Sélection de nouveautés - Selection of new titles

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Sommaire

Presentation

The aim of the Presses Universitaires de France is to diffuse French culture throughout France as well as foreign countries, and to pass on knowledge. Consequently, we are pleased to present several of our titles which may be especially suitable for translation on this site.

If you would like to receive review copies of any books listed below, please contact:


  • Marion Colas, Foreign Rights Manager, in charge of relations with the following countries: the UK and the USA, Latin America, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Scandinavia, the Far East.


  • Laurence Zarra, Foreign Rights Assistant, in charge of relations with the following countries: Italy, Portugal and Brazil, Greece, Turkey, the Middle East and Eastern Europe


Dictionaries


Today the ‘cult of the body’ is omnipresent. But what exactly is the body? What does it represent? Can one vow a cult to the body? The original feature of this dictionary is that it assembles the diverse languages of that complex object, giving them consistency, allowing readers to trace their own path to knowledge and learn how to look at the body in all its varying facets, inviting them to question the borderline between self and others, the ambiguity between being and appearing, the visible and the invisible; to take a global view of the body’s practices and techniques and understand what it means to talk about the ‘virtual body’, the foreign body or the nomadic body; to ask themselves about sexuality, narcissism, sensual pleasure, violence, physical and psychic well-being, degeneration, death…


Almost 200 authors have contributed 300 entries (key notions and concepts, committed reflections, articles on thinkers and artists) accompanied by cross-references and a bibliography.


Philosophy


Reviled by some, celebrated by others, could individualism – supposedly characteristic of our way of life in the so-called post-modern society – be no more than a lure? That is the argument Claude Javeau defends in this highly original book. He claims that the allegedly autonomous individual is in fact the dupe of the consumer society. If there are indeed individuals, each one is part of the mass which incites him or her to behave like one of the flock. The author reviews the many domains where this constraint is visible, such as sexuality, the economy, the media, the general infantilization which he calls the “cult of the milksop’. These paradoxes are born of a comparison between the claims for individual autonomy and the injunctions of the mass consumer society, which reduce all differences - when they cannot be effaced, or even commercialized. A fascinating book on today’s world, where sociology and philosophy meet at such a strange intersection.


The reflection on what we have the right to expect from firms in the way of responsible participation in the development of those zones where they are active is, as yet, very vague. Between the anti-globalization movement, who have a tendency to demonize multinational firms, and neo-liberal ideas that exonerate them of almost all social responsibility, it is essential that we begin by outlining and describing their field of action. What exact contribution should we expect from capitalist enterprise in regard to world policy on lasting development? How can we define the range of responsibility of multinational firms in areas of great poverty? How should we evaluate the legal and political means now favoured to achieve economic justice on a global scale? The author’s analyses are based on field investigations conducted in Kenya and Nigeria with the subsidiaries of Total, Lafarge, Unilever and Michelin.

Politics


‘In reaction to the ambient consensus and resignation, we wanted to write a book of combat. Not a Utopia - but a contribution to the huge struggle we can see outlined at the beginning of this century.’ A refoundation. Here, the authors have tried to take up the Marxian challenge, so ill-used by history, in an approach that combines philosophy and economy, history and sociology. Another Marxism. Modern societies are dominated by two social forces, one linked to the ownership of capital, the other to the competence of cultural and organisational government. A popular policy supposes an alliance with the second to eliminate the first; but the fight for a class-free society must be fought on both fronts. For another world. Neoliberalism, in the end, leads to the creation of a system of Nation-States organised in an Imperialist hierarchy. Little by little, the logic of a capitalist world-State sets in. Then emerges a symbiosis between the struggle of classes, peoples and genders on a global scale.


History


September 11, 2001 called our attention in a tragic and spectacular way to the existence of a deep conflict opposing the East and the West. But we cannot consider the antagonists, who have been waging war for twenty-five centuries, as singular in form; for there are Easts and Wests, and essentially, they do not form two rigid civilizational entities. In a lively historical account, the author classes these hostile relations in five main categories, successively investigated as identity oppositions that affect the status of the individual; the clash between nomads and sedentary populations; the religious element; a divergent conception of politics and the divide between rich and poor.

All the warlike episodes covered by the author, from the Median wars to the Israeli-Arab conflict, show to what extent the cultural dimension of conflict has always been decisive.


  • Pierre HAZAN, Juger la guerre, juger l’histoire, 2007

How does a society reconstruct after a dictatorship or large-scale crimes? For centuries, the principal responses were amnesty and silence. In this book, Pierre Hazan investigates the strategic reversal that took place at the Nuremberg trials, and has been gathering momentum since the end of the Cold War. From now on, it is no longer silence, but the spoken word that is expected to heal the wounds of history, via Truth commissions, international courts and commemorative laws.

But what is the impact of reconciliation policies? Pierre Hazan takes stock for the first time of transitional justice, demonstrating how that juridical, political and cultural revolution has harnessed energies and inspired the hope of rebuilding societies on new foundations. Decoding the tensions created by these new reconciliation policies, the risks they run and even their side effects, the author reveals how commemorative strategies have intensified the huge task of dealing with the victims’ claims for recognition, adjusting our relation to the past and influencing our current political choices.


Psychology – Education


In the last ten years, the increase in the number and variations of adult accompaniment has cast light on the appearance of new ways of helping adults, on the borderline of training and therapy. This diversification, from coaching to mentoring, provided by professionals or volunteers, can be seen as a strong societal sign, and one that poses questions: What constitutes the determination, but also the fragility, of the adult in our new communicational civilisation? What are adults trying to appease by seeking accompaniment? What solitude are they trying to break? By contemplating the phenomenon, what pertinent contribution can we offer those professionals or voluntary adults who are appearing in ever-increasing numbers, male or female? What perspectives can we foresee for a society of coaches, mentors and, of course, the accompanied? Penser l’accompagnement adulte poses these questions, and, through 17 contributions, tries to provide elements of response to help us identify the signification, challenges and ambiguities of the different forms of accompaniment.

Psychoanalysis


Who can honestly say they have never encountered – in themselves or in their families or friends – the problem of addiction? Who has never wondered about the inner force, secret and irresistible, that drives people to such irrational and destructive behaviour as does alcoholism, or the addiction to nicotine or drugs?

This is one of the rare books to treat the problem of addiction in all of its many facets. It gives meticulous descriptions and highly varied examples, then offers a psychoanalytical interpretation, showing how the potentiality to addiction can take root in a tiny flaw during the subject’s early stages of construction. A flaw that is liable to increase during the teenage years, under the effects of psychic maturation and the environment - what Freud and his disciples called the splitting of the Ego.

Easy to read, this book is intended for all those who feel concerned, personally or generally, by this problem.

Sociology


This book presents a comparison of different modes of entering into adult life in Western Europe. It is based on the results of a vast survey, combining statistical analyses and qualitative data, emanating firstly from the longitudinal exploitation of six waves of the "European Community Household Panel" (1993-1999), and secondly from more than 135 interviews of subjects aged between 18 and 30 in Denmark, the United Kingdom, France and Spain. It reveals how deeply society marks the evolution of lives today, differentiating the individual trajectories of youth, even to the very definitions of adulthood. It brings to light four types of experience, each one reflecting political, social and cultural factors: in northern societies, a long and exploratory youth, inscribed in an outlook of personal development, prevails; a liberal context favours the development of a shorter youth, turned toward individual emancipation and rapid access to the social and familial status of adulthood; a corporist type of society, marked by the centralism of school - such as France- results in an experience of youth oriented toward social integration and characterised by the weight of a precocious determination through studies; lastly, Mediterranean societies favour the notion of remaining in the parental home until the necessary conditions for stable installation into adult life are present.


With thirty-five year gaps, what influence is exerted from one generation to the next? Can transmission stand up to the effect of time? Or does its energy erode, as the law of entropy would suggest? Freedom and determinism lie at the core of the reflections educed by this longitudinal study, which covers three generations of family history. Two paths appear as the family progresses: first, that of ruptures and those changes experienced also by modern society; second, that of continuities or socio-cultural reproduction. But are those two paths distinct from one another? In other words, is it a question of choosing between rupture and continuity? Or do they perhaps cross, periodically? In other words, might there be cycles of change that alternate with continuity between generations? These questions appear in filigree throughout this book.

Series “Que sais-je ?”


Perfumes respond to fashions, they are a reflection of their times, sometimes they transcend them. But they are also a matter of chemistry, marketing, manufacturing processes and commercialisation. They must even satisfy precise standards of security, and they represent an international market of several billion dollars. But above all, perfume is about creation: starting out with a palette (essential oils, raw materials and other vital ingredients), Jean-Claude Ellena tells us how the sense of smell operates and how he composes a perfume. Arousing our olfactory memories, our collective reminiscences of scents… the author has the gift of bringing enchantment to perfume.


The legendary concept of stoicism is that of the ‘stoic’ philosopher, serene and inflexible, indifferent to his lot, whether it be pain or pleasure. This is, in part, accurate; but fatalism is not stoical and this philosophy was also the first to think itself as a system, with the help of meditation. From the foundation of that school of thought by Zeno in the 3rd century B.C. to what remains of stoicism today, this book brings us a very clear introduction to a philosophy most of whose founding texts, which span over several centuries, have disappeared.


Part sign and part symbol, brand names allow us to distinguish, authenticate and protect an offer in a market economy. From the industrialist’s point of view, the management of a portfolio of brands is a valuable strategic device for marking out one’s territory. For the distributor, even if a well-known brand is reassuring, it must not hinder the development of the chain’s own brand. As for consumers, their fidelity – among other things - depends on how close a link they establish with a brand. All of these functions explain why, for firms today, the brand name is an asset in itself and, sometimes, a strategic factor in the lives of individuals.

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