Le processus sélectif est-il nié, persistant ou dialectiquement réalisé dans la civilisation ? De ce problème, deux thèses générales se dégagent : (1) celle de l’épuisement de la sélection naturelle, la société humaine témoignant d’une véritable émancipation vitale et (2) celle d’un report des pressions de sélection, le système de contraintes sélectives demeurant effectif. En fait, cette interrogation se trouve esquissée dès l’« anthropologie » de Charles Darwin (1871), sujette encore à débats, notamment sur l’existence du darwinisme social de ce dernier, forme, justement, de report des pressions de sélection. Face à la thèse de l’incohérence doctrinale de cette « anthropologie », qui légitime malgré elle qu’on fasse tout dire de Darwin, on proposera une cohérence articulée autour du concept de sympathie et des effets combinés de la sélection, de la culture et de l’habitude. Ensuite, il s’agira de proposer une théorie de l’émancipation vitale, mêlant report des pressions de sélection et émancipation par procès ‘technosymbiotique’, néologisme au lien fort avec la cultural niche construction (Odling-Smee). Prendre la civilisation comme une niche écologique, la culture comme un paramètre, résoudra une bonne part des problèmes théoriques et de ce dualisme identitaire qu’on retrouve si souvent dans notre approche de l’homme et de sa société. La réflexion sur la civilisation nous conduira à nous interroger sur le biotope économique, comme marque essentielle et originale de notre niche écologique. Notre émancipation biologique côtoie ainsi le maintien du système de contrainte sélectionniste, dans un biotope, dès lors, de plus en plus biomimétique / Is the selective process irrelevant, does it persist, or is it dialectically achieved in civilization? Two general theses arise from this question: (1) either the progressive extinction of natural selection, human society thus witnessing a genuine vital emancipation or (2) the persistence of selection pressures, the system of selective constraints thus remaining effective. In fact, this question was outlined in 1871 with Charles Darwin’s “anthropology”; his anthropology and notably his social Darwinism, a form of displacement of selection pressures continue to be debated today. Confronted with the thesis of the doctrinal inconsistency of this “anthropology” which allows Darwin’s words to be interpreted at will, we shall put forward a form of coherence based on the concept of sympathy and the combined effects of selection, culture and habits. We shall then put forward a theory of vital emancipation that combines the persistence of selection pressures and emancipation via a technosymbiotic process, a neologism similar to cultural niche construction (Odling-Smee). Considering civilization as an ecological niche and culture as a parameter will solve most theoretical problems, notably related to the identity dualism associated with a conventional approach to man and society. Our reflection on civilization will lead us to focus on and investigate into the economic biotope understood as an essential and specific feature of our ecological niche. Following this approach, man’s biological emancipation coexists with a system of selectionist constraint in a biotope that is, as a consequence, increasingly biomimetic

The Darwin-Hatherton glacial system (DHGS) drains from the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) and through the Transantarctic Mountains (TAM) before entering the Ross Embayment. Large ice-free areas covered in glacial sediments surround the DHGS, and at least five glacial drift sheets mark the limits of previous ice extent. The glacier belongs to a group of slow-moving EAIS outlet glaciers which are poorly understood. Despite this, an extrapolation of a glacial drift sheet boundary has been used to determine the thickness of the EAIS and the advanced West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). In order to accurately determine the past and present contributions of the Antarctic ice sheets to sea level changes, these uncertainties should be reduced. This study aims to examine the present and LGM ice dynamics of the DHGS by combining newly acquired field measurements with a 3-D numerical ice sheet-shelf model. The fieldwork included a ground penetrating radar survey of ice thickness and surface velocity measurements by GPS. In addition, an extensive dataset of airborne radar measurements and meteorological recordings from automatic weather stations were made available. The model setup involved nesting a high-resolution (1 km) model of the DHGS within a lower resolution (20 km) all-Antarctic simulation. The nested 3-D modelling procedure enables an examination of the impact of changes of the EAIS and WAIS on the DHGS behaviour, and accounts for a complex glacier morphology and surface mass balance within the glacial system. The findings of this study illustrate the difference in ice dynamics between the Darwin and Hatherton Glaciers. The Darwin Glacier is up to 1500 m thick, partially warm-based, has high driving stresses (~150 kPa), and measured ice velocities increase from 20-30 m yr⁻¹ in the upper parts to ~180 m yr⁻¹ in the lowermost steepest regions, where modelled flow velocities peak at 330 m yr⁻¹. In comparison, the Hatherton Glacier is relatively thin (<900 m), completely cold-based, has low driving stresses (~85 kPa), and is likely to flow with velocities <10 m yr⁻¹ in most regions. It is inferred that the slow velocities with which the DHGS flows are a result of high subglacial mountains restricting ice flow from the EAIS, large regions of frozen basal conditions, low SMB and undulating bedrock topography. The model simulation of LGM ice conditions within the DHGS implies that the ice thickness of the WAIS has been significantly overestimated in previous reconstructions. Results show that the surface of the WAIS and EAIS away from the TAM would have been elevated 600-750 and 0-80 m above present-day levels, respectively, for the DHGS to reach what was inferred to represent the LGM drift sheet limit. Ultimately, this research contributes towards a better understanding of the dynamic behaviour of slow moving TAM outlet glaciers, and provides new insight into past changes of the EAIS and WAIS. This will facilitate more accurate quantifications of contributions of the WAIS and EAIS to changes in global sea level.

This research report explores the link between the novels of Ingrid Winterbach / Lettie Viljoen, a third culture and the neo-Victorian novel. The study is therefore situated within the cultural-philosophical framework of a third culture, which implies that the two cultures of science and literature do not function as separate disciplines, but as an organic unit. Researchers in the interdiscipline of literature and science identify the Age of Science (1879–1914) – including the Victorian era (1837–1901) – as a historical period where the existence of such a third culture was observed. This period was characterised by numerous scientific discoveries, and Darwin’s theory of evolution generated heated debates in Victorian society. Nineteenth-century literature (and specifically the Victorian novel) therefore reflects the spirit of an age where the interaction between science and literature was particularly evident. In our information-driven society, the focus is once again on scientific discovery and dissemination of knowledge, prompting social critics to typify the current period as “neo-” or “retro-Victorian”. The contemporary imagination still problematises Darwin’s theory of evolution, and fiction such as Winterbach’s therefore not only renegotiates the fixed modernistic boundaries between science and literature, but also revisits the nineteenth- century genres simptomatic of a similar third culture. Winterbach’s novels (1984–2006) display a distinctive predisposition towards natural history and Darwinistic principles and are therefore postmodern adaptations of nineteenth-century conventions. Darwinistic concepts such as growth, metamorphosis,transformation, evolution and the origin, naming and extinction of species are therefore accentuated. Winterbach’s fictionalisation of a nineteenth-century worldview can be linked to the work of her ancestors in the Afrikaans literary tradition, Eugène Marais and C. Louis Leipoldt (both amateur scientists). Her popularisation of scientific knowledge and revisitation of Victorian codes also link her to a neo-Victorian novelistic movement (a contemporary permutation of the Victorian tradition). Her oeuvre therefore also displays similarities to that of her British contemporary, A.S. Byatt, a prominent neo-Victorian novelist. An exploration of the natural world in this tradition, however, also implies an exploration of supernatural spheres, a trend which is equally evident in texts by congeners such as (George) Eliot, Marais, Leipoldt, Winterbach and Byatt. / Afrikaans / D.Litt. et Phil. (Afrikaans and Theory of Literature)

<p>This dissertation examines Charles Darwin’s major texts together with literary works by turn-of the-century American women writers—Nella Larsen, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Kate Chopin—in order to trace how evolutionary theory shaped transatlantic cultural ideas of race, particularly black identity, and gender. I focus on the concept of “descent” as the overarching theme organizing categories of the human in evolutionary terms. My perspective and methods—examining race and gender from a black feminist perspective that draws on biopolitics theory, as well as using close reading, affect theory, and attention to narrative in my textual analysis—comprise my argument’s framework. By bringing these perspectives and methods together in my attention to the interplay between Darwinian discourse and American literature, I shed new light on the turn-of-the-century transatlantic exchange between science and culture. Throughout this dissertation, I argue that descent constitutes a central concept and point of tension in evolutionary theory’s inscription of life’s development. I also show how themes of human-animal kinship, the Western binary of rationality and materiality, and reproduction and maternity circulated within this discourse. I contribute to scholarly work relating evolutionist discourse to literature by focusing on American literature: in the context of turn-of-the-century American anxieties about racial and gender hierarchies, the evolutionist paradigm’s configurations of human difference were especially consequential. Moreover, Larsen, Gilman, and Chopin offer responses that reveal this hierarchy’s varied effects on racialized and gendered bodies. I thus demonstrate the significance of examining Darwinian discourse alongside American literature by women writers, an association in need of deeper scholarly attention, especially from a feminist, theoretical perspective. </p><p>This dissertation begins with my application of literary analysis and close reading to Darwin’s major texts in order to uncover how they formed a suggestive foundation for late nineteenth- to early twentieth-century ideologies of race and gender. I use this analysis as the background for my investigation of Larsen’s, Gilman’s, and Chopin’s literary texts. In Chapter 1, I conduct a close reading of Darwin’s articulation of natural selection in <i>The Origin of Species</i>and focus on how Darwin’s syntactical and narrative structure imply evolution as an agential force aimed at linear progress. In Chapter 2, I analyze Darwin’s articulation of the development of race and gender differences in <i>The Descent of Man</i>, as well as Thomas Henry Huxley’s <i>Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature</i>, and argue that Darwin’s and Huxley’s accounts suggest how anxiety over animal-human kinship was alleviated through structuring nonwhite races and women as less developed and hence inferior. In Chapter 3, I argue that Larsen’s novel <i>Quicksand </i>interrogates and complicates aesthetic primitivism and biopolitical racism and sexism, both rooted in evolutionist discourses. Finally, in Chapter 4, I focus on Gilman’s utopian novel <i>Herland</i>and select short stories by Chopin. While Gilman unambiguously advocates for a desexualized white matriarchy, Chopin’s stories waver between support for, and critique of, racial hierarchy. Reading these authors together against the backdrop of white masculine evolutionist theory reveals how this theory roots women as materially bound reproducers of racial hierarchy.</p>

No description available.

<p>My thesis examines how eugenicist and psychologist Robert M. Yerkes’ experimental intelligence research helped to situate the non-human primate as the ideal research subject for human betterment research in the twentieth century U.S. Yerkes believed that the primate was the ideal research subject to address questions of human betterment and social welfare, specifically best to create methods of evaluating the imagined threat of intellectual disability. While Yerkes has been studied extensively in the history of psychology, primatology, and eugenics, rarely have his separate contributions to these fields been placed in conversation with one another. Placing the primate at the center of Yerkes’ work allows for all three fields to engage with one another in a new perspective. By analyzing Yerkes’ publications about the Multiple-Choice Experiment within the context of the American eugenics’ movement, we can see how the primate came to hold a central position in U.S. scientific research, the advancement of human welfare and betterment, and as a means of defining what it means to be human. This story offers a glimpse into this longer process of how the primate came to occupy this position, but even a glimpse offers historians of the American eugenics’ movement new questions. What was the role of the non-human animal in the formulation of American eugenic theories? How have we historically used the natural world in our attempts to separate ourselves from it? And can we truly reconcile a history with eugenics if we continue to ignore the role of animals within it, they who today exist unquestionably within the status of the sub-human?</p>

Ouvrage clé de l’histoire des sciences, « On the Origin of Species » (1859) de Charles Darwin (dorénavant l’OS) lance la théorie de l’évolution, dont les répercussions sociétales ne sont plus à démontrer. L’OS connaîtra plusieurs éditions. La sixième, parue en 1876, a longtemps été l’édition de référence, mais depuis la deuxième moitié du XXe siècle la première a été réévaluée par les chercheurs et est maintenant considérée comme canonique. Celle-ci donnerait en effet une vision plus authentique et plus claire de la pensée darwinienne. Au moment de sa parution, cette première édition fait sensation. Les contemporains de Darwin remarquent notamment son caractère hautement métaphorique et nombreux sont ceux qui le critiquent sur ce point. Il existe à ce jour deux traductions de cette édition vers le français, celles de Becquemont (1992, 2008) et de Hoquet (2013). La traduction de Becquemont surprend par sa méthode inusitée. Le traducteur a effectivement remanié la traduction de Barbier (1876), qui elle est basée sur la sixième édition de l’ouvrage. La traduction Hoquet, pour sa part, est plus traditionnelle. Ces deux traductions sont demeurées largement inexplorées en traductologie comme en histoire et en philosophie des sciences. Cela les rend propres à de multiples travaux de recherche. Le caractère métaphorique de leur édition source soulève notamment un problème de traduction. Il s’agit alors de déterminer comment ces métaphores sont traduites en français. Pour répondre à cette question, nous situons notre étude au sein de la métaphorologie cognitive telle que définie par la théorie contemporaine de la métaphore. Ainsi, nous envisageons la métaphore comme la projection d’un cadre conceptuel source sur un cadre conceptuel cible. Plus précisément, nous adoptons le cadre théorique établi par Vandaele, qui opérationnalise l’analyse des métaphores à l’aide du concept d’indice de conceptualisation métaphorique (ICM). Nous avons mis en place une méthode d’annotation de corpus en format XML autorisant le repérage des ICM en discours, ainsi que leur caractérisation et leur dénombrement. Nous avons ainsi pu réaliser une analyse qualitative et quantitative de la conceptualisation métaphorique dans l’intégralité de l’oeuvre originale et de ses deux traductions vers le français, en nous limitant cependant à la nature et à la sélection naturelle. Il ressort de ce travail que la nature et la sélection naturelle font l’objet de riches personnifications dans l’original anglais, qui sont largement restituées dans les deux traductions. Celles-ci se distinguent surtout par la richesse et la densité des réseaux d’ICM qui expriment ces personnifications. La présence d’une troisième personnification a également été révélée lors de notre analyse. Ces résultats seront discutés à l’aune du contexte de réception de l’OS, des assises cognitives de la personnification et des perspectives dominantes relatives au phénomène de la retraduction. / A seminal work of the history of science, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) (henceforth OS) launched the theory of evolution, whose deep-felt social impact has long been demonstrated. Several editions of the OS exist. The sixth edition, published in 1876, was for a long time the reference, but since the second half of the 20th century the first has been reassessed by scholars and is now considered canonical. The latter is purported to offer a more authentic and clearer vision of Darwin’s theory of evolution. At the time of its publication, this first edition caused a sensation. Darwin’s contemporaries noticed its highly metaphorical nature and many criticized him on this point. To date, there are two French translations of this edition into, one by Becquemont (1992, 2008) and the other by Hoquet (2013). On the one hand, Becquemont’s translation is somewhat surprising because of its unusual method. Indeed, the translator recycled Barbier’s translation (1876) of the sixth edition of the work. Hoquet’s translation, on the other hand, is more traditional. These two translations have remained largely unexplored in translation studies as well as in the history and philosophy of science. This makes them ideal candidates for inquiry. Namely, the metaphorical character of their source edition can constitute a translation problem. The question is then to determine how these metaphors were translated into French. To answer this question, we situate our study within cognitive metaphorology as defined by the contemporary theory of metaphor. Thus, we consider metaphor as a mapping between a source domain and a target domain. In particular, we apply the theoretical framework established by Vandaele, who operationalizes the analysis of metaphors via the concept of metaphorical conceptualization index (MCI). We elaborated an XML-based methodology for the annotation of corpora, which allows for the identification of MCIs in discourse, as well as their characterization and quantification. We were thus able to carry out a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the metaphorical conceptualization in the entirety of the original work and its two French translations, though limiting ourselves to nature and to natural selection. Our study reveals that nature and natural selection are richly personified in the English original, and the two translations follow suit. The translations mainly differ from each other through the richness and density of the MCI networks that express these personifications. The presence of a third personification was also discovered during our analysis. These results will be discussed in light of the reception of the OS, the cognitive foundations of personification, and dominant perspectives on retranslation.

No description available.

This paper explores Ted Chiang's novella "Seventy-Two Letters" and the way in which it combines genres, scientific and historical ideas in an effort to examine topics about life and creation. The combinations result in an intriguing representation of a history which is then made different and where Chiang can creatively challenge past ideas. Research by Foucault and Gillian Beer yielded insight into how historic and scientific concepts from biology in the nineteenth century became a culture's dominant understanding of life. Lakoff and Johnson argue that concepts are metaphorical in nature and Chiang skillfully incorporates metaphors to examine the creative force of language in the story. Darwin's theory of evolution is used as a conceptual framework and incorporated with older and outdated theories like preformation and recapitulation to speculate about how life can be created. The resulting effect is a layered and complex story that engages the readers' critical awareness of fictional and factual worlds alike.

Denna undersökning har studerat ett lätt infanteriförbands användning av kombinerad bekämpning som metod för verkan under en amfibieoperation samt vilka aspekter som påverkade möjligheten till kombinerad bekämpning p.g.a. operationens amfibiska karaktär. Fallet har utgjorts av Parachute Regiments två bataljoner som under Falklandskriget utkämpade tre slag vid Darwin – Goose Green, Mount Longdon och Wireless Ridge. Som analysverktyg har använts Robert Leonhards teori om den kombinerade bekämpningens tre principer. Indikatorer på principerna har varit syften med verkan hämtade ur teorin om de grundläggande förmågorna. Två av slagen befanns endast delvis kännetecknas av Leonhards två första principer, principerna om kompletterande system och dilemman. Den tredje principen om fördelaktig terräng uppfylldes inte. Det tredje slaget regementet utkämpade kännetecknades helt igenom av Leonhards två första principer medan den tredje delvis beaktades. Undersökningen konstaterar att kombinerad bekämpning som metod för verkan kan utvecklas av ett lätt infanteriförband under en amfibieoperation. Dock ledde ofördelaktig disponering av förbandet i de aktuella fallen till att kombinerad bekämpning tidvis omöjliggjordes. Leonhards tredje princip tenderade att förringas. De specifikt amfibiska aspekterna avseende möjligheten till kombinerad bekämpning utgjordes främst av tillgången till fartygsartilleri, kraven på helikoptertransporterbart fältartilleri samt bristen på lätta trossfordon. / This dissertation has investigated how a light infantry force has used combined arms during an amphibious operation, specific factors related to the operations character affecting the possibility to develop combined arms have also been highlighted. The case chosen for the study was Parachute Regiments actions during the three battles of Darwin – Goose Green, Mount Longdon and Wireless Ridge during the Falklands War. As a analytical tool Robert Leonhard’s theory about the three principles of combined arms was used together with indicators borrowed from the theory about the warfighting functions purposes of fires. Two of the battles were found to be only partially characterized by Leonhard’s first two principles, complementary systems and dilemmas. The third principle about favorable terrain was neglected. The third battle was throughout characterized by the first two principles and to a larger extent than the former by the third principle. The dissertation concludes that light infantry can use combined arms during amphibious operations. The battles studied were, however, often characterized by unfavorable disposition of the force which affected the possibilities to use combined arms. Leonhard´s third principle was usually neglected. The most important amphibious aspects affecting the possibilities to combined arms were found to be naval gunfire support, light field artillery and the scarcity of light all-terrain vehicles.