The awakening of the body: “Film as Sensation” in the first French avant-garde

ABSTRACT

This article examines the notion of “Film as Sensation” in the first French avant-garde. It begins by exploring the meaning of this notion in a series of key films and aesthetic statements by Germaine Dulac, Jean Epstein, Pierre Porte, Henri Chomette, Jean Tedesco, and Réne Clair. Contrary to Gilles Deleuze’s account of the work of this school as Cartesian in spirit, this article seeks to demonstrate that it operates a fusion between the senses, disruption, and criticism: the three elements coming together to produce a new, integral art form. Walter Benjamin’s views on the tactile and the absent minded public of film, and Henri Bergson’s critique of time and movement in cinema are also discussed, with the latter being shown to be a key philosophical influence. The essay ends with an analysis of some films by Abel Gance, Marcel Duchamp, and Fernand Léger. It is concluded that the idea of “Film as Sensation” entrained a significant development in thinking about the mediation of perception that, once recovered from the oblivion to which it has been consigned, can help bring film theory to a reconsideration of the senses and a new attention to the aesthetics of filmic sensation.     

Convention and Intersubjectivity: New Developments in French Economics

The recently formed French School of the "économie des conventions" have claimed that they are developing a revolutionary new approach to the social sciences. This group of researchers in economics, philosophy, sociology, law and history attempt to transcend the inherited analytical frameworks of structural-functionalist sociology and neoclassical economics and provide an alternative picture of the social world. This article will investigate some of these claims in detail. First, I trace the cohesion of the Convention School's ideas around the key concept of convention. Conventionalist theory reflects an ontological shift towards the recognition of intersubjectivity. This shift leads to tension between the advocacy of methodological individualism on the one hand and the use of convention as a central analytical category on the other.     

革命—路线—范式——从人体教学相关的三个事件探讨美术教育“西化”模式的演进

人体艺术作为近代中国现代美术从西方引进的艺术形态,通过美术院校的教育传播开去,人体课在中国教学中的演进,对应着中国绘画现代化的曲折进程。从20世纪美术教育的一桩官司、二次批示、一场展览等三场与人体教学有关的事件切入,可以揭示人体教学发展的基本轨迹模式:革命—路线—范式,同时,这种"西化"模式也对应着美术演进的内在轨迹,文章还展望以人体教学为代表的美术教育,能走出"器用"型的单向之维。     

The Language of Siege: Military Metaphors in the Spoken Language of Social Work

Correspondence to Chris Beckett, School of Community Health Studies, APU, East Road, Cambridge CB1 1PT, UK. E-mail: c.o.beckett{at}apu.ac.uk Summary This article discusses the language that is used by childrenand family social workers when talking about their work, andspecifically the metaphors that such language draws upon. Thequestion of the relationship between language and reality thathas been raised by postmodernist theory is considered, but itis argued that it remains sensible to see language as ‘areflection of reality’, however partial. Drawing on ideasabout metaphor from other disciplines, it is suggested thatby identifying the sources of metaphors used in spoken languageit is possible to gain insights into underlying mental concepts.Metaphors in the language of social work are found to come fromseveral sources, including medicine, business and industry,but attention is drawn here in particular to terms with militaryconnotations, implying underlying conceptual metaphors thatequate social work with war. The implications of this are discussed.     

Equality of recruitment: Gender parity in French National Assembly elections

This research centers on the effects of the newly mandated gender parity on French electoral politics. We examine the results from the 2002 National Assembly elections. Our findings suggest that this Parity Law contributed to the modest increase in the number of female deputies elected to the National Assembly, but that the electoral success rate for female candidates declined from the previous elections in 1997. This result appears to have been affected by two factors: (1) a greater-than-average number of female candidates were affiliated with the Socialist party—the party that lost control of the government in this election and (2) many female candidates were running against male incumbents. Multivariate analysis suggests that, after these two factors are controlled for, female candidates were more likely to be elected in open seat contests than were male candidates. Preliminary analysis of roll call votes in the two most recent (1997–2004) legislative sessions suggests that party, not gender, is the main determinant of voting behavior.     

Death and the social historians: Some recent books in French and English

Philippe Ariés, L'Homme devant la mort (1977), 642 (Editions du Seuil, Paris, 69 fr.)

Pierre Chaunu, La Mort à Paris, XVIe, XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (1978), 543 (Fayard, Paris)

Robert Favre, La Mort dans la littirature et la pensee françaises au siècle des lumières (1978), 640 (Presses Universitaires de Lyon, Lyon)

Richard Cobb, Death in Paris 1795–1801 (1978), 134 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, £4–95)

David E. Stannard, The Puritan Way of Death, A Study in Religion, Culture and Social Change (1979), x+236 (Oxford University Press, Galaxy Book, Oxford, £2.25 paperback)

Richard Huntington and Peter Metcalf, Celebrations of Death, The Anthropology of Mortuary Ritual (1979), XV+230 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £12.50, paperback £4.95)     

Comparing combination acts: French and English papermaking in the age of revolution

In 1796, both France and England banned combinations among paperworkers. Most notably, these measures read as if they issued from a single pen. The twin efforts outlawed the coalitions and covenants that enabled the journeymen to organize strikes and walkouts, influence wages or output quotas, restrain the manufacturers’ latitude in hiring, and burden, even fine, unco-operative masters. By linking the lived experience of the labour process and the law, this article explores the real grit of comparative history. In doing so, it reveals the risk of emphasizing national industrial culture in the age of manufactures and nascent mechanization. It also suggests the shortcomings of Foucauldian analysis and metaphors when they are brought to the ground, that is, the actual shopfloor struggles and everyday relations of papermaking. Moreover, this article contends that authorities in Paris and London brewed a subtle blend of intervention and retreat in the governance of the trade. In the end, however, the effective regulation of papermaking, from below, survived the sister combination acts. Mechanization tipped the balance in favour of the manufacturers, but the workers’ tactics and habits of resistance persisted into the new era.     

Broadening the Conceptual Lens on Language in Social Work: Difference, Diversity and English as a Global Language

Language is infused in multiple dimensions of human behaviour,and social work is essentially a language-centred activity.Yet, despite the pivotal position of language to many socialwork activities, its significance has rarely been explored interms of difference. Moreover, the linguistic diversity thatcharacterizes the local and global contexts in which many practitionersoperate has been given minimal attention in the social workliterature. In this paper, I contend that how language is conceptualizedin social work both shapes and constrains the way that practitionersperceive issues relating to linguistic diversity. The papermaps out the limitations of some of the existing conceptuallens used for viewing language in relation to the multilingualmilieu in which social work takes place. It also draws attentionto the global pre-eminence of English, the significance of bilingualismand the limitations of a monolingual frame of reference forsocial work. A case is made for augmenting the existing knowledgebase on language with a multidisciplinary approach to languagethat incorporates bilingual perspectives. Rather than providinga definitive model for understanding language, I suggest thatsuch an approach expands the conceptual landscape for exploringlanguage and difference in social work.     

走在行乐与悲观的边缘——从《古诗十九首》看汉代文人的人生关注

汉末士人多忧患,面对经学衰颓,经历了党锢之祸的汉末文人开始对传统的价值观与人生观产生怀疑,他们为社会的危机重重而感到悲观,四下弥漫着的悲观情绪交织着他们狂狷与张扬的个性,感叹时光易逝,何不及时行乐。八首“人生”题材的诗中充斥着这种矛盾的情绪,但恰恰是这些诗却体现出了一种人性的复归,诗中更加关注“人”这个本体,关注人的内心世界,体现了作者对人生、生命、生活的强烈的欲求和留恋,是内在人格的觉醒和追求。     

语言观念的变迁:北京语音如何成为近代国语标准音

在清末最后二十多年的切音字运动时期,许多文字改革者对于当时的切音字应该以何音为标准争论不一,囿于传统的文/野之分的文化观念,有的人主张以南音(南京话)为正音,但大多数人还是以传统的北方官话音为是。作为一地方言,现代北京音在1930年代才正式确立其国语标准音的地位,它是时人语言观念、教育观念、社会政治文化等各种因素相互作用下的产物。