Controversy

Have you ever entertained an idea that just seemed too crazy, controversial or divisive to share under your own name? Perhaps you posted a few anonymous comments on blogs. You discussed it with your closest friends. You’ve written a short tract, but where do you publish it? With the announcement of a new journal — the Journal of Controversial Ideas — there is now such a forum (BTW, there is also a publication on Medium called The Controversial Idea). The journal itself originated with a controversial idea, largely credited to Peter Singer. Singer is the Australian ethicist who had his tenure at Princeton University threatened by alumni, the university’s Board of Trustees and activist groups, after taking controversial stances on bestiality and infanticide.

Resumen: El escritor cretense Nikos Kazantzakis mantuvo a lo largo de su vida un continuo interés en la figura de Cristo, lo que también tuvo su plasmación en su carrera literaria. Una de sus obras principales, la novela La última tentación, abordaba de una manera moderna y heterodoxa los hechos de la vida de Jesús de Nazaret, generando gran polémica en múltiples sectores de diversas religiones. Tiempo después el director de cine estadounidense Martin Scorsese debió afrontar numerosos problemas y retrasos para adaptar la novela a la gran pantalla. Y, cuando finalmente consiguió estrenar La última tentación de Cristo, la polémica también lo alcanzó a él y a su película, aunque el paso del tiempo ha ido relajando unas reacciones más fanáticas que reflexionadas. Palabras clave: adaptación cinematográfica, Martin Scorsese, Nikos Kazantzakis, Cristo, religión, polémica.
Abstract: The Cretan writer Nikos Kazantzakis had a continuous lifelong interest in the figure of Christ, which also had an influence on his literary career. One of his principal works, the novel The Last Temptation, was a modern and heterodox approach to the facts surrounding the life of Jesus of Nazareth's, generating massive controversy in many sections of the world's religions. Later, the American film director Martin Scorsese faced many problems and schedule delays while trying to adapt the novel for the big screen. And when he finally completed The Last Temptation of Christ, the controversy extended to him and his movie, though the passing of time has eased reactions that were more fanatical than considered.

While the French feminist movements campaigning to obtain the right to vote between the 1870s and the 1930s are well known, the struggles for women's access to higher education and professional work have not yet been studied in depth. Although the French Third Republic (1871–1940) claimed to adhere to the principles of equality, meritocracy and the ‘free competition of talents’, which translated concretely into the creation of a system of scholarships, competitions and professional degrees which provided access to many of the professional careers, these doors remained largely closed to the first women attempting to enter them. The controversies that this situation provoked are the subject of this article, which draws from professional, parliamentary, press and activist sources. More broadly, through examining this particular series of controversies, the article aims to give an account of the mechanisms and arguments that are generally used to make such discriminations publicly acceptable within institutional spaces that are formally governed by the principle of equal access.

It is perhaps regrettably so that one of the defining features of social work is its tendency to become embroiled in and mixed up with controversy. When social workers make the news, the news is usually bad. For publics outrage is often a dominant mode of engagement with social work. However, if controversy is prominent in perceptions of social work, it is nevertheless particular types of controversies. Cast in various guises as "crisis", "scandal", "moral panic", "failures" and "tragedy" social work is inevitably caught up in a complex set of inimical circumstances. It's a job that brings practitioners face-to-face with anger, abuse, cruelty and heartbreak. This  means social work is sometimes colloquially  referred to as "grunt work" or "dirty work" (Hughes, 1962; Flaherty, 2014).  In "A Profession Chasing its Own Tail-Again" (1990) Hartman warned that conflicts, controversy and rifts are a sad part of the professional history of social work. Alongside this emotive terms, phrases and concepts which invoke failure and controversy are often strategically deployed to manufacture doubt and suspicion about the credibility of social work as a profession. In the UK recently this has certainly been the case with the likes of parliamentarian Michael Gove and policy advisor Martin Narey casting doubt on the worthiness of social work education in preparing students for front-line practice.  Arguably, it only through a thorough investigation of controversy that we can come to understand what permits previously distant characters such as Grove and Narey access to the social work stage. For all the attention given to and preoccupation with these concerns there is no single analysis of the nature of controversy to be found in the social work literature.

Hydraulic fracturing is an energy extraction process that is increasingly attracting controversy. This article seeks to outline how the media report hydraulic fracturing (or " fracking "), and to explore its place within the reporting of energy concerns generally. To this end, it draws on an environmental communication perspective to understand the media reporting of the issue and the processes that shape it. This review reveals that media reporting of fracking is partitioned broadly according to discussions of the economic benefits or the environmental risks associated with the process. Further, these observed patterns in the reporting appear to mirror the recognized claims made about the issue, and the influence from protests and online media alongside national polity on energy production and security. While there is evidence that the practices of journalists and the geographic, economic and political contexts of their news production environments shape the amounts and the types of news reporting, the publics' perceptions appear, somewhat knowledgeable, but largely ambivalent or undecided on the issue at present. Therefore, it is argued that future research must continue to examine the reporting of hydraulic fracturing, its context, production, and its wider reception to develop our understanding of the role of the media in national conversations on fracking, energy, and the environment.

Mini-mémoire réalisé en deuxième année de Master, dans le cadre d'un séminaire sur Poullain de La Barre et la recherche de l'égalité des sexes. Je me suis intéressée ici aux enjeux d'un texte latin parodique du XVIe siècle, traduit en français au XVIIIe siècle, qui veut démontrer en imitant une secte chrétienne hérétique que les femmes ne sont pas des êtres humains, en prenant comme socle de son raisonnement le texte biblique et un événement historique bien réel, à savoir le concile de Mâcon (en 585 de notre ère environ), qui débattit sur la question de l'humanité des femmes...

Parution chez Brepols

Une histoire du Grand Schisme écrit sous l’angle des polémiques et des constructions doctrinales issues des controverses, tel est le but de l’ouvrage. Il s’agit, en reconstituant la trame de l’intertextualité du temps de mesurer le poids des polémiques dans les orientations politiques et ecclésiologiques des acteurs du temps et des institutions, soucieuses de prendre place dans l’espace public en vue d’un contrôle de l’opinion. Les réseaux textuels et discursifs révèlent alors toute une ambiance : celle d’un temps de violences symboliques et de non-dits, de censures et de pressions, selon les rapports de force des partis en présence. La personne du pape avignonnais Benoît XIII divise plus encore que le pape romain du temps. Si l’enjeu reste l’unité de l’Église, le désir d’éviction d’un pape opiniâtre aura permis la mise au point de tactiques canoniques voire d’innovations ecclésiologiques. Temps de crise indéniablement, le Grand Schisme s’avère également un temps de dynamisme et d’audaces ecclésiologiques inédits.
Maître de Conférences HDR de l’Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre, Bénédicte Sère est spécialiste d’histoire culturelle et sociale de la pensée, d’anthropologie scolastique, d’histoire des émotions et d’ecclésiologie.

The animated series "South Park" was created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone and has been broadcast on cable television since 1997. Meanwhile, the series has a global distribution and fan base. The article situates "South Park" in the U.S. media landscape and presents the production context, as well as the formal and narrative structure of the series, before focusing on a concrete example and its reception. The impact of the series "Cartoon Wars" Part 1 and Part 2, broadcast in April 2006, is examined in detail and serves as a case study for debates about free speech and censorship, which were first negotiated in the series, but ultimately also led to worldwide news reports, after the "South Park" creators received death threats, because Mohammed appeared in a bear costume in one of the series. Finally, the concept of the grotesque understood as a 'irreconcilability of thinking' is transferred to the production logic of "South Park".

We live in scandalous times. Every day some new controversy demands our attention, our emotional investment, and, ultimately, our judgment. Many of these routine transgressions will be understood in ‘revelatory’ terms, as peeling back the multiple layers of artifice and spin to reveal an underlying, and oftentimes disturbing, ‘truth’. Others will be recognized as calculated marketing exercises that simply present the strategic face of contemporary capitalism.

Yet these ‘ordinary’ scandals can themselves be seen to be largely derivative of another, altogether more fundamental—and fundamentally rare—form of disruption. Such is the real scandal that accompanies instances of authentic creation. Building on the philosophy of Alain Badiou, Scandalous Times not only argues the case for such ‘real scandal’, but also shows how it is today being abrogated and substituted through the increasing production of novel forms of state-sanctioned controversy.

From Duchamp to Donald Trump, Scandalous Times explores the ways in which areas from art and advertising to politics and social media have come to actively contribute to this ‘static’ fabrication of controversy, all the while arguing for the need to rethink creativity as a radical exception to the state, and not its proxy.

“Alex Ling presents a powerful argument on the nature of scandal and pseudo-scandal today through a concise and lucid account of Alain Badiou’s theory of being and the scandalous event that occasionally irrupts within it, allowing for the possibility of real change. This is a truly striking demonstration of the extraordinary potential of Badiou’s thought for critical theory and cultural studies. It should be studied for its exemplary methodology as much for its original readings and conclusions.” Kenneth Reinhard, Professor of Comparative Literature and English, University of California, Los Angeles, USA

“Alex Ling’s Scandalous Times is a lucid argument that the realm of contemporary scandal is one in which everything changes so everything can stay the same. Against this conservatism, Ling provides a philosophical defence of the real scandal that would overturn our scandalous reality.” Benjamin Noys, Professor of Critical Theory, University of Chichester, UK

“Alex Ling turns a much needed philosophical gaze on scandals, one of those key yet widely misunderstood concepts currently shaping our reactionary political age. Ling’s lucid, challenging and thoroughly engaging analysis forces us to think of our current political moment as one saturated with ‘simulacral scandals’ (or state-sanctioned controversies), both perversely satisfying an inevitable demand for shock and horror in times such as ours, and precluding any real change. Building on Badiouian philosophy, this timely and powerful book is not just a sharp and original account of how to think about scandals and the role they play in our societies, but a guide for how to reimagine them, and explore ways towards new political horizons and ultimately ‘the possibility of real happiness’.” Aurelien Mondon, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of Bath, UK

This article examines renowned yet controversial American photographer Spencer Tunick, whose work has led to numerous arrests, a high profile court-case and finally, success abroad. Spencer Tunick's photographic works, which he calls installations, have brought him great renown, but his work was and continues to be hazardous, exposing the unstable rules about art and nudity in public space. Masses of naked bodies populate his works, standing up, lying down, painted blue, lifted up, holding hands, in public spaces all over the world. Tunick is not interested in sexualised imagery: the boundaries he wants to push against are political. Ironically, it was his high-profile court-case win in 2000 to photograph a group of nude persons outdoors in New York that led to increased censorship, and –more fortuitously– to international success. Using archival records, interviews (by the author) with Tunick and reflections on the interactions between photography, the law, morality and public ...

RESUMEN Diálogo, carta, tratado, homilía, testimonia e incluso poesía son las principales formas de la controversia adversus Iudaeos, que recurrió a la exégesis del Antiguo Testamento como base de la argumentación. Las circunstancias históricas del desencuentro entre el cristianismo y el judaísmo afectaron en gran manera a los escritos de esta polémica, que van desde la apo-logía de los primeros tiempos a la reiteración de tópicos antijudaicos de la época del imperio cristiano. El uso de las formas literarias dependía en gran manera de la finalidad de las obras y especialmente de los destinatarios, aunque en muchas ocasiones no es fácil saber si eran los judíos, los cristianos o ambos colectivos. PALABRAS CLAVE: polémica adversus Iudaeos, literatura cristiana de época imperial romana, géneros literarios, apología cristiana, literatura grecorromana. LITERARY FORMS AND GENRES OF THE CONTROVERSY ADVERSUS IUDAEOS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE PERIOD ABSTRACT Dialogue, Epistle, Treatise, Homily, Testimonia, even Poetry are the main forms of the controversy adversus Iudaeos, that resorted to the exegesis of the Old Testament as the basis of the argument. The historical circumstances of the disagreement between Christianity and Judaism have a direct relationship with the contents of this controversy: in the early life of Christianity the writings were apologetic, and during the Christian empire were repeated the anti-Jewish topics. The use of the literary forms depended on the purpose and the recipients of the works. In many cases, however, it is not easy to know wether the recipients were the Jews, the Christians or both collectives. KEY WORDS: controversy adversus Iudaeos, christian literature of Roman Empire period, literary genres, christian apologetics, Greco-Roman literature.

Cet article aborde la question de la persécution nazie des lesbiennes, de la constitution d’une mémoire collective et
bien entendu, la controverse qui oppose militants gay, militantes lesbiennes et féministes. En s’appuyant sur une étude sociologique relative à la perception des couples homosexuels, l’article montre qu’à travers la commémoration des victimes homosexuelles du nazisme, c’est en fait l’acceptation différentielle des
couples de même sexe qui est au cœur du débat.

ABSTRACT: The historiographic, bibliographic, demographic and mathematical analysis done around the different versions presented about the ammount of inhabitants that Paraguay had in the year 1864, when the War of the Triple Alliance was unleashed by the Brazilian Invasion of Uruguay, gives as the most acceptable result that the population of the country should have been close to 1.200.000 souls, as affirmed by Col. Franz Wisner von Morgenstern, Chief of Engineers of the Paraguayan Army during the conflict. This study questions the different known positions about the subject and concludes that the idea that Paraguay had less than 500.000 inhabitants at the outbreak of the War of the Triple Alliance is just a poorly sustained hypothesis because of insufficient and biased evidences.

RESUMEN: El análisis historiográfico, bibliográfico, demográfico y matemático que hemos realizado sobre las diversas versiones que se han presentado sobre la cantidad de habitantes que contaba el Paraguay en el año 1864, cuando estalló la Guerra de la Triple Alianza con la Invasión Brasileña del Uruguay, nos arroja como resultado más aceptable que la población del país debía hallarse en torno a 1.200.000 almas, como lo había afirmado el Cnel. Franz Wisner von Morgenstern, Jefe de Ingenieros del Ejército Paraguayo durante la contienda. El estudio realizado cuestiona las diferentes posiciones conocidas y concluye que la idea de que Paraguay tuviera menos de 500.000 habitantes al estallar la Guerra de la Triple Alianza no es sino una hipótesis sostenida por evidencia pobre, sesgada e insuficiente.

Pourquoi Freud, mort depuis 1939, fait-il encore régulièrement scandale dans les grands médias ? Plus encore que la psychanalyse, c’est sa personne qui est régulièrement attaquée. Dernier éclat en date : la parution en 2010 du Crépuscule d’une idole, de Michel Onfray, qui affirmait que Freud n’était qu’un simple affabulateur. Le siècle écoulé compte ainsi une série de scandales qui, au lieu d’atteindre Freud, l’ont édifié en mythe. Car dénigrer Freud, c’est le populariser. Mieux : c’est accomplir une prophétie qu’il n’a lui-même cessé de prédire.

Samuel Lézé enseigne à l’École normale supérieure de Lyon, au sein de laquelle il est également responsable de l’équipe DSM (Dire la santé mentale) à l’Institut d’histoire des représentations et des idées dans les modernités (IHRIM). Il est l’auteur de L’Autorité des psychanalystes (Puf, 2010) et codirecteur de La Question morale (Puf, 2013).

Condisciples à l’École normale supérieure où ils se lièrent d’amitié, Jean- Paul Sartre et Maurice Merleau-Ponty furent également associés lors de la fondation par Sartre de la revue Les Temps modernes aux côtés de Simone de Beauvoir en 1945.
Merleau-Ponty rejoignit le comité directeur d’origine et y siégea jusqu’à la fin de l’année 1952.
C’est alors qu’eut lieu la rupture de leur amitié, lorsque Sartre décida, sans prévenir Merleau-Ponty, de ne pas publier un texte de ce dernier devant chapeauter et servir d’avertissement à un article d’inspiration marxiste révolutionnaire de Pierre Naville.
Après un rappel historique de cette rupture et de la controverse qui en découla, nous nous intéresserons à l’ouvrage « Les aventures de la dialectique », publié par Merleau- Ponty deux années plus tard, dans lequel il explicite les raisons philosophiques de sa rupture avec le marxisme.
Plus particulièrement, nous étudierons le cinquième chapitre, intitulé « Sartre et l’ultra-bolchevisme » dans lequel l’auteur critique l’ontologie de Sartre comme étant une théorie de l’action pure menant à un communisme méconnaissant l’histoire et la vérité.
En conclusion, nous évoquerons l’effet de ce texte au sein de la querelle, de la controverse aussi bien politique que philosophique entre Merleau-Ponty et Sartre, dont les positions respectives resteront définitivement incompatibles et opposées.

In exploring two different kinds of early modern institutional religious discourses, i.e. catechisms and exposition of discussed matters, this article highlights two modes of enunciative fading off. On the one hand, catechisms look like dialogues, but they are actually full of apparently “autonomous” utterances. On the other hand, exposition, a supposedly neutral presentation, proves to be pervaded by a subdued but clearly partial subjectivity, a chiaroscuro presence very much in tune with the mediate and transitive Christian regime of authority.

L’étude de deux types de discours religieux institutionnels, les catéchismes et l’exposition de matières controversées, permet de mettre au jour deux modes d’effacement énonciatif : les catéchismes miment le dialogue, mais multiplient les énoncés « autonomisés » ; l’exposition, qui se veut présentation neutre, s’avère constellée de marqueurs d’une subjectivité certes pacifiée mais partiale – présence en demi-teinte conforme au caractère médiat et transitif de l’autorité en régime chrétien.

In exploring two different kinds of early modern institutional religious discourses, i.e. catechisms and exposition of discussed matters, this article highlights two modes of enunciative fading off. On the one hand, catechisms look like dialogues, but they are actually full of apparently “autonomous” utterances. On the other hand, exposition, a supposedly neutral presentation, proves to be pervaded by a subdued but clearly partial subjectivity, a chiaroscuro presence very much in tune with the mediate and transitive Christian regime of authority.

El estudio de dos tipos de discusos religiosos institucionales, los catecismos y la exposición de temas sometidos a controversia, premite presentar dos modalidades de borramiento enunciativo : los catecismos miman al diálogo, pero multiplican los enunciados “autonomizados” ; la exposición, que se pretende presentación neutra, se presenta constelada por marcadores de una subjetividad, a su vez pacificada pero parcial – presencia esbozada conforme al caráter mediato y transitivo de la autoridad bajo un regimen cristiano.

Este capítulo busca indagar en las formas de pensar frente a la pandemia de covid-19. La fragilidad de las ideas imperantes para dar cuenta del nuevo virus quedó expuesta en las teorías conspirativas y los argumentos negacionistas, pero también en el modo en que muchos intelectuales intentaron darle sentido a la pandemia: algunos consideraron que las reacciones eran “irracionales”, otros minimizaron el virus, varios solo consideraron que los Estados aprovecharían esta pandemia para volverse totalitarios y opresivos. Este capítulo intenta tomar las formas de representar la pandemia como un objeto de análisis en sí mismo, como un estilo de pensamiento. Se toman las manifestaciones de diversos intelectuales en relación con el nuevo coronavirus, así como expresiones viralizadas en redes sociales. Dichas formas de pensamiento serán caracterizadas y analizadas en función de 1) si su marco interpretativo concibe al mundo como una totalidad homogénea sin fisuras o si es receptivo a las contradicciones que puede tener, 2) si tiende a congelar los acontecimientos para su análisis o si los concibe en términos dinámicos y 3) si aísla las partes del conjunto o si observa las relaciones mutuas entre ellos. A través de estas categorías, se muestra que varias formas de pensar la pandemia se caracterizaron por la ausencia de un pensamiento dialéctico. El análisis de las formas de pensar la pandemia permitirá mostrar que, en la ausencia de un pensamiento dialéctico, los razonamientos iniciales se vieron dificultados para comprender el fenómeno emergente, lo cual derivó en teorías conspirativas y argumentos simples y lineales.

Fin 1917, Apollinaire place l’« esprit nouveau » sous la notion centrale et banale de la « surprise ». Il cherche alors à fédérer un groupe de poètes proches des cubistes, qui prend l’ascendant sur la scène littéraire cette année-là. Les réactions sont immédiates, tant chez les complices (Cocteau, Cendrars, Jacob, Reverdy) que chez les adversaires (Tzara, Vaché, Breton). La « surprise » devient alors le terme que les différents acteurs du réseau poétique s’approprient, dans la coopération ou la rivalité. Cette étude montre comment une notion au faible intérêt esthétique devient subitement emblématique des plus fortes innovations poétiques d’une année charnière. Elle donne également un aperçu d'une critique des réseaux d'un point de vue historique.

The animated series "South Park" was created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone and has been broadcast on cable television since 1997. Meanwhile, the series has a global distribution and fan base. The article situates "South Park" in the U.S. media landscape and presents the production context, as well as the formal and narrative structure of the series, before focusing on a concrete example and its reception. The impact of the series "Cartoon Wars" Part 1 and Part 2, broadcast in April 2006, is examined in detail and serves as a case study for debates about free speech and censorship, which were first negotiated in the series, but ultimately also led to worldwide news reports, after the "South Park" creators received death threats, because Mohammed appeared in a bear costume in one of the series. Finally, the concept of the grotesque understood as a 'irreconcilability of thinking' is transferred to the production logic of "South Park".

Em 2011, foi realizado um plebiscito no Estado do Pará para consultar a população acerca do interesse em dividir o Estado em três: Pará, Tapajós e Carajás. Tomando como ponto de partida os relatos de atores envolvidos na luta e no movimento pela criação do Estado do Tapajós, apresentarei uma etnografia sobre o processo de criação de uma unidade federativa, expondo as ações realizadas ao longo do tempo para possibilitar que o novo Estado fosse criado. A partir da descrição de eventos ocorridos durante a campanha para o plebiscito na cidade de Santarém/PA, apresentarei um recorte da disputa e as controvérsias existentes entre as expectativas sobre o que a concretização do projeto acarretaria, refletindo sobre quais elaborações, quais provas, quais repertórios argumentativos e justificações foram apresentados para produzir a crença de que a luta pela criação do Estado do Tapajós era uma “causa” em nome do bem comum de uma região particular.

Rise in the popularity of digital media has resulted in social media being used not only by individuals for networking purposes but also by brands for activities like promotion, starting conversations, and maintaining public relations with their patrons and followers alike. This rise has given more power to the user to produce and disseminate content making him a stakeholder with the power to dictate terms. In such an environment, it is only natural for brands to bear the brunt of any controversy online. This is a working paper involving a study of the use of social media in the Maggi controversy. To document a case study, a quantitative methodological approach was used. A content analysis of the Facebook page (Meri Maggi) and Twitter handle (@MaggiIndia) of Maggi India was done. In addition, a survey was conducted on a purposive sample of fifty respondents from the city of Mumbai. Results of the study project new media as an emerging source of news dissemination. It calls for a need to transform intangible digital offerings into tangibles ones apart from raising a number of questions on the social media consumption and food culture of the young Indian.

The phrase ‘museums are safe spaces for unsafe ideas’ belies the reality that museums are often wary of discussing unsafe ideas, not to mention queer ideas which often fall under this classification. Yet the phrase follows from the aspiration that museums can do better—that they can be socially responsive and responsible, and that they can seek to include the diversity of communities they serve. The three exhibitions discussed are moments where their host institutions pursued the implications of the phrase leading to queer inclusiveness but also to controversy: 'Mapplethorpe' at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, in 1995; 'Becoming Visible' at the Constitutional Museum, Adelaide, in 1982; and 'Prejudice and Pride' at the Australian Museum, Sydney, in 1994. Controversy almost inevitably follows from unsafe and queer ideas, the issue becoming how to mediate rather than avoid it. The above museum moments together suggest directions for best museum and heritage practice based on progressive organisational cultures, strong leadership and openness to experimentation. In actively encouraging these three elements, museums can reaffirm and defend themselves as safe spaces for unsafe ideas.

Comme dans de nombreux domaines technologiques et industriels, l’exploration et l’exploitation minières s’appuient sur des instruments censés prévoir et organiser les développements futurs et leurs conséquences. Dans cet article, nous nous intéressons à trois formes de mobilisation du futur dans le cadre de ces activités et de leurs contestations : 1) l’investissement, caractérisé par le calcul des profits futurs et la place centrale accordée aux risques susceptibles de les remettre en cause ; 2) l’anticipation, qui associe l’activité extractive à des considérations plus larges susceptibles de faire émerger des questionnements nouveaux et une autre définition des risques ; 3) la planification, qui consiste à organiser l’activité minière en fonction d’objectifs à atteindre, tels que le développement territorial, par exemple. En se fondant sur plusieurs terrains (France métropolitaine, Nouvelle-Calédonie, Guyane), cet article propose de montrer qu’une analyse des formes de mobilisation du futur permet de repenser le problème bien connu des relations entre les entreprises minières, l’environnement et les populations concernées.

Photographer Spencer Tunick has been given a lot of freedom in some of the most conservative places. But in New York, that city shrouded in myths of unlimited artistic possibilities, he has not been able to work for nearly two decades. From police violence to bizarre legal battles, the article chronicles Tunick's charged relationship with the streets of New York.

O objetivo desta tese de doutorado é analisar o processo de "plataformização" do jornalismo pelo Facebook, com foco nas disputas e controvérsias em torno das parcerias comerciais, tecnológicas e editoriais estabelecidas entre a plataforma e instituições jornalísticas. Por plataformização entende-se o processo de imbricamento e mútua moldagem entre a lógica das plataformas online e diferentes setores sociais. No caso do jornalismo, o Facebook se oferece como infraestrutura que promete soluções e demanda ajustes nas práticas e lógicas de funcionamento das instituições. Nosso estudo se concentra entre os meses de janeiro de 2014 e julho de 2019. Neste período, identificamos dois momentos principais deste processo de plataformização: o primeiro está centrado na implementação da ferramenta Instant Articles, através da qual, desde 2015, a plataforma procura se estabelecer como infraestrutura para a produção, circulação e monetização do conteúdo jornalístico; o segundo se organiza em torno do Facebook Journalism Project, iniciativa lançada em 2017 a fim de estreitar os laços e fomentar o setor jornalístico através de iniciativas como financiamento de projetos, treinamentos, e parcerias com agências de fact-checking. A pesquisa também se dedica a analisar dois momentos de crise: a seleção de conteúdo no Trending Topics e a exclusão da fotografia “The Terror of War”. Tomadas como “controvérsias algorítmicas”, estas situações ocorridas em 2016 nos permitem compreender como um crescente questionamento da suposta neutralidade das agências do Facebook foi decisivo nos ajustes propostos para a plataformização do jornalismo. Nosso referencial teórico é composto por conceitos vinculados aos Science and Technology Studies, mais especificamente aos Estudos de Plataforma, aos Estudos Críticos de Algoritmos e à Teoria Ator-Rede. A cartografia de controvérsias e o modelo “the connective approach” (VAN DIJCK, 2013a) são nossas principais inspirações metodológicas. Dentre os autores com os quais dialogamos estão Van Dijck et al. (2018), Helmond (2015), Helmond et al. (2018), Bucher (2012 e 2018), Bucher e Helmond (2017), Plantin et. al (2018), Nieborg e Poell (2018), Gillespie (2010, 2018), Napoli e Caplan (2018).

Throughout the nineteenth century, Maskilic journals increased their publication of anti-Hasidic satires. From the eighteen-sixties onward, this literature came primarily as a response to the revival in the publishing of Hasidic hagiography and to the spread of Hasidism into new territory. To this point, no complete review or even general survey has been performed on this extensive polemical literature, despite the fact that it has much to teach us about Hasidism and the Haskalah in those years. We are not speaking of an insignificant bibliographical lacuna, but of a disregard for an entire field of research which would shed light not only on a forgotten chapter of modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature but also on an important chapter in the relationships between Maskilim and Hasidim in that period and the genesis and development of the different streams of Hasidism. This Maskilic literature intended to do more than eradicate Hasidism; it aimed to strengthen the self-consciousness of the individual Maskilim who found themselves alone in Hasidic territory. Paradoxically, the literature documented the very movement it intended to eradicate from the world. The distorted reflection displayed in the anti-Hasidic literature does more than present a caricature of its subject -- it conceals hitherto unknown elements about the nature and development of the Hasidic movement. The present article deals with one such case, a satire on Bratslav Hasidism from 1863, which has at its core a Maskilic satirical text written by Yehiel Meller on pilgrimage to the grave of R. Nahman of Bratslav in Uman.





כתבי עת של משכילים לאורך המאה התשע עשרה הרבו לפרסם סאטירות בגנותה של החסידות. משנות הששים ואילך באה ספרות זו בעיקר כתגובה להתעוררות הדפסת ספרות השבחים החסידית ולהתפשטות החסידות במרחבים חדשים. לא קיימת עד עתה סקירה שלימה, ואף לא מיפוי כללי, של אותה ספרות פולמוסית ענפה, על אף שיש בה ללמד הרבה על דרכי החסידות וההשכלה באותן שנים.  לא מדובר רק בחסרון ביבליוגרפי שאין לו משמעות, אלא בהתעלמות משדה מחקר רב עניין שעשוי להאיר לא רק על פרק נשכח בספרות עברית ויידיש החדשה אלא גם על פרק חשוב ביחסים בין משכילים לחסידים באותה תקופה, ועל דרכי צמיחתם, פיצולם והתפתחותם של זרמים שונים בחסידות. הייתה זו ספרות שיותר מאשר נועדה לבער את החסידות נועדה לחזק את תודעתם העצמית של המשכילים הבודדים במרחבים החסידיים; ספרות שבאופן פרדוקסלי תיעדה תנועה אותה חפצו לבער מן העולם. הבבואה המעוותת בה התהדרה הסאטירה האנטי חסידית לא רק הציגה דימוי – אלא טומנת בחובה הצבעה על אלמנטים חדשים ועל התפתחויות בחסידות. במקרה אחד ממין זה הנוגע לחסידות ברסלב בשנות השישים של המאה התשע עשרה עוסק המאמר. שלפנינו - שעיקרו מהדורה של טקסט משכילי שכתב יחיאל מלר - בשנת 1863 - על העלייה לקבר ר' נחמן מברסלב באומן
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This volume testifies to the unresolved contradictions built into both the possible solutions to the problem of the paranormal and into the controversy itself. Scientific and theoretical approaches to the field usually do not seem able to resolve the contradictions of mediumistic controversies but rather add contradictions of their own. Furthermore, they tend to forget that the core of the controversy, or rather controversies, lies in practical negotiations and negotiations about practical exigencies. That is why an ethnographic approach shows time and again how local actors use all the theoretical resources of academic life and academic reasoning available to them, and that theoretical distinctions are bound to appear highly convincing in discussions but deeply flawed on the ground. This does not mean that the theoretical controversy is particularly different from practical controversies-on the contrary, it is just one practical way of dealing with the controversies about mediumship and a strand of the controversy itself. But practical mediumism is not about resolving theoretical questions or theoretical contradictions. In fact, it may even thrive on those contradictions. Based on anthropological fieldwork in California, where I followed the controversies surrounding the testing of paranormal claims and ended up among a deeply intertwined network of parapsychologists, spiritualists, ghost hunters, and skeptics, I will present in this chapter a seemingly banal case of mediumism that remains "basic" in many senses of the term: touching the base of modern mediumism and especially spiritualism, and being nothing but basic. But even this basic case is controversial on the ground, and necessarily so. By focusing on a banal but controversial case, I will ask the complementary question: is there an equally banal basis for our theoretical controversies?

The course is offered during what is called "a crisis for democracy', a worldwide , twenty-first center controversy. Public deliberation is important for democratic communication that aspires to engagement, inclusion, and and diversity of opinion and commitments. The course defines public deliberation in the contexts of monological speaker-audience address, dialogical bonding through disagreement and assent, and in polylogical arrangements where power is at issue among stakeholders present and uninvited, with majority and minority standing. Civil Society institutions that take questions of power and the law, justice and policy into community supports of questions to answer through discussion and debate that appear as negotiation or deliberation. The course identifies deliberation in the context of centrist and noncentrist two-party political frames. Public Deliberation in the United States occupies the first part of the course. From there, the second half of the course identifies European and Asian issues with deliberation and public governance. Beyond national deliberative contexts, we examine international Organizations, NGOS, transnational networks, and bottom up efforts to deliberate questions of enduring global interests, including platform regulation, protection of world heritage, artificial intelligence and human rights, as well the redress of income inequity.

DISCUSSION. A la suite de la parution de « La Saga des Vikings, une autre histoire des invasions », chez Autrement en février 2018,  le professeur Alban Gautier propose une analyse pour le moins discourtoise de mon ouvrage.  Je réponds aux critiques formulées.

Au début des années 2010, dans le sillage de la célébration des « cinquantenaires » de l’Indépendance et de la Réunification, deux controverses majeures éclatent dans les médias, opposant auteurs et acteurs de l’histoire de ce pays. Le déploiement de ces controverses, largement en dehors des canaux classiques de l’écriture de l’Histoire, a contribué à leur essoufflement, maladroitement alimentées par les interventions du grand public d’anonymes à qui l’initiative de la production de l’Histoire avait progressivement été délaissée par les professionnels de l’Histoire. Cet article vise à comprendre comment se sont structurées ces controverses ainsi que l’attitude des acteurs impliqués. Son but est en substance de suggérer leur utilité dans l’effort d’écriture de l’Histoire. En s’appuyant en grande partie sur la presse nationale, et principalement sur les supports en ligne, ainsi que sur l’analyse du discours, ce travail relève que la controverse est essentielle dans la discipline historique. Il met également en scène les principales controverses entre acteurs de la production du savoir historique au Cameroun au début des années 2010 et explore la possibilité, pour les historiens, de reprendre à leur compte ces matériaux pour en faire des outils  d’un renouvellement historiographique.

ספר הגלוי לרס"ג, שנכתב בעת הפולמוס עם ריש גלותא, כולל הרבה מעבר לתיעוד מקרה הפולמוס. חוקרים פרסמו קטעים ממנו במהלך מאה וששים השנים האחרונות, וקטעים אלו כונסו לאחרונה לספר על ידי פרופ' יהושע בלאו ויוסף יהלום.
בקטע שלפנינו, המזוהה ומתפרסם כעת לראשונה, עוסק רס"ג בחשיבות ידיעת המדעים הכלליים, ותרומתם ללימוד התורה: הנדסה ולוגיקה. מתברר שרס"ג הכיר את משפט פיתגורס והשתמש בו, ומתחזקת זיקתו לחיבור מתקופת הגאונים "משנת המידות".

En prenant appui sur une expérience inédite de rapprochement de deux logiques d'enquête conçues comme antinomiques dans les raisonnements épistémologiques en sciences sociales, cet article explore les modalités d'articulation d'une approche mathématisée des grands réseaux, calculés à partir de flux du Web, et d'une approche socio-informatique des controverses, dont les corpus retracent des jeux d'acteurs et d'arguments évoluant au fil de processus critiques. Il s'agit d'apprendre à lire et interpréter dynamiquement, à l'aide de médiations numériques pointant sur les deux espaces de raisonnement, la manière dont se déplacent, sous l'impact d'événements, de décisions ou de conflits, des noeuds de réseaux saisis dans de vastes ensembles documentaires. L'agencement cognitif collectif qui émerge de ce croisement peut créer de nouvelles prises critiques sur la manière dont les processus sociaux se déploient dans les mondes numériques, des sites officiels aux medias sociaux.

Large evolutionary network analysis and the pragmatic sociology of controversies. How to combine methods in front of the transformations of digital worlds Abstract Based on an unprecedented experience of bringing together two logics of research, held to be contradictory according to epistemological norms in the social sciences, this article explores how to articulate a mathematized approach to large networks, calculated from web flows, and a socio-informatics approach of controversies, evolving through non-linear critical processes. Using new digital mediations, the authors suggest some pathways for a learning interface between human interprets and algorithms. The collective cognitive device that emerges from this cross-fertilization can create a new critical approach on how social processes unfold in digital worlds, from official sites to social media.