Virtual Library

In recent years, I have been led to think that the juridical - understood in the guise of the judiciary, with its written laws, its tribunals, its judges, and the pronouncement of the sentence in which the law is said - offered the philosopher the opportunity to reflect on the specificity of law, in its proper place, halfway between morality and politics. To give a dramatic turn to the opposition that I am making here between a political philosophy where the question of law is obscured by the fear of the incoercible presence of evil in history, and a philosophy where law is recognized in its specificity not violent, I propose to say that war is the haunting theme of political philosophy, and peace that of the philosophy of law.

Brahim, enfant, a perdu son sourire : à peine arrivé de sa Kabylie natale, ensanglantée par la guerre, il a vu tomber au quartier Latin l'un de ses frères, lors de la manifestation du 17 octobre 1961. En grandissant, il prend conscience, avec ses copains de la cité-béton, des dures réalités de l'émigration. "Dans la France des années 60-80, l'itinéraire d'un adolescent d'origine maghrébine en quête d'une identité partagée entre deux cultures, comme deux plaies jamais refermées." - Electre Un article de Maria Petrescu : "Conflit et intégration dans Le Sourire de Brahim de Nacer Kettane et Kiffe Kiffe demain de Faïza Guène" est lié à cette notice.

Salie vit en France. Son frère, Madické, rêve de l’y rejoindre et compte sur elle. Mais comment lui expliquer la face cachée de l’immigration, lui qui voit la France comme une terre promise où réussissentles footballeurs sénégalais, où vont se réfugier ceux qui, comme Sankèle, fuient un destin tragique ? Les relations entre Madické et Salie nous dévoilent l’inconfortable situation des « venus de France », écrasés par les attentes démesurées de ceux qui sont restés au pays et confrontés à la difficulté d’être l’autre partout. Distillant leurre et espoir, Le Ventre de l’Atlantique charrie entre l’Europe et l’Afrique des destins contrastés. Car, même si la souffrance de ceux qui restent est indicible, il s’agit de partir, voguer, libre comme une alguede l’Atlantique. Ce premier roman, sans concession, est servi par une écriture pleine de souffleet d’humour.

In the early years of the People's Republic, the Communist Party sought to transform gender relations. Yet those gains have been steadily eroded in China's post-socialist era.

Contrary to the image presented by China's media, women in China have experienced a dramatic rollback of rights and gains relative to men.

In Leftover Women, Leta Hong Fincher exposes shocking levels of structural discrimination against women, and the broader damage this has caused to China's economy, politics, and development.

In this well-known critique, Duncan Kennedy argues that legal education reinforces class, race, and gender inequality in our society. However, Kennedy proposes a radical egalitarian alternative vision of what legal education should become, and a strategy, starting from the anarchist idea of workplace organizing, for struggle in that direction. Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy is comprehensive, covering everything about law school from the first day to moot court to job placement to life after law school. Kennedy’s book remains one of the most cited works on American legal education.

Printemps 1956. Pour l'Algérie, c'est le temps de la guerre et de la lutte pour l'indépendance. Dans cette ville au flanc d’une montagne, ceux qui combattent risquent l'exil, la prison, la torture, la mort. Les femmes regardent le maquis où leurs maris font la révolution. Assia Djebar fait entendre les cris et les silences de ces femmes qui, tout autant que les maquisards, se sont battues pour voir leur pays libre.

Assia Djebar, one of the most distinguished woman writers to emerge from the Arab world, wrote Children of the New World following her own involvement in the Algerian resistance to colonial French rule. Like the classic film The Battle of Algiers--enjoying renewed interest in the face of world events--Djebar's novel sheds light on current world conflicts as it reveals a determined Arab insurgency against foreign occupation, from the inside out. However, Djebar focuses on the experiences of women drawn into the politics of resistance. Her novel recounts the interlocking lives of women in a rural Algerian town who find themselves joined in solidarity and empower each other to engage in the fight for independence. Narrating the resistance movement from a variety of perspectives--from those of traditional wives to liberated students to political organizers--Djebar powerfully depicts the circumstances that drive oppressed communities to violence and at the same time movingly reveals the tragic costs of war.

This book presents 130 letters written by Jews interned in the Drancy internment camp in the suburbs of Paris between 1941 and 1944. The letters describe the experiences of those interned, their fears, their incomprehension, and their daily routines up until their deportation to the Nazi extermination camps. 

During the Holocaust, while imprisoned at the Fresnes Prison and then later interned at the Drancy Camp, Louise Jacobson, a French Jewish teenager, wrote letters to her family and friends. Louise, who was denounced by a neighbor for not wearing the yellow star and for suspected communist activity, recounts in these letters her experiences as a young prisoner, her worries, and her plans for when she is liberated. Louise ultimately died in Auschwitz. Her sister Nadia saved the letters and comments on them in this volume.

Paris et ses prisons, ses égouts. Paris insurgé : le Paris des révolutions, des barricades sur lesquelles fraternisent les hommes du peuple. Paris incarné à travers la fi gure de Gavroche, enfant des rues effronté et malicieux. Hugo retrace ici avec force les misères et les heures glorieuses des masses vivantes qui se retrouvent. Les événements se précipitent, les personnages se rencontrent, se heurtent, s’unissent parfois, à l’image de Cosette et de Marius. L’histoire du forçat évadé et de la petite miséreuse symbolise quelque chose de plus grand : avec Les Misérables, Hugo réalise enfin l’esprit du peuple.

Victor Hugo's tale of injustice, heroism and love follows the fortunes of Jean Valjean, an escaped convict determined to put his criminal past behind him. But his attempts to become a respected member of the community are constantly put under threat: by his own conscience, when, owing to a case of mistaken identity, another man is arrested in his place; and by the relentless investigations of the dogged Inspector Javert. It is not simply for himself that Valjean must stay free, however, for he has sworn to protect the baby daughter of Fantine, driven to prostitution by poverty.

In this powerful, compassionate work, one of anthropology’s most distinguished ethnographers weaves together rich fieldwork with a compelling critical analysis in a book that will surely make a signal contribution to contemporary thinking about violence and how it affects everyday life. Veena Das examines case studies including the extreme violence of the Partition of India in 1947 and the massacre of Sikhs in 1984 after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. In a major departure from much anthropological inquiry, Das asks how this violence has entered "the recesses of the ordinary" instead of viewing it as an interruption of life to which we simply bear witness. Das engages with anthropological work on collective violence, rumor, sectarian conflict, new kinship, and state and bureaucracy as she embarks on a wide-ranging exploration of the relations among violence, gender, and subjectivity. Weaving anthropological and philosophical reflections on the ordinary into her analysis, Das points toward a new way of interpreting violence in societies and cultures around the globe. The book will be indispensable reading across disciplinary boundaries as we strive to better understand violence, especially as it is perpetrated against women.