to convert to Catholicism and become a priest. Last of all, Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) embodied the 20th century’s most trouble fears and desires. This poet, mountaineer, spy, magician, champion chess player and charismatic and erotomaniac mentor inclined to seek all sorts of extreme sexual experiences, had nicknamed himself “The Great Beast 666” in reference to Saint John’s Apocalypse. He also founded a sect, Thelema, whose mission was to help its members find what Crowley called their “True Will” through sexual magic. This immoralist’s demonic seductive power influenced the greatest minds of his generation. After having epitomised the Antichrist in his English novel of the Inter-War period, he was rediscovered in the 1960s by rock counterculture fans, who turned him into an anti-Establishment idol.
Every Englishman wants to be eccentric. He stands out from the norm and at the same time defines himself in relation to the latter, a convoluted way of identifying with it, and of establishing himself as an exception which confirms the rule.
January 2011 432 pages
Novelist and essayist Lucien d’Azay was born in 1966 and has been living, since 1994, in Venice, where he teaches French at the Marco Polo Secondary School. He has already published two biographical novels with Les Belles Lettres, Ovide ou l’Amour puni (2001) and Tibulle à Corfou (2003).
Biographie
L’idée si douce d’une mère. Caroline Aupick et Charles Baudelaire The so Sweet Idea of a Mother : Caroline Aupick and Charles Baudelaire Caroline Aupick, Baudelaire’s mother, who was born in 1793 and died in 1871, lived in a century which exalted motherhood and confined women in a straitjacket of irresponsibility. A review of her education, her youth as a destitute orphan doomed to hold no status in society, and the various stages of her chaotic destiny, allow readers to better grasp her difficult role as mother to a suffering genius. All of his life, Baudelaire loved his mother intensely. Although the tender and trusting feelings he had for her in his childhood soon gave way to an adulthood of rebellion and marginalisation, he always made Mrs. Aupick the neurotic centre of his emotional life. Plagued by solitude, poverty, and physical and psychic sufferings, his dreams of tranquillity, prosperity, love and security were anchored in his mother’s image. Mrs. Aupick, whose second husband was a general and later an ambassador and senator, and who placed her son in the care of a guardian, embodied the values of a bourgeoisie with which Baudelaire had severed all ties. As both his enemy and friend, his aggressor and saviour, she reflected the ambivalence, complexity and contradictions which can be seen in Baudelaire’s writings. As a child, Baudelaire was imprinted with the femininity radiated by Caroline Aupick, who thus unconsciously helped to form his poetic sensitivity. This troubled mother’s reactions to her son’s profoundly innovative work were uneven at best, oscillating between rejection, lack of understanding and enthusiasm. Having outlived Baudelaire, she helped to promote her son’s posthumous success. This book brings to life the passionate and conflicting relationship between the mother and son. The confrontation of their different worlds, expectations and disappointments enhances the readers’ knowledge of the poet and of his work.
The mother-son relationship, as seen through an exploration of the bourgeois values which Baudelaire so despised
2011 240 pages
Catherine Delons is the author of Narcisse Ancelle, persécuteur ou protecteur de Baudelaire, prefaced by Claude Pichois, for which she received the 2003 «Prix de la critique» awarded by the Académie française. She also contributed to the Dictionnaire Baudelaire, co-edited by Claude Pichois and Jean-Paul Avice.
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Biographie
La vie écrite. Thérèse de Lisieux The written life : Saint Theresa of Lisieux While readers follow Theresa as she writes on small pieces of paper, they enter a completely ordinary life, an existence beyond history, yet one which became an integral part of it through her writings. What is perhaps most remarkable, more than a century after her death, is that Thérèse Martin’s extraordinary destiny was not so much due to her uniqueness as it was to her fundamentally ordinary character. She stands out as an ideal medium for those wishing to understand the history of writing from the 1880s to our own time. This work offers a polyphonic portrait of the “little” saint and an opportunity to delve into the minute archival world composed of the cursive writing of this young Carmelite nun who died in 1897.
A masterly and unprecedented portrait of the modest saint who reinterpreted theological history
February 2011 242 pages
Philippe Artières, is a historian and CNRS researcher at the Institut interdisciplinaire d’anthropologie contemporaine of the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris. The author of a series of works on the contemporary history of 19th- and 20thcentury writing, he is the Chairman of the Centre Michel Foucault Association, which archives a comprehensive collection of Michel Foucault works
Biographie
Ayn Rand ou la passion de l’égoïsme rationnel Une biographie intellectuelle Ayn Rand and the Passion of Rational Egoism Besides being the author of novels which have all been huge best-sellers (The Fountainhead, 1943; Atlas Shrugged, 1957) – each of which has sold close to 7 million copies to date and enjoyed enduring success – Ayn Rand was also a very outspoken anti-establishment intellectual who greatly contributed to capitalism’s revival among a certain sector of American public opinion. She was also a highly publicised lecturer who became famous by advocating an “Aristotelian” ethic based upon “the virtue of rational egoism,” and was adulated on campuses and by thousands of disciples. Thirty years after her death, her work is still timely in the United States, where her ideas are inspiring a resurgence in fans: two biographies were published in 2009, there has been a spectacular rebound in sales of her cult novel Atlas Shrugged (nearly 500,000 copies sold in 2010), and a film adaptation of the first part of Atlas was released in April 2011. These are all very good reasons for Ayn Rand to finally become known in France, where she has remained virtually (and inexplicably) a stranger.
The first French biography of one of America’s most influential figures
January 2011 240 pages
Philosopher and essayist Alain Laurent has already published with Les Belles Lettres La Philosophie libérale (2002) (which received a French Academy award) and Libéralisme américain. Histoire d’un détournement (2006) was awarded the «Prix du livre libéral.»
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Médecine
Des cobayes et des hommes. Expérimentation sur l’être humain et justice Of guinea pigs and men : An experiment on human beings and justice Today, patients affected by serious illnesses for which therapeutic alternatives are limited or non-existent are demanding not so much protection against clinical trials as a right to participate in them. This new demand is the point of departure for this book’s historical, legal, and sociological inquiry which shows how, from the 18th through the 20th century norms and practices, a distinction came to be made between laboratory animals and human test subjects – i.e., between guinea pigs and human beings. The first part of this work describes how both sides of the Nuremberg (1946–1947) “Doctors’ Trial” contributed to establishing an international normative consensus in response to the health crises, accidents and scandals which have tainted the history of medical testing on human beings . The second part examines the position taken in France, with the formulation of a biomedical research law, the paradoxes still present in the law and the new sociological and scientific developments which challenged that law. This book conveys the urgent need for a new social contract with regard to biomedical research which would guarantee respect for autonomy, equal access and personal protection, and also offers some sound solutions.
A history and sociology of clinical research which sheds new light on the understanding of this field’s contemporary ethical and political issues
February 2011 344 pages
A sociologist with a PhD in the Sociology of Law, Philippe Amiel directs the Social and Human Sciences Research Unit at Institut Gustave-Roussy in Villejuif, France. His work focuses on human clinical research and improving the quality of life of people stricken by cancer. Now teaching in several universities he is notably the author of a work for students, Ethnométhodologie appliquée (Éditions du Lema, 2004–2010).
Médecine
L’Affaire du sang contaminé (1983-2003) The Infected Blood Scandal (1983-2003) In 1991, a contaminated blood scandal broke out in France: several hundred patients were infected with AIDS and Hepatitis C after being given blood products or blood transfusions. Blood bank administrators, particularly those of the French National Centre for Blood Transfusions and the public authorities, were accused of having failed to take the necessary precautions to protect the population. Often described as the first French health crisis, the infected blood scandal induced political leaders to revamp the French health administration in such a way as to make health products safer to use. What caused this crisis? Was it negligence? Were financial interests given greater weight than the need to protect public health? Should blood be considered a drug? A multitude of conflicts lie behind the ideal of blood transfusion as an expression of national solidarity. The author analyses the numerous malfunctions of the blood transfusion system resulting from the industrialisation of blood products, as well as from the divergent interests of doctors, blood transfusion companies, patients, blood donors and public authorities. This richly documented work is the first to offer a historical study of one of the most serious health crises in France.
A well-documented historic overview of one of the most serious medical scandals of the late 20th century.
2011 272 pages
Sophie Chauveau, a historian and senior lecturer in history at Université Lyon 2, is an honorary member of Institut Universitaire de France. Her combined research in history and the social sciences has shed light on the transformations which have occurred in the French health system. Her work has focused on the pharmaceutical industry and blood transfusion in 20thcentury France. Her history of the pharmaceutical industry (L’invention pharmaceutique. La pharmacie française entre l’État et la société au XXe siècle, «Les empêcheurs de penser en rond“ Paris, 1999) is now considered a standard reference work.
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FIGURES DU SAVOIR Collection dirigée par Richard ZREHEN
La collection, Figures du savoir, propose des monographies consacrées à de grands auteurs, anciens et modernes, philosophes et scientifiques. Chaque titre est écrit par un spécialiste, sans jargon ni vocabulaire technique – sauf nécessité absolue. Quelques notes en bas de pages, réduites à l’essentiel, des citations, pas une anthologie : un véritable essai et une synthèse permettant à chacun de s’initier aux données fondamentales d’une oeuvre réputée difficile. Le texte est complété par une brève chronologie, une biographie, une bibliographie, et parfois si nécessaire, un glossaire des termes et des concepts essentiels. Chaque livre devrait permettre au lecteur de comprendre qui est l’auteur, quels sont les thèmes principaux de son oeuvre, pourquoi il reste d’actualité... Collection complète vendue en Corée et au Brésil. Nombreux titres vendus en Grèce, en Espagne, au Japon, en Russie et aux États-Unis.
Directed by Richard ZREHEN
This Figures du savoir Collection presents monographs of great authors – ancient and modern – philosophers, and scientists. Each title was written by a specialist and stripped of jargon or technical terminology, except where absolutely required. With its brief notes at the bottom of pages limited to essential facts and quotations, this book is not an anthology, but a genuine essay and summary that permits readers to learn the basic information they need to evaluate a reputedly complex work. Included with the text is a brief chronology, biography, bibliography and, where needed, a glossary of terms and essential concepts. Each book should permit readers to understand who the author is, the main themes of his work, and why his work is still timely.
Déjà publiés Already published • Arnauld • Averroès • Berkeley • Cantor • Cicéron • Comte • D’Alembert • Darwin • Deleuze • Derrida • Epicure • Flavius Josèphe • Foucault • Freud • Gödel • Hegel
• Heidegger • Herder • Hilbert • Hjelmslev • Husserl • Kant • Kierkegaard • Köhler • Lacan • Lautman • Lévinas • Levi-Strauss • Locke • Lyotard • Maimonide • Michel Henry
• Montaigne • Newton • Nietzsche • Pascal • Poincaré • Russell • Ruyer • Sartre • Saussure • Spinoza • Stoïciens (Les) • Turing • Weil • Wittgenstein
Series sold in Corea and Brazil. Many titles previously sold in Greece, Spain, Japan, Russia and in the United-States.
Figures du Savoir
Merleau-Ponty Merleau-Ponty Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961) is situated in the crossroads of several schools of thought which converged in his philosophy in such a way that what resulted cannot be considered as the outcome of any particular influence. Neither existentialism, nor Marxism, nor even phenomenology – to which Merleau-Ponty nonetheless made an enormous contribution – can account for the sudden emergence of his original thought on visibility which involves man in an entirely unprecedented way and deploys down through history in directions which still bring us insights because of their capacity to thwart classic alternatives. In fact, it would be a serious error to reduce MerleauPonty’s philosophy to a theory or a practice: it is both an ontology and a philosophy of History, a form of aesthetics and a philosphy of knowledge. This work thus aims to be a primer for readers who are just beginning to explore the works of this modern-day Socrates who managed to rediscover the interrogative substance of philosophy. Works include: La Structure du comportement [English edition: The Structure of Behavior] (1942); Phénoménologie de la perception [English edition: Phenomenology of Perception] (1945); and Le Visible et l’Invisible (1964) [English posthumous edition: The Visible and the Invisible].
This work is about the philosopher who redefined, thanks to a new interpretation, man’s renewed determination to understand the relationship between nature and consciousness.
January 2011 432 pages
Ronald Bonan holds an agrégation and PhD in philosophy. He teaches preparatory classes for entrance into the grandes écoles and at Université de Provence. He has written several books on Merleau-Ponty, including Apprendre à philosopher avec Merleau-Ponty (Ellipses, 2010).
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L’exception
La Traversée des Monts Noirs Crossing the Black Mountains While crossing Russia’s Black Mountains in a snowstorm, an “ice-breaker” train conveys a group of ornithologists to a bird reserve where an ornithology symposium is to be held. Among the travellers, a migratory bird expert and his young female assistant arouse the curiosity of a mysterious Frenchman. Although he speaks Russian, this unusual observer conceals this fact from those on whom he is spying, taking note of whatever is said within his hearing during this rough crossing, as well as during his stay on the Reserve. In the centre of this Reserve stands the Planetarium – a miniature reproduction of the cosmos. Its artificial constellation sky makes it possible to dupe the imprisoned warblers and to observe the flying impulses which lead them to head from there towards Israel. As the scientists participating in this symposium begin a series of discussions, the French narrator – omnipresent yet silent – will share a host of interweaving stories, as well as the questions being raised by those who – as in the bygone days of Le Rêve de D’Alembert – are still trying to make sense of the world’s senselessness.
2011 432 pages
Poet, novelist, playwright and painter Serge Rezvani is also a songwriter to whom we owe some one hundred songs, including “Tourbillon” [“The Whirlwind”], the theme song from François Truffaut’s film, Jules et Jim, and “J’ai la mémoire qui flanche” [My memory fails me], both sung by Jeanne Moreau. Among the notable examples of his prolific literary works are Le Testament amoureux (Stock, 1981), La Cité Potemkine (Actes Sud, 2000) and Le Dresseur (Le Cherche Midi, 2009).
Forthcoming title of Serge Rezvani : Ultime amour (Last Love)
TITRES RÉCEMMENT VENDUS Previously sold rights Polymnia ATHANASSIADI, Vers la pensée unique (Grèce) Malika RAHAL, Ali Boumendjel (1919-1957) . Une affaire française. Une histoire algérienne (Algérie) Jacqueline de ROMILLY, Histoire et raison chez Thucydide (États-Unis) Paul AUDI, Michel Henry (Japon) Fritz GRAF, Idéologie et pratique de la magie dans l’Antiquité grécoromaine (Chine) Pierre HADOT, Études de philosophie ancienne (Chine) Pierre HADOT, Études de philosophie ancienne (Italie) Pierre Vidal-Naquet, L’Atlantide (Russie) Guy SAUNIER, Adikia (Grèce) Michel Lécureur, Raymond Queneau (Japon) Xavier Fontanet, Si on faisait confiance aux entrepreneurs (Chine) Patrick McGuiness, Anthologie de la poésie symboliste et décadence (Bulgarie)
Backlist available on : http://www.lesbelleslettres.com/foreignrights/