En ce jeune 21e siècle, l'espoir de changer le monde semble se dissiper à mesure que se renforce le jugement négatif par rapport aux expériences du communisme réel. L'étude des pratiques révolutionnaires du 20e siècle a de quoi laisser perplexe: dogmatisme idéologique, sectarisme militant et adoration de l'État comme outil d'émancipation. Ce mémoire propose une relecture critique des travaux de Pierre-Joseph Proudhon afin d'explorer certains chemins bloqués par l'orthodoxie marxiste. La confrontation de l'oeuvre proudhonienne avec les apports critiques de théoriciens post-totalitaires (Arendt, Abensour, Rancière) permet de voir en quoi le développement d'une pensée socialiste se doit de prendre comme pierre d'assise le respect de la pluralité et donc de l'indétermination du politique. Plus concrètement, il est démontré en quoi l'antidogmatisme et l'antiétatisme proudhonien sont les deux volets d'une même médaille permettant à notre philosophe d'avancer une proposition politique positive: le fédéralisme libertaire. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Proudhon, Arendt, Abensour, Rancière, pluralisme, fédéralisme, dogmatisme, étatisme, socialisme

Not available / text

Not available / text

This dissertation reveals that the American reception of evolution often hinged on the theory's implications for gender and that Darwinian ideas significantly shaped feminist thought in the U.S. While the impact of evolution on American culture has been widely studied, few scholars have done so using gender as a category of analysis. Similarly, evolutionary theory is largely absent from histories of American feminist thought. Yet, Darwin's ideas, specifically those in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), had profound ramifications for gender and sex. Nineteenth century scientists and laypeople alike eagerly applied Darwin's theories to the "woman question," generally to the detriment of women. At the same time, key female activists embraced evolution as an appealing alternative to biblical gender strictures (namely the story of Adam and Eve) and enthusiastically incorporated it into their speeches and writings. My work describes how women including Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman utilized Darwinian principles to challenge traditional justifications for female subordination and bolster their arguments for women's rights. Furthermore, my research demonstrates that gender roles, particularly those pertaining to courtship, marriage, and reproduction, were reformulated in accordance with Darwin's theory of sexual selection, altering popular ideas about motherhood and paving the way for eugenics and birth control. My interdisciplinary project draws on scientific and mainstream publications, the feminist press, prescriptive literature, fiction, popular culture, and archival materials, and it explores both intellectual developments and their impact on people's daily lives. I argue that evolution shifted the terms of debate from women's souls to women's bodies, encouraged feminists to claim "equivalence" rather than "equality," inspired opponents and proponents of women's rights to ground their arguments in science (most frequently biology and zoology), destigmatized sex as a topic of scientific inquiry, and galvanized support for greater female autonomy in reproductive decisions. Looking at gender, religion, and evolutionary theory in concert not only helps us more fully comprehend the construction of gender and the development of American feminism, especially its troubled relationships with religion and science, it also enriches our understanding of the American reception of Darwin. / text

This dissertation analyses the coup d’état and the instrument of government of 1809 as an interpretative framing process. By close examination primarily of official sources it focuses on how political actors utilized the components of the existing political culture in order to legitimise their actions. The results show that the regime transition of 1809 was a contingent process. Actors competed to define concepts such as “citizen”, “patriotism” and “public opinion” in order to legitimise different political claims. This process served to strengthen the role played by the concept of public opinion as a source of authority in the language of politics. The dissertation also addresses how the regime transition of 1809 relates to the historical epoch known as the Age of Revolution. Experiences from the French Revolution in particular were crucial to the debate on the prospects for constitutional change in Sweden. The study shows that the constitutional committee took a reformist stance based on the concepts of civic virtue and enlightenment, thereby rejecting demands for an enhanced national representation. Instead they argued for gradual constitutional change and believed that the constitution should serve as an instrument to educate the public in the virtues of citizenship. Grounded in the so-called "cultural turn" taken by studies of politics in recent decades, the analysis has borrowed from studies of social movements the concepts of interpretative framing. In analyzing differences and oppositions between various interpretative frames, concepts from discourse analysis has been used, particularly those that emphasize discourse contingency. Extra-discursive conditions in the process of interpretation have been analyzed by means of the concept of possibility structures. This has chiefly involved taking into consideration the degree of repression and actors' differing access to what Bourdieu has termed "institutional authority".

No description available.

No description available.

Gogol, Dostoevsky and Bely are three Russian novelists, most of whose writings are set in the city of St. Petersburg, and whose feelings for their city were a bizarre mixture of love and hatred. / This dissertation is divided into four chapters, the first of which is a survey of the attitudes held by the literary predecessors and contemporaries of Gogol, Dostoevsky and Bely toward St. Petersburg, and a discussion of the influence of the French feuilletons on the nineteenth-century Russian urban novel. The second chapter is an investigation of the overall image of the city as presented to the reader by the three writers. The predominantly tragic fate of the novelists' heroes is discussed in the third chapter. The final chapter is a study of six major recurrent themes which link the urban novels of Gogol, Dostoevsky and Bely.

Can states formally recognize cultural diversity and, at the same time, preserve their political and social unity and provide the main public goods of modern citizenship? Is such conciliation feasible? Is it morally desirable? In the current context of unprecedented expression and politicization of cultural identities, especially in democratic countries, such questions are more and more crucial. To answer these questions, the present study considers the contribution of the modern federal tradition. Within this tradition, I analyze four federal responses to the unity-diversity dilemma. The first two---the Belgian and Canadian federations---are practical. Each embodies one of the two dominant contemporary models of federalism: classical liberal individualist, and multinational. I study the experience of each country over the past thirty years to compare the effects of the two models on citizenship. The potential of the modern federal tradition is further assessed through an examination of two theoretical and normative reflections, those of Tocqueville and Proudhon. / The central thesis is twofold. First, I contend that in a context of increasing cultural diversity, unity and diversity have an equal value and are both essential to citizenship. This is true both from a moral and from a practical point of view. Second, I argue that the dominant conceptions of federalism are unable to satisfactorily conciliate unity and diversity. Such task requires the development of what I call an intercultural federalism, one centered on the good of identity pluralization or complexitication. From a strictly practical point of view, only an intercultural federalism can prevent identity fragmentation and the political and social fragmentation which come with it. From a moral perspective, intercultural federalism promises not only to protect, but also to maximize the primary goods which are the most affected by identity fragmentation---political liberty and social solidarity---while also promoting individual liberty. Intercultural federalism rests on three principles which summarize the teachings of the modern federal tradition with regard to the establishment of just citizenship institutions in a context of diversity. Such institutions are just in that they protect and maximize the primary goods of citizenship for all citizens. The three principles are: (1) mutual recognition; (2) intercultural dialogue; (3) multi-varied asymmetrical institutionalization.

In mid-November, 1775, Lord Dunmore last Royal Governor of Virginia attempted to enlist the support of rebel owned slaves to crush Patriot resistance to Great Britain. This study examines the slaveholders' response to Dunmore's actions. Virginia's slaveholders fought a counter-revolution in order to maintain traditional race relations in the colony. Patriot propaganda portrayed Dunmore as a race traitor, who became symbolically more "black" than white. Slaveholders characterized Dunmore as a rebel, a madman, and a sexual deviant - stereotypes normally given to slaves by their "masters." Since Dunmore threatened to destroy the defining institution of slavery, planters sought to salvage their identities by defending the paternalistic philosophy and racist assumptions upon which slave society was based. Planters overwhelmingly became Patriots to protect slavery. / Department of History