Voyages to the "Spice Islands". The spice trade as a point of departure for European penetration into Asia
Extraits
Histoire internationale
Voyages to the "Spice Islands". The spice trade as a point of departure for European penetration into Asia
In order to describe the role played by spices during the late Middle Ages and the beginning of the Modern Age, the author Anna Unali focuses on the reports written by merchants, travellers, geographers and government officials. Their voices emerge powerfully and incisively in any recreation of this topic as the most important interpretative elements.
10/2021
Ethnologie et anthropologie
The Wolves Rise Again. New elites born out of chaos
The successive shocks that strike our time have acted as an indicator of men : the bland elites of yesteryear, suddenly rejected by the masses, went back silently into the void where they had first come from. This opportunist plutarchy, that maintained itself so far, thanks to the industry of lying, the targeted elimination of creative people, will soon be engulfed. Around these illusionists with no audience, the hidden alphas will begin to rise. Within a few months, alphas, forged in a new metal, invaded public space. How can it be explained ? In troubled times, the hierarchies of peacetime had left, suddenly, a place to the atomisation of individuals. Chaos then allows the individual alphas to rise to power. Like a pack of wolves, these alphas quickly take the lead of small human groups organising themselves into rival packs. The French Revolution is a striking example of this evolution : the masters of yesterday were relegated because of their unsuitability.
06/2022
Non classé
She’s Leaving Home
This collection of essays, written by scholars from all over Europe, explores the cultural meanings of women leaving home. Although all the chapters analyse writings in English, the volume aims to put the narrative element of home-leaving into a European context by investigating travel in various directions : from England to somewhere abroad, from the (former) colonies to the (former) imperial centre or simply within a psychic space. The female figures discussed in the volume leave home for various reasons – to go into exile, to challenge orthodox conceptions of femininity, to travel for pleasure or out of curiosity – but ultimately each of them has to face questions of the definitions of home, belonging and otherness. Consequently, the essays in this collection focus on how the cross-cultural encounters implicated in discourses of race, gender, nation and religion affect female identity. The ‘protagonists' of these narratives range from mythical heroines to early modern Protestant refugees to fictitious and historical figures from the past 200 years. The discussion throughout is informed by contemporary theories of gender, literary and cultural studies.
06/2011
Sciences de la terre et de la
SATELLITES OF THE OUTER PLANETS. Worlds in their own right, Second Edition
"Rothery does an excellent job of synthesizing the research inspired by the Voyager missions into a coherent description of outer solar system geology." -Jonathan I. Lunine, Sky & Telescope
"A highly readable, respectably accurate and complete nontechnical summary of planetary satellites for general and scientific audiences."
-Paul M. Schenk, Icarus
"Rothery brings these satellites to life."
-David Hughes, New Scientist.
"The depth and authority of the treatment of physical geological processes makes this a good introduction to the outer satellites for undergraduate students, while the clarity of the text ensures that things do not become too complicated for less expert readers."
-Lionel Wilson, Times Higher Eduation Supplement.
Extensively revised and updated, this new edition of this acclaimed geological guide to the outer solar system includes results and close-up color and black-and-white images from both the 1995-1999 Galileo mission to Jupiter and the Voyager space probe. Rothery explains the geological aspects of the major satellites of the outer planets, from Jupiter to Neptune and the Pluto-Charon system. In particular he shows how tectonic and volcanic processes, driven by heat from within, have shaped the rigid outer layers of these worlds. Rothery also discusses the similarities and differences among them and the ways in which they resemble Earth-like planets.
01/1999
Livres 0-3 ans
YAOUNDÉ BABA SCARED?....ME?....NO WAY!
YAOUNDE BABA SCARED ? ... ME ? ... NO WAY ! YAOUNDE goes off in search of his little goat, BEEE, who, in spite of the young boy's watchful eye, has gone missing. On the way he meets ZOULÏA, a friendly mouse, and ARWANE, a little ant, who help him to find the little goat. Their search will lead them to an isolated hill where a very strange creature lives - a creature capable of transforming itself into unimaginably frightening shapes and forms to scare away anybody who dares to set foot on its steep hill. In order to find BEEE, YAOUNDE and his two friends will have little choice. They will have to cross its territory and confront this incredible and terrifying creature. 6 to 10 Years.
10/2017
Poésie
Epilepsy: the invisible pain
They say life is a long stretch of a calm river, but not for everyone ! She was for me until the day when everything rocked, the day my destiny was changed dramatically. People do not realize how life can be so sweet and so beautiful. They complain all day long for trivialities. They are not even aware that they have before their eyes the most beautiful wealth : the luck and happiness of living in good health. I was rich before. Now I am poor because my child has an incurable disease, that has currently no hope of being healed. As a parent, how can we accept that ? , How to continue living carrying the bundle of pain in my head ? , How to overcome this feeling of helplessness ? When I started speaking to my heart, I didn't know myself that this was the beginning of a new life : a rebirth as a poet. When I learnt that my 7-year-old daughter was suffering from the Dravet Syndrome, a rare genetic epileptic encephalopathy, this was like an earthquake in my life. Then, I needed to write in order to express my sorrow and my pain. Words and rhymes came naturally to my mind. This was obvious that poetry would be my survival weapon.
01/2019
Critique littéraire
Ancient Greek by Its Translators
When not familiar with the language itself, most readers over the centuries have had access to the ancient Greek texts only or mostly through (Latin or vernacular) translations. Such an approach is not only indirect and mediated, but also distorted and even impoverishing : meaning then prevails over the linguistic form and substance of the texts themselves. What do later or modern readers read when they read translated texts written in an ancient so-called dead language ? They read a given meaning - sometimes unfaithful, often inaccurate - dictated by a genuine understanding, the blind continuation of tradition, or an untold hidden intention. The complex range of significances conveyed by meaning simultaneously reflects the time and space (called synchrony) of when and where a text has been translated, the historical learning and linguistic skills of the translators, as well as their ideas and style. As a contribution to the perennial debate about translation (mere literary transliteration vs. creative transposition), this volume aims at analyzing some striking cases of various (literary or not) texts translated from ancient Greek showing how much for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries aesthetics and ideology matter as much as - and often even more than - rigorous philology.
02/2022
Non classé
The Gay Agenda
The "gay agenda" is a rhetorical strategy deployed by the religious right and other social conservatives to magnify fear and hostility of queers. Queers are accused, among other things, of strategizing to recruit children into sexually deviant lifestyles ; dismantling family and marriage as cornerstones of civilization ; and forcing the entertainment industry and court systems to do their bidding. Queers certainly do have an agenda but it is not the one that the religious right claims it is. It is to assert their presence in the public space ; claim and name their identities ; and strategize for social justice in law, schools, and workplaces. The Gay Agenda : Claiming Space, Identity, and Justice claims and reclaims the language of "agenda" and turns the rhetoric of the religious right on its ear. The contributors provide insightful and sharp commentary on gay agendas for human rights, marriage and family, cultural influences, schooling and education, and politics and law.
01/2014
BD tout public
I am GooGol - The Great Invasion
Their arrival was heralded as a new beginning for the human race. Humans were no longer alone in the cosmos. Instead, they were suddenly thrust into an arena much larger than they were ready to deal with. In an age of technological advancement, Toughware and the wiki implants were the culmination of the first successful blending of human and alien technology. Suddenly, anyone with a wiki implant could ride the data streams. Hackers became celebrities as the neural landscape became the world's playground. And for a special few, a startling side effect was discovered. Fearing the worst, the Lambda Initiative was created to police wiki infractions and to protect the fabled Lambda Time Travel Restrictions. Anyone, human or alien, attempting to bypass the Lambda Protocols was subject to prosecution under this new law. To enforce this law, the G-Men were created. Culled from specialists with military and law enforcement experience, the G-Men sought out Lambda Protocol violators with swift and violent response. With wiki crimes on the rise and a growing anti-alien movement gaining strength, something had to be done. The government needed a solution, but they weren't sure what to do. And then they discovered a teenage girl living in Brazil with a special affinity for traversing and moulding the data stream. They had discovered the first Googol. And the world was about to change.
12/2010
Science-fiction
The Day the Great Flood Came
The Day the Great Flood Came The Saga of the Annunaki, Volume 2 This is the story of Atlantis, of its high culture and of the people who lived there and loved and fought and died. It is a story of bravery and personal courage, of betrayal and of friendship, in the face of a looming cataclysm... Ea Anki, Lord of Ki, and Lady Anta In-Anna, his wife, find themselves lost in Hyperspace -- the Abzu -- with their space ship. They are carried along by a torrent in spacetime, where Anki has a vision of the future : he sees a gigantic flood drowning Atlantis, or Atalantash as the Ancients called it ! So, he sends Anta to warn Ashan, King of Atalantash, of the threat to his beloved city of learning and of knowledge. And he knows that he must find a way to alert the other Annunaki, in spite of the opposition from a hidden power on Ki.
06/2019
Non classé
Stages of Exile
This book brings together twelve specially commissioned essays that showcase current research on Spanish Republican exile theatre and performance, including work by some of the foremost scholars in the field. Covering a range of periods, geographical locations and theatrical phenomena, the essays are united by the common question of what it means to ‘stage exile', exploring the relationship between space, identity and performance in order to excavate the place of theatre in Spanish Republican exile production. Each chapter takes a particular case study as a starting point in order to assess the place of a particular text, practitioner or performance within Hispanic theatre tradition and then goes on to examine the case study's relationship with the specific sociocultural context in which it was located and/or produced. The authors investigate wider issues concerning the recovery and performability of these documentary traces, addressing their position within the contemporary debate over historical and cultural memory, their relationship to the contemporary stage, the insights they offer into the experience and performance of exile, and their contribution to contemporary configurations of identity and community in the Hispanic world. Through this commitment to interdisciplinary debate, the volume offers a new and invigorating reimagination of twentieth-century Hispanic theatre from the margins.
09/2011
Littérature française
Mehersthan Memoir (Meher Baba)
Mehersthan Memoir (Meher Baba) This book is dedicated to the unique One who has assumed a form and name to lead the play of universal existence. He throbs in our loving heart ; He breathes in our living soul. He sings in our fervent spirit and he thinks in our purified mind. That infinite Ancient One from his supernal height, bends towards us to embrace us in his love, and to feed our soul with the nectar of his bliss. Blessed are they that have the mind to know him, the heart to feel him and the love to live in his consciousness ! He may have been born to human parents in Poona, studied in a college, played cricket, left home, have seen great souls, sat alone silent, spoken in gestures, written books - but that is not his history. Many live such a life ; many scholars write books ; many saints sit in contemplation ; many monks leave home for mountain resorts ; but they cannot be one like him. Millions of bulbs challenge in vain the darkness of night. One sun rises and the night dissolves into his golden light. One sun rises and the night dissolves into his golden light. We have seen monks, yogins and saints. Some live alone for peace. Some open Ashrams and collect donations to run them. Some comercialise their name and form. Some display miracles to surprise human minds ; some offer boons ; some predict the future ; some curse you when you do not offer them what they want. Some seek pleasure and treasure. But who seeks God and finds God in the self to awaken God-awareness in other men and women ? Who says "I am God and you are God too"? Who rises above the prattle of words, the rattle of weapons and battle of ideologies to the lofty peace of supersonic silence and pours his blessings from the dizzy height of the soul in tune with God ? Who is he that embraces all in the heart and awakens the soul which has none of the human creations of caste, religion, race, pedigree nor colour ? Editions ASSA, Christian Piaget
07/2017
Monographies
Gustave Moreau. The Fables
Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) is one of the most brilliant and enigmatic artists associated with the French Symbolist movement. This book accompanies an exhibition of some of the most extraordinary works he ever made, unseen in public for over a century. Moreau's watercolours of the Fables of Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695) were created between 1879 and 1885 for the art collector Antony Roux and their stylistic range encompasses historicism and the picturesque, orientalist fantasies and near-abstract chromatic experiments. They were exhibited to great acclaim in Paris in the 1880s and in London in 1886, where critics compared the artist to Edward Burne-Jones. One critic commented on Moreau's ' keen apprehension of the weird. ' There were originally 64 works in the series, which was subsequently acquired by Miriam Alexandrine de Rothschild (1884-1965), but nearly half were lost during the Nazi era. The surviving works have not been exhibited since 1906 and they have only ever been published in black and white. This book is the first to reproduce them in colour - many shown actual size. Created at the height of the French 19th-century revival of watercolour, the variety of subject matter and technique, their colouristic effects and the sophistication of Moreau's storytelling, will be a revelation to readers. Preparatory drawings for the Fables, including animal studies made from life in the Jardin des Plantes demonstrate the wide-ranging research that informed Moreau's visions. Prints after Moreau's Fables by Félix Bracquemond (1833-1914) translate the jewel-like colours into monochrome in some of the most innovative etchings of the age, while the most delicate effects of the watercolours were also transformed into vitreous enamels. In-depth accounts of each watercolour, explaining the story and exploring Moreau's response to it. The introduction will place the series in the long history of illustrations of La Fontaine's canonical work, whose sources include Aesop's fables and traditional European and Asian tales, as well as considering Moreau in the context of his own, turbulent, times.
08/2021
Histoire et Philosophiesophie
Concepts of Mass in Contemporary Physics and Philosophy
The concept of mass is one of the most fundamental notions in physics, comparable in importance only to those of space and time. But in contrast to the latter, which are the subject of innumerable physical and philosophical studies, the concept of mass has been but rarely investigated. Here Max Jammer, a leading philosopher and historian of physics, provides a concise but comprehensive, coherent, and self-contained study of the concept of mass as it is defined, interpreted, and applied in contemporary physics and as it is critically examined in the modern philosophy of science. With its focus on theories proposed after the mid-1950s, the book is the first of its kind, covering the most recent experimental and theoretical investigations into the nature of mass and its role in modern physics, from the realm of elementary particles to the cosmology of galaxies.
The book begins with an analysis of the persistent difficulties of defining inertial mass in a noncircular manner and discusses the related question of whether mass is an observational or a theoretical concept. It then studies the notion of mass in special relativity and the delicate problem of whether the relativistic rest mass is the only legitimate notion of mass and whether it is identical with the classical (Newtonian) mass. This is followed by a critical analysis of the different derivations of the famous mass-energy relationship E = mc2 and its conflicting interpretations. Jammer then devotes a chapter to the distinction between inertial and gravitational mass and to the various versions of the so-called equivalence principle with which Newton initiated his Principia but which also became the starting point of Einstein's general relativity, which supersedes Newtonian physics. The book concludes with a presentation of recently proposed global and local dynamical theories of the origin and nature of mass.
Destined to become a much-consulted reference for philosophers and physicists, this book is also written for the nonprofessional general reader interested in the foundations of physics.
01/2000
Antiquité - Généralités
The Italians on Delos
During the second century and into the early first century BC, the island of Delos was home to the largest port of transit in the eastern Mediterranean. As such, it welcomed many Italian traders who prospered among its cosmopolitan population for some fifty or so years. The many buildings, statues, paintings and inscriptions unearthed since 1873 by the French School at Athens have made it possible to trace out the life of this disparate yet influential community.
11/2021
Spiritisme
Orion Recall - Version anglaise
"Greetings, beloved peoples of the One. Welcome to the sacred and consecrated space from which I now address you : the space where the 12 An Master Crystals of Orion reside. The time has come for you to remember who you are and learn about your galactic heritage. Many of you have fought in the great wars that began on Orion. That's why you need to learn the truth-so you can free yourselves from the past and turn your full attention to the Plan that brought you here to this planet called Earth. These Memoirs will help you understand". Are you one of the volunteers living on this magnificent planet working to bring an end to the great conflicts between the evolved and devolved forces-conflicts that originated in Orion's solar systems and converged to Earth millenniums ago ? Find out how it all began, from when a Messenger from the 24 Elders first gave instructions to the High Council of Sirius to the moment when Plan Earth Rising was put into action. The path you take matters now more than ever because your conscious choices determine how your individual and collective solar beings are integrated. This integration is the key to activating your beloved planet as one of the twelve galactic libraries, the one on which everything depends. This book is a summons to the volunteer souls : Remember Mintaka. Remember the reason you are here at the start of a major new evolutionary cycle-for your sphere of life and for the entire Galactic Federation.
10/2022
Histoire internationale
One Artist on Five Continents
Elisabet Delbrück (1876-1967) was one of a number of Germans who came to New Zealand in the late 1930s. Unlike most, she had not intended to emigrate but was touring the country when World War II broke out. She was at first forbidden to leave and then chose to remain in Wellington. Her thirty years in Mahina Bay on Wellington harbour had a profound effect on all who knew her. This study aims to discover why she was so remarkable. It explores her early life, her marriage into a prominent German family and her qualification as an artist. She turned this into a profession, teaching and exhibiting on five continents in the 1920s and 1930s. She always travelled alone, observing the customs and beliefs of the people she met. In Australia and New Zealand in 1938 and 1939 she was wrongly suspected of spreading Nazi propaganda. Her story is also the story of a heroic group of Wellingtonians who helped her in the 1940s and valued her friendship till her death.
12/2011
Non classé
Foreign Devils
Foreign Devils investigates representations of exile in Hollywood cinema from 1930 to 1956 through the films of Peter Lorre, Béla Lugosi, and Conrad Veidt. This book dispels the assumption that by virtue of its hegemonic, reactionary, and exclusionary modes of representation, otherness is excluded from or only obliquely alluded to in classical Hollywood cinema. This book contends that Hollywood uses European émigré actors to speak of the experience of exile and the often-futile exilic attempts at integration into the host nation. This original, cross-disciplinary study incorporates a number of research interests in film studies – specifically Hollywood cinema, exile and émigré filmmakers, the Golden Age of the studio system, the Universal Horror cycle, and Poverty Row filmmaking. Foreign Devils combines the close reading of key texts with a theoretical framework that encompasses body theory and theories of space and nation with historical accounts of immigration to the United States and American concepts of nationhood through the symbolism of blood and death studies. Film studies students and academics, both undergraduate and postgraduate, as well as scholars in other disciplines, and anyone with an interest in Hollywood cinema, Central European culture in the 1930s-1950s, and European emigration to the United States will benefit from reading this book. Foreign Devils is also a valuable resource for courses in Hollywood filmmaking, émigré film, exile, Central European culture, nationalism studies, and Jewish studies.
01/2013
Non classé
Language Contact
Areal linguistics is having its "Golden Age", but its doleful problems as well. Its theory of language contact and linguistic interference is full of controversies which can be resolved only by a thorough analysis of the essentials of language interrelations and the results of their interactions. The monograph is based on a large corpus of linguistic and extralinguistic material collected during the last few decades (including field-work in different countries of Europe, Asia and North America) on the results of language contacts between English, German and other Teutonic languages, between Romance, Slavic and other Indo-European vernaculars, between Uralic, Turkic, Tungusic-Manchurian and Palaeo-Asian, and other languages. An attempt is made to gain an insight into the "mechanism" of language contact, to single out its types and subtypes and to project the "curve" of the dynamism of their linguistic interference (the receptor-language levels' penetrability). Special attention is paid to different varieties of plurilingualism.
10/1991
Non classé
Debating National Security
The nature of security in the contemporary world is changing rapidly. Superpower detente, the progress and further prospects of arms control, the collapse of East European communist regimes, and German unification, to name but the most spectacular features, present unprecedented challenges not only for political decision-makers, but also for the mass publics in democratic societies. What are the trends of public opinion on these issues and how do they reflect these changes ? By what factors are pertinent public attitudes shaped and what structures do emerge ? How can they be reliably assessed and meaningfully analyzed ? Which demands flow from the dynamics of public opinion that have to be taken into account in security policy making ? These are the key questions addressed by the twelve contributions to this volume. Combining longitudinal and comparative approaches they cover the public dimension of the national security debate in seven Western nations : Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands, and the United States.
04/1991
Lecture 6-9 ans
L'énigme du sabre. Edition bilingue français-anglais
C'est dimanche et comme souvent Louise et Arthur viennent rendre visite à leur grand-mère. Ils aiment bien y aller, elle joue avec eux et leur raconte plein d'histoires. Mais aujourd'hui, elle n'a pas le temps et les deux cousins s'ennuient. Alors, ils décident de grimper dans le grenier où sont entreposés de vieux souvenirs et objets abandonnés. Ils y ont déjà été, mais maintenant ils sont plus grands et peut-être trouveront-ils un trésor qu'ils n'avaient pas aperçu, lors de la dernière visite. Après un long moment de recherche, dans un coin, Louise découvre une malle poussiéreuse. Les deux cousins, l'ouvrent et entrevoient un sabre avec une inscription. Une trouvaille qui va les mener jusqu'à l'école militaire de Saint Cyr de Coëtquidan, sur les traces de leur grand père. It's a Sunday and often as not, Louise and Arthur go and visit their grandmother. They like to go there, she plays with them and tells them lots of stories. But this Sunday she does not have the time, so the two cousins are bored. They decide to climb up into the attic, where old memorabilia and abandoned objects are stored. They have been there before, but now that they are taller, maybe they will find a treasure they did not see during their last visit. After a long moment of searching, in a corner, Louise discovers a dusty trunk. The two cousins open it and see a sword with an inscription. A discovery that will lead them to the military school at Saint Cyr de Coëtquidan, in the footsteps of their grandfather.
06/2018
Monographies
Hilma af Klint. The Five Notebook 1
In 1896, Hilma af Klint and four other like-minded women artists left the Edelweiss Society and founded the "Friday Group", also known as "The Five". They met every Friday for spiritual meetings, including prayers, studies of the New Testament, meditation and séances. The medium exercised automatic writing and mediumistic drawing. Eventually they established contact with spiritual beings whom they called "The High Ones". In 1896, the five women began taking meticulous notes of the mediumistic messages conveyed by the spirits. In time, Hilma af Klint felt she had been selected for more important messages. After ten years of esoteric training with "The Five", aged 43, Hilma af Klint accepted a major assignment, the execution of The Paintings for the Temple. This commission, which engaged the artist from 1906 to 1915, changed the course of her life. In 1908, Rudolf Steiner, leader of the German Theosophical Society, held several lectures in Stockholm. He also visited af Klint's studio and saw some of the early Paintings for the Temple. In 1913, Steiner founded the Anthroposophical Society, which af Klint joined in 1920 and remained a member for the rest of her life.
01/2022
Littérature française
My Ulster haven
1989, a 23-year-old French woman, an English student with a burdensome family background, leaves for Northern Ireland. She's on her way to start her French assistant job. She discovers this unknown part of Ireland, so underestimated and still plunged into civil war. There, she settles down and blossoms until she decides she actually wants to live there. An unexpected event will bring her back to France in 1991, but the link with this country will carry on until the Brexit announcement in 2016, and well beyond. An intimate journey to the core of Irish History, that reaches the depths of its wars, its men, its women, a journey at the very heart of the past. "A page of history - and of my history - is turning and it throws me off."
02/2022
Monographies
Burmese Silver from the Colonial Period
This stunning catalogue presents an exceptional collection of rare Burmese silver. Accompanied by detailed photographs and explanatory texts, this ground-breaking book proposes a new way of looking at Burmese silver. Names, dates, places, and stories - identifying the who, when, where, and what of Burmese silver has been the focus of publications on the topic. Are these questions the best way to understand silver, however ? Alexandra Green argues that they are not. Too few pieces provide reliable information about silversmiths, production locations, and dates to allow for a comprehensive understanding of the subject. Instead, a close examination of silver patterns reveals strong links with Burmese art history reaching as far back as the Bagan period (11th to 13th centuries), connections with contemporary artistic trends, and participation within the wider world of silversmithing. The first European to write about Burmese silver was H L Tilly, a colonial official from the late 19th into the early 20th century. Tasked with collecting objects for various fairs and exhibitions, he took an interest in Burmese art, publishing articles and books from the 1880s onwards. While much of what he wrote was factually inaccurate and coloured by the prejudices and stereotypes common at the time, his two volumes on Burmese silver published in 1902 and 1904 contain pictures of pieces from the early to mid 19th century. These enable a reconstruction of how silver designs evolved as the country was absorbed into the Indian Raj, and British and other Westerners became consumers of local silver products. Tilly was also correct in his interest in silver designs. Green uses the visual information from his books to describe the continuities and innovations of designs found on silver from the mid 19th through the mid 20th century, and she places these trends within local, regional, and global flows of ideas. Many studies of Burmese silver have been plagued by a lack of understanding of the Burmese context. In contrast, Green examines silver from a local perspective, drawing on Burmese texts and information that allows for a nuanced view of the motifs, designs, and patterns that appear repetitively on silver pieces. Using Graham Honeybill's collection, formed over many years, as a basis, she explores how designs and patterns circulated around the country and were innovatively combined and recombined on pieces by silversmiths producing objects for Burmese, Western, and commercial clients.
09/2022
Mouvements artistiques
The Medieval Body
This fascinating and richly illustrated book accompanies The Medieval Body, the
third in a series of vanguard exhibitions that places medieval masterpieces within
a contemporary context.
The title of the exhibition refers to both a literal thread of figuration that runs
throughout the works in the presentation, as well as the complex and often shifting
symbolism of the human body in the medieval period. For thinkers and artists of
that time, the human body served as a rich source of religious and philosophical
significance, one that was in a constant state of flux between idealism and
disfigurement. While the early Middle Ages reserved representations of suffering
bodies to the margins of their world, the later Middle Ages displayed wounded
bodies in the most central spaces of public life. The crucified body of Christ and the
wounded bodies of saints assumed important positions as they were displayed on
altars, in processions, and on the exteriors of churches.
The Medieval Body tells a unique story about the human form as both a physical
entity and a recognizable metaphor. Presenting works spanning the course of a
thousand years, this exhibition offers insight into the body as an essential imagemaking
tool with far-reaching implications for the development of art in the
European Middle Ages.
08/2022
Histoire et Philosophiesophie
The Undergrowth of Science. Delusion, self-deception and human frailty
Walter Gratzer's themes in the stories he relates in The Undergrowth of Science are collective delusion and human folly. Science is generally seen as a process bound by rigorous rules, which its practitioners must not transgress. Deliberate fraud occasionally intrudes, but it is soon detected, the perpetrators cast out and the course of discovery barely disturbed. Far more interesting are the outbreaks of self-delusion that from time to time afflict upright and competent researchers, and then spread like an epidemic or mass-hysteria through a sober and respectable scientific community. When this happens the rules by which scientists normally govern their working lives are suddenly suspended. Sometimes these episodes are provoked by personal vanity, an unwillingness to acknowledge error or even contemplate the possibility that a hard-won success is a will o' the wisp; at other times they stem from loyalty to a respected and trusted guru, or even from patriotic pride; and, worst of ail, they may be a consequence of a political ideology which imposes its own interpretation on scientists' observations of the natural world. Unreason and credulity supervene, illusory phenomena are described and measured, and theories are developed to explain them - until suddenly, often for no single reason, the bubble bursts, leaving behind it a residue of acrimony, recrimination, embarrassment and ruined reputations.
Here, then, are radiations, measured with high precision yet existing only in the minds of those who observed them; the Russian water, which some thought might congeal the oceans: phantom diseases which called for heroic surgery; monkey testis implants that restored the sexual powers of ageing roués and of tired sheep; truths about genetics and about the nature of matter, perceptible only to Aryan scientists in the Third Reich or Marxist ideologues in the Soviet Union; and much more. The Undergrowth of Science explores, in terms accessible to the lay reader, the history of such episodes, up to our own time, in ail their absurdity, tragedy and pathos.
01/2000
Non classé
The German Effect on D.H. Lawrence and his Works 1885-1912
This study analyzes in depth the German effect upon D.H. Lawrence and his works from his birth in 1885 to his departure from England in 1912. German literary, philosophical and musical works had considerable impact on Lawrence's formation as an artist. They also influenced the creation of his own literary theory, entering his life concurrently with the three problems of class, woman and religion, which evolved into his major literary themes. The German effect is thus demonstrated to be the confirmation of Lawrence's strong tendency toward subjectivism in literary art : it strengthened his conviction that his art set him apart from all classes of society ; it encouraged the development of his view of women as the sexual, not the maternal, mediatrix to art ; and it fortified his denial of traditional Christianity and assisted his creation of his personal vitalistic creed.
12/1978
Beaux arts
New worlds
"New Worlds" presents a selection of five outstanding nautical atlases known as portolan charts, or "portalans".These historic documents are the work of eminent scholars from Majorca, Lisbon, Le Havre, and Amsterdam. Cartographers by trade, and sometimes also skilled illuminators, they mapped what was the most probable imago mundi for their time, each exemplar crafting a fascinating visual chronicle. Jean-Yves Sarazin, head of Charts and Maps at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, scrutinizes thèse charts or atlases, and situates them in the great history of European discoveries and voyages from the early 14th to the late 17th century, from the Portuguese reconnaissance of the coasts of Africa, through the adventures of Columbus,Vespucci, and Magellan, to the Dutch voyages in the Pacific and Australia.The book's many colour reproductions are alive with picturesque details: camel caravans in the heart ofAsia, Portuguese andArab ships sailing in the Indian Ocean, wild beasts or chimaera, countless exotic plants, naval battles, and not least the frequent strangeness of the indigenous people.
10/2012
Policiers
Goebius' Strange Model
A company elaborates in great secrecy a project, vital to its very survival. As the project develops, it leads the protagonists far beyond the originally envisioned simple business strategy, and brings them close to the forefront of the physical laws governing the behavior of the universe. Two intrigues intertwine... will they meet ? Or do they form the single-sided face of a Möbius strip ? "This novel is as unexpected as a UFO, and refreshing..." Cédric Villani, Fields Medal 2010. "This book is fascinating, I read it all at once..." Etienne Ghys, Perpetual Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences.
01/2020
Décoration
Anatomy of Style
Fashioning your signature style without losing your shirt has never been easier : just take your cue from the iconic looks of 120 celebrities. IN FOUR CHAPTERS YOU'LL FIND : - VIP style hacks to steal - clever tips and tricks for unforgettable looks - wardrobe essentials and how to spice them up - so-called "fashion faux pas" that you should dare to commit This highly illustrated book (354 photos)- a stylish accessory in its own right-reads like a mood board and has fresh inspiration for every occasion.
09/2020
