3 of the Collège De France

The Letter 3 of the Collège de France

N°3 Academic Year 2007-2008 Teaching research in the making The Collège de France was created in 1530 by François I The Collège’s motto is « Docet omnia »: the vocation to teach everything The lectures are open to anyone, there are no registration fees, no diplomas are awarded The program is changed each year Dissemination of knowledge - More than 100,000 people attend each year lectures and seminars, foreign guests conferences, international and interdisciplinary symposia - The Collège publishes: inaugural lectures (published by Fayard), symposia held at the start of the academic year and conferences given by guest professors (published by Odile Jacob), a yearbook (abstracts of lectures and research studies), the Letter of the Collège de France, DVDs - Podcasts, audio and video broadcasts on the web site (www.college-de-france.fr) - Lectures are broadcast on radio station France Culture 56 chairs 52 existing chairs + 4 chairs whose holder changes every year (International, European, Artistic Creation and Technological Innovation - Liliane Bettencourt) Promote the emergence of new disciplines Multidisciplinary approach to high-level research Every time a professor is appointed, a new chair is created in any scholarly domain: - Mathematics - Physics and chemistry - Biology and medicine - Philosophy, sociology, economics - Archaeology, history - Study of the great civilizations - Linguistics and literature - Artistic creation - Technological innovation International relations Invitations to foreign scholars - European chair and international chair - 50 foreign lecturers invited per year Teaching chairs abroad - Belgium: Free University of Brussels (and other universities of the French community in Belgium) (2007) - Brazil: University of Sao Paulo / Institute of Advanced Studies (Lévi-Strauss Chair) (2002), Forum of the Universities of Rio de Janeiro (Celso Furtado Chair) (2004) - Canada: Universities of Quebec (CRÉPUQ) (2003) - Czech Republic: Charles University of Prague (2008) - China: City University of Hong Kong (2007) - Germany: University of Bonn (Ernst Robert Curtius Chair) (2008) - Israel: Hebrew University of Jerusalem / Institute of Advanced Studies (2007) - Italy: National Research Council (CNR) (2004) - Lebanon: Saint Joseph University of Beirut (2006) - Singapore: A*STAR - Agency for Science, Technology and Research (2005) - Spain: Botin Foundation Chair (2004) - Sweden: University of Uppsala (and other Swedish universities) (2004) - Switzerland: University of Lausanne – Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne (2008) - USA: University of Chicago (2006)

Research at the Collège de France and training through research More than 320 researchers 226 engineers, technicians and administrative staff 140 trainees, PhD students, post-doctoral students, foreign contributors The Collège de France libraries A collection of rare books and specialist libraries that are among the best in Europe Can be accessed by outside specialists General library Library of social Anthropology Library of the Orientalist Institutes: Egyptology, ancient Near East, Byzantium, Arabic, Turkish and Islamic Studies, Far East (India, Tibet, China, Korea, Japan) “What the Collège de France is expected to bring to its audiences is not established knowledge, but the idea of free research.” (Ce que le Collège de France, depuis sa fondation, est chargé de donner à ses auditeurs, ce ne sont pas des vérités acquises, c’est l’idée d’une recherche libre.) Maurice Merleau-Ponty Editorial

by Pierre Corvol Administrator of the Collège de France Professor, holder of the Chair of Experimental Medicine

For the Administrator of the Collège de France academic year two of the annual Chairs will to be reviewing the year’s activities once again become thematic Chairs, for a period of four to may seem rather pointless: what is a single year five years. The International Chair will be in the life of an institution whose history dates devoted to the theme “Knowledge Against back to 1530? It is nevertheless interesting to Poverty”. The underlying idea is the following: to compare our objectives with the Collège’s be efficient, a science actively applied on the undertakings and achievements over the past ground to combat poverty must be based on year. structured knowledge, implying the communication and comparison of knowledge in One of our priorities was to broaden the widely diverse fields. To a large extent, this type dissemination of the Collège’s lectures and of science still has to be developed. In 2008-2009 conferences via modern means of this Chair will be occupied by Professor Esther communication. By doing this we hoped to Duflo, who will deliver a lecture on “Poverty and extend the institution’s outreach, at the same Development in the World”. The theme of the time as upholding the principles of free and open European Chair will be “Sustainable access to our teaching. On-line downloading of Development – Environment, Energy and the fifteen lectures available on the Collège de Society”. It will be occupied by Professor Henri France website far exceeded our expectations in Leridon, whose lecture series will be titled 2007: one million times in six to eight months. “Demography, End of the Transition”. This clearly attests to a sustained interest in knowledge and research by a far larger public On an exploratory basis, the Collège de France than the typically Parisian audiences who wanted to enable PhD students to follow the frequent the Collège’s amphitheatres – even lectures of Collège de France professors as part though a growing proportion of our lectures are of their university curriculum. A simple delivered outside the capital, in France and agreement with several doctoral schools has abroad. This is an encouragement to intensify enabled about thirty students to follow the our efforts to spread knowledge even further, by lectures of the Liliane Bettencourt Chair of increasing the number of lectures that can be Technological Innovation, and those of the consulted on-line or downloaded, and by video- scientific and philosophical Chairs. This recording lectures. collaboration between the Collège de France and universities is enriching for all concerned, Expanding the Collège de France’s openness especially the students, and the plan is to towards society, the academic world and the increase it over the next few years. international community is another objective. This year Professor Mathias Fink will hold the As regards international outreach, the Collège de annual Chair of Technological Innovation – France has signed new teaching agreements with Liliane Bettencourt, created in 2006 to study the the University of Bonn (Germany), the Free application of science in society, and devoted to University of Brussels, Francophone universities bio-technologies in 2006 and computer in Belgium, the City University of Hong Kong technology in 2007. Professor Fink, whose work (China), the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has contributed substantially to the development (Israel), the University and the Ecole of new medical therapies, home automation and Polytechnique Fédérale of Lausanne submarine acoustics, will give a lecture series (Switzerland), and Charles University in Prague titled “Waves and images”. In the 2008-2009 (Czech Republic). Finally, part of the Collège de France’s buildings and appropriate staff to meet the objectives are still undergoing renovation, but some of the defined by the institution. It was primarily to construction work will be completed by the end this end that the Foundation of the Collège de of 2008, in particular the general library. Once France was created in June 2007. The goal of the reorganization of the chemistry and biology this state-approved body is to develop and sections is complete it will be possible to set up further teaching, research, training and the laboratories for several Chairs and to host new dissemination of knowledge in France and young research teams. We also look forward to abroad. It has been designed to adequately meet the reopening of the cafeteria, a convivial space the financial needs of research projects, the for all. Chairs and the laboratories, and thus to promote top-level research oriented towards society. ■ These accomplishments are the fruit of a Professor Pierre Corvol remarkable collective effort. The mobilization Administrator of the Collège de France and responsiveness of all concerned – lecturers as well as administrative and technical staff – have been flawless. The Collège’s streamlined governance, which enables it to react swiftly to problems as soon as they arise and to take the necessary decisions, has facilitated the implementation of these initiatives.

As the Collège de France’s ambitious policy requires substantial financial resources, the Ministry of Higher Education and Research has provided valuable support enabling us to continue our work. However, as noted in 2006, we cannot expect the state to provide everything and therefore have to find other sources of funding, mainly through the development of research partnerships and sponsorships. In this respect the Collège has already received substantial financial aid, notably from the Bettencourt-Schueller Foundation, Mr Michel David-Weill and Sanofi-Aventis. The institution nevertheless remains entirely free to determine its own strategies and orientation, and to appoint its professors in the disciplines and fields that it defines without any outside intervention.

Finally, the Administrator is responsible for ensuring that the institution functions in the service of all, by finding the required resources TABLE OF CONTENTS

Selected Papers pages The papers published in this issue of the Letter of the Collège de France in English were originally published in the Letters n° 21, 22 and 23 (academic year 2007-2008).

■ CLOSING LECTURE - MICHAEL EDWARDS, Chair of Literary Creation in English (Letter 23) 8

■ INAUGURAL LECTURES - MICHEL BRUNET, Chair of Human Paleontology (Letter 23) 10 - GÉRARD BERRY, Chair of Technological Innovation - Liliane Bettencourt 2007-2008 (Letter 22) 12 - ROGER CHARTIER, Chair of Writings and Cultures in Modern Europe (Letter 21) 13 - MANFRED KROPP, European Chair 2007-2008 (Letter 21) 14 - PIERRE MAGISTRETTI, International Chair 2007-2008 (Letter 22) 15 - ALAIN PROCHIANTZ, Chair of Morphogenetic Processes (Letter 21) 16

■ NEWS OF THE CHAIRS - DENIS KNOEPFLER, Chair of Epigraphy and History of the Ancient Greek Cities (Letter 21) 17 - GÉRARD FUSSMAN, Chair of India and Greater India (Letter 21) 19 - MIREILLE DELMAS-MARTY, Chair of Comparative Legal Studies and Internationalization of Law and PIERRE-ETIENNE WILL, Chair of History of Modern China (Letter 21) 22 - PHILIPPE KOURILSKY, Chair of Molecular Immunology (Letter 21) 24 - ROLAND RECHT, Chair of History of European Medieval and Modern Art (Letter 22) 26 - ANNE FAGOT-LARGEAULT, Chair of Philosophy of Life Science (Letter 23) 28 - GÉRARD FUSSMAN, Chair of History of India and Greater India, a talk by Kapila Vatsyayan (Letter 23) 29

■ O-FUDA COLLECTION DONATED TO THE COLLÈGE DE FRANCE (Letter 23) 31

■ GUEST LECTURERS - NICHOLAS PURCELL (Letter 22) 33 - DENIS DUBOULE (Letter 23) 34 - ELAINE FUCHS (Letter 23) 36

■ PRIZES AND DISTINCTIONS - MICHEL ZINK, BALZAN PRIZE 2007 38 - JACQUES TITS, Abel Prize 2008 (Letter 23) 39

■ COLLÈGE DE FRANCE AUTUMN SYMPOSIUM 2007: ON AUTHORITY - ANTOINE COMPAGNON (Letter 21) 40

■ OTHERS SYMPOSIA AND SEMINARS - THE ECOLOGY OF PERCEPTION AND THE AESTHETICS OF LANDSCAPE (Letter 21) 43 - THE PRESENT DAY TRANSFORMATION OF RITUALS IN THE TIBETAN AREA (Letter 22) 44 - BERGSON’S L’ ÉVOLUTION CRÉATRICE, 100 YEARS LATER (1907-2007) 46 - GLOBALIZATION: FIGURES AND PROBLEMS - PIERRE ROSANVALLON (Letter 22) 49 - WITTGENSTEIN: ON IMAGES, LANGUAGE AND MIND 52 - THE NOTION OF FUNCTION FROM LIFE SCIENCE TO TECHNOLOGY - ARMAND DE RICQLES (Letter 23) 54 - COLLECTIVE WISDOM: PRINCIPLES AND MECHANISMS 56 - CLIMATE CHANGE: THE ROLE OF THE SUN AND OTHER EXTERNAL FORCINGS - EDOUARD BARD (Letter 23) 58 Institutional Data

■ COLLÈGE DE FRANCE ORGANIZATION CHART 62

■ LECTURES GIVEN BY THE PROFESSORS ABROAD 64

■ THE COLLÈGE DE FRANCE, AN INTERNATIONALLY OPEN INSTITUTION 67

■ LECTURES AND LECTURE SERIES BY FOREIGN PROFESSORS 69

■ EVENTS AT THE COLLÈGE DE FRANCE – 2007-2008 71

■ RESEARCH TEAMS RECEIVED 72

■ TEMPORARY POSITIONS AT THE COLLÈGE DE FRANCE – 2008-2009 (MAÎTRES DE CONFÉRENCES AND ATER) 72

■ THE COLLÈGE DE FRANCE INSTITUTES 73

■ COLLÈGE DE FRANCE WEBSITES – PODCASTS 76

■ PUBLICATIONS – 2007-2008 77

■ COLLÈGE DE FRANCE AUTUMN SYMPOSIUM – 2008-2009 78 S ELECTED PAPERS CLOSING LECTURE

Michael Edwards, holder of the Chair of Literary Creation in English from 2002 to 2008

Professor Edwards gave his final lecture on 3rd April 2008. A video of the lecture is available at www.college-de-france.fr, on Prof Edwards’s web page

A Lesson in Openness

On being elected to the Collège de works, or with analyses which, failing to think (unscientifically but truly) that the France, I wanted my chair to be the first ask the deepest questions, are of no help meaning of a work is perceived in part ever Chair of English, created at a time in examining the nature of poetry, by the dynamics of the body, and that, when an impoverished Anglo-American narrative, theatre. “Literary theory” far from being an idea depriving the poses a threat to other languages, as to and “literary criticism” being work of movement, it follows the the English of English speakers, and inadequate terms, I am tempted to direction that the work indicates. furnishes another motive for looking substitute literary “speculation”, so as closely at literature, as the revelation and to bring together general consideration One of the questions posed by the ceaseless development of a language’s of the field, spying (one of the meanings lectures concerned the finality of the natural resources. I wanted it, above all, of speculatio in low Latin), by which literary work, the work that it to be a chair of poetics, in succession to one infiltrates the work and the creative accomplishes. A lecture course on those of Paul Valéry and Yves Bonnefoy: acts which produced it, and the idea of “Shakespeare and Tragedy”, for the opportunity for studying the the essay as the mirror (speculum) of the example, aimed to show that his philosophy of literary creation from the work, a process of reflection which tragedies explore a contradiction inside, as a writer. Since I had many reflects it. I take it to be desirable to between the splendour of life and the things to comprehend and to draw together, as far as is possible, disaster of death – which is not a notion communicate, I decided to deliver each thought about literature and the special appearing suddenly at the end of the year, not a single lecture series thinking that occurs in literature: a Renaissance or a characteristic of accompanied by seminars, but two thinking full of sensation and emotion, baroque theatre, but which stands at the series of lectures. the involving of the whole person, body core of our condition – while reaching and mind and more, in a situation beyond it through a new experience of My teaching was founded on a long- which evolves, a knowledge in search being, painfully won and in no way held conviction that the understanding of itself which slowly takes form, an softening the terror and pity of a sick of literature progresses through a experience invented (discovered, world. In a course on “Molière and continual to-and-fro between basic imagined) and shaped by language. It is Comedy” (which followed from the research and the observation of a better also to listen to literature than to course on Shakespeare’s comedies that I profusion of details, between the pursuit read it. We read it with our had given in 2000-2001 while holding of fundamental laws and a living and expectations, our interpretative grids, the European Chair), a new way of untiring attention to those small things our “reading strategies”, and so stifle listening to his theatre showed the of which Proust writes that “each is a the voice of the work, its singularity and centrality and existential depth of farce world”. We cannot be content either its life, whereas in listening to it we put and of the comédie-ballet, discerned in with the kind of literary theory which into play the Latin and Germanic the “serious” comedies, not sombre functions as an autonomous discipline etymologies of the word (actually two drama and pitiless satire, but the comic incapable of illuminating individual words) sense, which dispose one to and moving search for a new self-

8 THE LETTER - N° 3 celebration of the apparently trivial and philosophy, painting and music. “Of the eccentric and to a linking of the Wonder” evaluated the role of literature, transcendent and the ordinary; a art and thought in the awakening of this heterogeneity of perspectives and of salutary act of consciousness, while tones within the same poem; an suggesting another line of enquiry: the unceasing tradition of major long poems difference between intransitive and of translations performing perfectly knowledge and transitive knowing. as English poems – all of which “The Happiness of Being Here” characteristics would seem to derive explored their role in the experience of from the consonantal, strongly accented here, of now, and opened up another and above all pragmatic and hybrid topic for reflection in the future, the nature of the English language. A series fractured but maybe reconcilable on “French Poetry and the Search for relations, within the tôwb, of the good, Being”, which observed the genius of the beautiful, the true and the real. French poetry in this central perspective, noted, among other things and despite My impression is that I have been at the numerous exceptions, a studied play Collège de France for a good while, a among objects, sensations and first lecture in 1986 having been knowledge and for the conversion of the abstractions, within a simultaneous followed by constant participation in whole being, and revealed above all the experience of the sensible and the annual conferences organized by Yves creation of a generous and liberating intelligible in which the latter is Bonnefoy. As with all of us, I greatly laughter that glimpses the fullness of a nevertheless privileged, and an appreciate the unique character of the world beyond evil and death. Another organization of the poem which recalls Collège, which is run so as to facilitate course on “Shakespeare: the Poet in the the orderly way whereby the syntax of our work (the Collège lives in the Theatre” traced a poetics of theatre as a French organizes the sentence. The discoveries and publications of its dream, a simulacrum, a fiction which is lectures were interrupted for two weeks professors), and which attracts embodied in facts (actors, costumes, so that other poets, Yves Bonnefoy and stimulating and attentive audiences – in sets) themselves fictive, and which François Cheng, could speak to the my case, poets, novelists, translators, constitutes a place and a time where subject from their point of view. theatre people, writers of all kinds and everything changes and may continue artists in several disciplines, beside to change. It also offered a poetics of the It was also a particular pleasure to draw specialists in various literatures, students poet-dramatist who relinquishes his attention to a number of generally and research students, and the large, hold on lyric for a multi-personal poetry, neglected works where the two cultivated and enquiring public of which by venturing into the consciousness and literatures meet or cross over: medieval France can be proud. Not forgetting the the language of others, so as to redefine bilingual poems, Mandeville’s Travels, agreement with France Culture, which the experience of being at the level of written originally in Anglo-Norman, enables us, by broadcasting our lectures, literary creation. In these lectures, as in French poems of Gower, English poems to address an even more extensive all the others, the study of innumerable of Charles d’Orléans. public. It is perhaps mainly by the acts of writing underlined the presence spoken word to which our research is of what I call anaktisis (as distinct from A third question regarded explicitly the expected to lead in the first instance that mimesis), the re-creation of the world relations between literature and life. the Collège de France encourages us to and the self through a language equally “Questions of Poetics” investigated, think differently, to look for a wisdom re-created with a view to both attaining with this in mind, evil, pleasure, beyond knowledge, and to recognize the and transforming what is. memory, imagination, change, illusion resistance of what transcends us, the and, intra-muros, the connections fragility of our ideas and the exuberance Another question (already taken up in between poetry and theatre, poetry and of the possible. ■ a course of lectures on “Racine and narrative. Two other lecture series went Shakespeare” during my tenure of the beyond literature so as to include European Chair) concerned the specificity of English poetry and of French poetry, and what one learns, by examining them together, as to poetry’s essential intent. A course on “The Genius of English Poetry” identified certain characteristics: a large confidence in the body of the real which leads to a

N° 3 - THE LETTER 9 INAUGURAL LECTURES

CHAIR OF HUMAN PALEONTOLOGY

Michel BRUNET Later in South Africa, as early as 1924, took place the amazing discovery of the Taung Child, Australopithecus africanus Dart, 1925 (ca. 2.5 My) and in 1959 the discovery in Tanzania, East Africa, of gave his inaugural lecture on Paranthropus (=Zinjanthropus) boisei 27 March 2008. His course entitled (L. Leakey). Then numerous new ‘Early hominids: a new story in the light discoveries took place between 2 and 3.6 of the most recent discoveries’ began on My, first, at 2.5 My, Paranthropus 2 April 2008. aethiopicus (Arambourg & Coppens, 1968), then the most famous one with Lucy Extract from his inaugural lecture: (3.2 My, in Afar, Ethiopia) by the French-US team headed by Y. Coppens, M. Taïeb & “[…] From the end of XIXth century until D. Johanson (Australopithecus afarensis Member of the the beginning of XXth century, numerous Johanson & al. 1978). Little by little the Institut human fossil remains were successively scientific community became aware of the international de discovered, first in Europe (Neandertals, fact that our story was rooted not only in Cro-Magnons […]), then in Asia (Homo space, Africa in this case, but also deeply in paléoprimatologie erectus : Pithecanthrops from Java and time. et paléontologie Sinanthrops from China). But this quest humaine, for our Ancestor had to be a successful This singular geographic distribution of one and so, Eoanthropus dawsoni the prehumans (South and East Africa) (University of described in 1912, the Man of Piltdown linked to the fact that this earliest Poitiers) from early Pleistocene in Sussex (Southern hominids were known only in East Africa England) seemed to be our ideal Ancestor (3.6 My at Laetoli in Tanzania) led Yves in the context of the time: an European, an Coppens to suggest a paleoscenario he Englishman, with a skull very similar to called “East Side story ”, the hypothesis of ours. But, 40 years later this discovery was a bipedal prehuman origin in East African revealed to be a hoax. The skull proved to primary savanna. be, thanks to the mass spectrometry technology, the combination of a modern This paleoscenario will definitely replace in human cranium with a living orang- outan 1982-1983 the hypothesis of an Asiatic lower jaw (Le Gros Clark 1953)! origin, when David Pilbeam, Harvard University, demonstrated that Ramapithecus (known between 7-12 My in Siwaliks of Pakistan), the alleged earliest human Ancestor, was in fact a female Sivapithecus, genus related to the living Pongo, the Orang- utan.

From 1994 on African discoveries took place at high speed […]

The new western story In 1994 I founded and headed the M.P.F.T. (French Chadian Paleoanthropological Programme) which […] is doing geological and paleontological surveys in the Djurab desert, Northern Chad, that is west of the Rift Valley. The MPFT successively unearthed a new Australopithecin

10 THE LETTER - N° 3 Australopithecus bahrelghazali, nicknamed larger area that includes at least Central Abel (3.58 My), the first ever found west of Africa with Chad, and also probably the African Rift and later a new hominid Sudan, Libya and Egypt. (nicknamed Toumaï) Sahelanthropus tchadensis (Brunet et al., 2002), (late In this large saharian area we pointed out Miocene, 7 My). for the first time, in Chad, the evidence of a succession of humid and dry (even The discovery of this new earliest known desertic) periods, at least during the last Hominid is a major event which definitely 7 millions years (7My) and also the fact proves that the hypothesis of a southern or that at the Late Miocene, Chad and Libya eastern origin of the Human clade must belonged to the same paleobiogeographic be reconsidered. zone. This vast sahelian area has probably Re-creation of Toumaï’s bust played an up to now unrecognized role, Sahelanthropus tchadensis displays a in the hominids’s story. […] This is now unique combination of primitive and the heart of my research project. derived anatomic characters which clearly shows that it can’t belong to the gorilla or It will also be essential to study the chimp lineages, but to the contrary a close importance of climates and to describe relationship with the human clade. Its with a modelisation approach their role geological datation is probably very close on the Hominid evolution. to the last common ancestor of chimp and human. In the Late Miocene of Chad, the It seems to me quite predictable that one of sedimentologic and paleobiologic data the major stakes to a better understanding testify of a mosaic landscape. In today’s of our story will be to specify the central Kalahari desert, the Okavango paleobiogeographic relationships, not only delta in Botswana seems to be a good within Saharian Africa but also with Eurasia, analogy for a similar mosaic landscape East and South Africa. At this moment the with rivers, lakes, swamps, woodlands, vast Saharian territory seems to be an forest islets, wooded savannas, grasslands immense empty area where only Chad has and desertic patches. In this mosaic, the started to reveal data. If adding to this area studies of Toumaï’s ecologic preferences first Eurasia and then the rest of the world are still under progress. The dental will open incomparable, exciting new fields enamel’s Carbon (13C) stable isotope of work...” ■ study should give more precise indications on its diet. Toumaï, like others Late Miocene Hominids, was most probably living in woodlands. Moreover from what is known about their skull and limb bones, these three Late Miocene hominids are certainly bipeds. The original savanna hypothesis for biped and human origin is now part of the history of our story.

[…] Before Homo and Australopithecus, the Late Miocene Hominids (Ardipithecus, Orrorin & Sahelanthropus) form a new evolutive grade which is, for the moment the earliest known of our story. This situation could be compared to the scientific impact created by the description of the first Australopithecin by Dart in 1925 […]. This inaugural lecture is available shortly from But if the human origin seems to be Editions Fayard and on DVD (coproduction African, my M.P.F.T. team and I showed Collège de France/ that the early Hominids did not live only CNED/Doriane Films). in South and East Africa but also in a

N° 3 - THE LETTER 11 CHAIR OF TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION - LILIANE BETTENCOURT 2007-2008

Gérard BERRY pillar is the upsurge of the new information sciences – informatics, signal gave his inaugural lecture on 17 January processing, automation, etc. – successfully 2008 applied to more and more fields. Finally, His course entitled ‘Why and how the the last pillar is the richness of world is becoming digital’ began on applications, itself owing to an exceptional 25 January 2008. level of technological and industrial innovation, found only in major industrial revolutions.

Everyone is aware of the speed with which Extract from the inaugural lecture: computer technology is developing, and of its impact. This is obvious from the Computer scientist, “[…] Although the term ‘digital world’ is Internet: the putting on line of billions of Scientiﬁc Director heard everywhere, the public knows little documents scrutinized by search engines, of Esterel about what actually lies behind it. People world forums, encyclopaedias published always seem to be surprised by technical by readers, interactive aerial maps and Technologies innovations and their attendant social photos, generalization of distance changes. Yet, at least from a technical administration, free telephony which is point of view, current trends were largely rapidly supplanting the ‘old’ commuted foreseeable and there is no reason to be telephone, massive downloading of music surprised by the predictable. The public’s and films, and so on. But there are many constant surprise is rather the sign of an other equally essential fields as well: inappropriate mindset – which stands to smartcards, cell phones, GPS, increasing reason since synthetic information is still automation of transport and its security, poor here, in this field that lacks sound radical changes in medicine owing to bases taught in the classical way. The aim modern imagery, computer-aided design of of this inaugural lecture is to help to complex objects and processes in all fields, construct an appropriate mindset, that is, reduced energy consumption through a common sense in computer science and more expert operation of engines, the technology, by explaining why the world detection of all sorts of dangerous is becoming digital, how the attendant situations, etc., and, in a very different changes are taking place, and domain, new forms of artistic creation. which concepts and tools These new applications not only make life they use. easier, they profoundly change our ways of doing things. To take just one example: All the changes associated with GPS and interactive world maps we with digitization are based on simultaneously have all the scales on the four pillars. The first is the same map; we can easily associate photos idea of representing and and maps, magically remain at the centre manipulating all information, of the map while moving about, and jump irrespective of its nature, in the from one place to another simply by same way, thus departing from the age-old tapping or clicking on their names. All this identification between a type of is obviously impossible with traditional information and its physical medium. The paper maps. We can also obtain a traffic second pillar is the extraordinary advances report in real time, which opens the made in electronic circuits, software and prospect of a global management of traffic transmission systems. This technological in cities. […]” ■ This inaugural lecture is progress has made it possible to build available from Editions Fayard. The video can be increasingly powerful computers at a downloaded from the constantly reduced cost, and to connect Collège de France website. them up on a very large scale. The third

12 THE LETTER - N° 3 CHAIR OF WRITINGS AND CULTURES IN MODERN EUROPE

fragments of writing can be read no long Roger CHARTIER makes visible the limits and coherence of the corpus from which they are drawn. gave his inaugural lecture on How can we maintain the concept of literary 11 October 2007. His course entitled property, defined since the eighteenth ‘Circulation of texts and cultural practices century on the basis of a perpetuated identity in modern Europe (16th – 18th century) of works, recognizable irrespective of the Cardenio’ began on 25 October 2007. form of their publication, in a world where Extract from the inaugural lecture: texts are mobile, malleable and open, and where everyone, as they start, can “follow ‘Écouter les morts avec les yeux’ on, continue the sentence, fit into the ‘Escuchar a los muertos con los ojos’ interstices without anyone noticing” – as (‘Listen to the dead with your eyes’) Michel Foucault wanted. How can we Research Director “This verse by Quevedo comes to mind as I recognize an order of discourses that was at the École des inaugurate a series of lectures devoted to always an order of books or, in other words, the role of writing in European cultures an order of writing closely associating the Hautes Etudes en from the end of the Middle Ages to the authority of knowledge and the form of Sciences Sociales present. For the first time in the Collège de publication, when today’s technical since 1984; France’s history, a Chair is devoted to the possibilities allow for the uncontrolled, study of writing practices, not in ancient or instantaneous and universal circulation not Gobert Prize of the medieval worlds, but in the long period of only of opinions and knowledge, but also of Académie Française modernity whose disintegration we may errors and falsifications? How can we (1992) currently be witnessing. preserve ways of reading that construct meaning from the coexistence of texts in the This is probably an urgent undertaking at a same object (book, review, journal), whereas time when writing practices are undergoing the new mode of conservation and profound alterations. The media of writing, transmission of writings imposes on reading its reproduction techniques and its an analytical and encyclopaedic logic where dissemination are all being transformed by each text has no context other than the fact changes in today’s world. of falling under the same heading? By severing the former ties between texts Today the dream of the universal library and objects, between discourses and their seems closer to realization than ever before. materiality, the digital revolution has The digital conversion of existing required a radical revision of the acts and collections promises the creation of a concepts that we associate with writing. library without walls, where all the works […] The electronic book, unlike its ever published, all the writings constituting predecessors the scroll and the codex, is no the heritage of humanity, might be longer distinguished from other written accessible. This is a wonderful ambition products by the evidence of its material and, as Borges wrote, ‘when it was form. Reading on a screen is discontinuous, proclaimed that the Library contained all segmented, attached to the fragment rather the books, the first reaction was than to the whole. Is it therefore not the extravagant joy’. But the second reaction direct heir of practices stemming from the may be questions on the implications of this codex, which invites the reader to skim violence to which texts are subjected when they are no longer offered to readers in the texts, based on their index or, as Montaigne same forms as in the past. […] The put it, in ‘leaps and bounds’. Yet […] the ‘extravagant joy’ triggered by a universal discontinuity and fragmentation of the library could become an impotent This inaugural lecture is reading does not have the same meaning bitterness if it resulted in the relegation or, available from Editions when it is accompanied by the perception of worse still, the destruction of the printed Fayard and on DVD the textual totality incorporated into the (coproduction Collège de objects that through the ages have France/ CNED/ written object, as opposed to the situation nourished the thoughts and dreams of those Doriane Films). where the luminous surface on which who read them. […]” ■

N° 3 - THE LETTER 13 EUROPEAN CHAIR 2007-2008

Manfred KROPP One of the surprising facts about Islamic studies is the absence of an historico- critical edition of the Koran. An undertaking of this nature was in fact gave his inaugural lecture on started in the first half of the nineteenth 15 November 2007. His course entitled century, in liaison with critical studies of ‘The Koran as a linguistic and historical Biblical texts and ancient literature, but document: sources and methods for its several major projects failed. The study’ began on 22 November 2007. twentieth century finally left us the Cairo quasi-canonical edition, which is used as Extract from his inaugural lecture: the basis for scientific work on the Koran. “My study of Arabic epigraphic pre- This is comparable to Biblical studies using Islamic documents […] led me to examine Saint Jerome’s vulgate or the Vetus Latina Professor of Semitic some of the oldest fragments and as the founding text. studies and manuscripts of the Koran, available in Islamology at facsimiles or in public libraries. I had just The last two decades of the twentieth studied an inscription about a pre-Islamic century produced epigraphic evidence for Johannes Arabian king, and automatically used the source texts in Arabic, from the pre- Gutenberg same approach for a verse from the Koran. Islamic era until the beginnings of Islam. University of Mainz What does this mean? First, in a moment Coherent and plausible interpretations of of grace – or heresy? – I disregarded such texts demand a rigorous method. (Germany). everything derived from the Muslim They imply the need to consider the tradition, in the ancient document: context and the parallels, and to make diacritical marks, vowels, punctuation. In comparisons with other Semitic languages short, I wanted to base my reading of the and with similar texts attested to in them. text on its skeleton of naked, ambiguous consonants, as if it were an ancient If someone with such an ‘epigraphic’ inscription. It’s not easy to cheat with one’s approach examined the first manuscripts own memory and one tends to fall into of Koranic texts, they would inevitably familiar footsteps. The epigraphist’s well- question the accuracy of quasi-canonical oiled mental mechanisms quickly interpretations. The epigraphist will prevailed; they produced doubts. I won’t naturally be tempted to read these Hijazi say results, yet. These first attempts were or Coufique manuscripts critically, to stimulated by the extraordinary obtain a coherent and plausible development of Koranic studies in the past interpretation. two decades. In the West, Islamic studies stemming from theological and especially At this point the representative of a Biblical studies were emancipated in the positive and secular science could give in late eighteenth and early nineteenth to temptation. Starting with problematical centuries, to become an independent words or passages, they could analyse the discipline, especially in the sector of text as if they were deciphering and Koranic studies. They are still paying a interpreting ancient Arabic inscriptions. If high price for that today, for they have their interpretations revealed distinct incorporated a fair number of Islamic regularities, it would be feasible for them dogmas and have accepted various to formulate hypotheses on the spelling, historical and other assertions. It is as if grammar and semantic rules of the Christian scholars armed with the knife of Koranic language. historico-critical study, and after having This inaugural lecture is bravely sacrificed the entire Bible – both In any case, an historico-critical edition of available from Editions Old and New Testaments – on the alter of the Koran should be founded on the oldest Fayard and on DVD (coproduction Collège de historical knowledge, had lost their manuscripts, and report and comment on France/ CNED/ courage and left all the official dogma all attested, plausible and conjectural Doriane Films). surrounding the Koran intact. interpretations. […]” ■

14 THE LETTER - N° 3 INTERNATIONAL CHAIR 2007-2008

Pierre MAGISTRETTI activity and the brain’s capacity to represent reality.

Now that we have briefly clarified these gave his inaugural lecture on terms, consider the relationship between 14 February 2008. His course entitled them. What is it that links ‘Glial cells, neuroenergetics and neuroenergetics, synapses and images? To neuropsychiatric diseases’ began on answer this question let’s go back to 11 March 2008. Sherrington and an article co-authored with Roy, which he published in 1890 in Extract from his inaugural lecture: one of the first issues of the venerable “Three terms are linked in the title of my Journal of Physiology. The article, entitled lecture: neuroenergetics, synapses, and ‘On the regulation of the blood supply of Professor of images. By way of introduction, these the brain’, described a series of neuroscience at the terms warrant some clarification. I will experiments on animals, which showed École Polytechnique then explore the nature of their that blood flow increases specifically in relationship, which has de facto been the the somatosensory cortex, the cerebral Fédérale de main theme of my laboratory’s research region in which tactile information is Lausanne and at for over twenty-five years. treated, when the animal’s paw was the University of stroked, for example. Based on these First, neuroenergetics. This is a recent observations, the authors reached the Lausanne. term, derived from bioenergetics. It relates conclusion that ‘the brain has an intrinsic to the molecular and cellular mechanisms system in which the blood flow can vary of the production and consumption of locally in relation to local variations in the energy, which are directly linked to animal’s functional activity’. This was the neuronal activity. Neuroenergetics could first formulation of a basic principle of be defined as all the energy processes neurophysiology, ie the existence of involved in the nervous system’s mechanisms coupling the activity of processing of information, in the broad neurones, thus the synapses, to the local sense of the term. blood flow, thus the supply of energy. As in the case of muscles, the increase in the Second, synapses. As this term blood flow related to muscular work has almost become a locally increases the availability of energy household word, it needs little substrates in the form of glucose and explanation. It denotes the oxygen. Likewise, activated neurones specialized part of the ‘work’ and consume more energy. Given neurones through which that such imaging techniques as functional information is transferred. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) or Considering that the brain Positron Emission Tomography (PET) contains some 100 billion detect most changes in blood flow and neurones, and that each neurone receives consumption of glucose or oxygen related about 10,000 synaptic contacts, we obtain to neuronal activity, we can start to the impressive figure of 1015 synapses, The identify the links between neuroenergetics, word synapse was introduced at the end of synapses and images…” ■ the nineteenth century by British neurophysiologist Charles Sherrington, who also prepared the ground for the study of neuroenergetics.

This inaugural lecture is Finally, images. These can be considered available from Editions Fayard. The video can be from two angles: the images produced by downloaded from the functional brain imaging techniques; and Collège de France website. the mental images resulting from neuronal

N° 3 - THE LETTER 15 CHAIR OF MORPHOGENETIC PROCESSES

Alain PROCHIANTZ transcription factors of this family exchange, so doing, positional information, and respond to this information by the expression of gave his inaugural lecture on distinct effectors of morphogenesis. Therefore, 4 October 2007. His course entitled homeoproteins are not only transcription ‘Morphogènes et Morphogenèse’ factors that act within the nucleus, but also began on 22 October 2007. authentic morphogens, messenger proteins capable of gaining access to the extra-cellular Extract from the inaugural lecture: milieu and to penetrate in abutting cells, thus “In 1984, in the laboratory headed by Jacques influencing many of their characters, including Glowinski, we observed that the shape and their shape. This idea was strongly at odd with polarity of brain neurons cultured at the several dogmas. contact of non-neuronal cell, astrocytes, vary Member of the according to the respective topological origins A first dogma was that transcription factors Academy of of the two cell types. We could have focused work inside the nucleus, they do not escape our research on the latter astrocyte cells, nor are they internalized by cells. They Sciences, Chairman heterogeneity, a novel idea at the time. But I are not equipped for that. A second one was of the Neuropôle had been primarily intrigued by the link the well known membrane impermeability to francilien and of between shape and position revealed by our hydrophilic agents. The idea that physiological observation. Attending, as many, the lectures mechanisms may exist, that destabilize the the Scientiﬁc of François Jacob, I was aware of the existence membranes to the point of making them Council of the of mutations associating genetic algorithms to permeable to high molecular weight proteins Fondation pour la positions and positions to organ shapes. In was inconceivable. Finally, homeoproteins such mutants, embryonic cells misinterpret regulate the shape of organs, not cell shape. recherche médicale their position and, consequently, engage And our observation implied that the same inappropriate morphogenetic programs. In the genes, therefore probably similar mechanisms, fly, legs develop instead of antennae or wings may control morphogenesis at the cellular and instead of eyes, for example. multi-cellular levels.

Three years later, including one spent in New These objections are long gone. We have, the York, I decided to study the role of groups of Alain Joliot and mine, demonstrated homeogenes in the coding of neural geometry. that these factors are secreted and internalized These genes encode transcription factors, and we have identified the sequences and, in called homeoproteins, that all bind DNA part, the mechanisms involved. To the point through a small peptidic structure: the that the field of vector peptides capable of homeodomain. To test the role of traveling across biological membranes – a field homeoproteins in neuronal morphogenesis, opened in collaboration with the group of we decided to inject a homeodomain into Gérard Chassaing – is today flourishing. In nerve cells to displace endogenous parallel, the myth of the impermeable homeoproteins from their cognate binding membrane has lost its strength and no one is sites. A change of shape occurred, supporting shocked, anymore, by membrane instability. our hypothesis. But, in a control, we observed Finally, who still remembers that cell shape that the same changes were also induced by the regulation by homeoproteins was once addition of the homeodomain outside the debated? neurons. Instead of concluding to an artifact, having tagged the homeodomain, we could, In contrast, the idea that a transcription factor much to our surprise, visualize its might be a morphogen, or more generally, an internalization and spreading throughout the intercellular signaling molecule, can still, at cytoplasm and nucleus of live cells. Soon, the time, encounter some resistance. Let us be experiment was reproduced with full-length clear: even if the work is far from being This inaugural lecture is homeoproteins… achieved, the participation of this mode of available from Editions Fayard. The video can be communication to crucial developmental downloaded from the The concept, derived from these initial periods is a solid hypothesis, based on hard Collège de France website. experiments, is simple. Two cells trading experimental facts. […]” ■

16 THE LETTER - N° 3 NEWS OF THE CHAIRS

EPIGRAPHY AND HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT GREEK CITIES

An example of land settlement in Greco-Roman Antiquity: A collection of inscriptions from Coronea, Boeotia

In a series of lectures given last year on the Copaic Lake. Construction shall occur as ancient cities located around Lake Copais soon as possible so that they flow along – “Pausanias Periegetes in Boiotia”, third their banks and be not diverted from their part –, Professor Denis Knoepfler presented a course nor, as now happens, flood most of series of inscriptions, remarkable both by their the cultivable land. I shall construct an number and their contents : they consist of aqueduct for you too. The money will be over ten letters in Greek from Emperor given by me, 65,000 (denarii), which the Hadrian (117-138 AD) and his first two experts in such matters say will be Professor Denis Knoepﬂer successors engraved on half a dozen of large necessary. You are to elect the men who marble slabs. One of these blocks has been will be in charge(1). known since the end of the 19th century, but the others, found around 1920, remained The Imperial title suggests a date in 125 AD. unpublished and were (re)discovered only at Hadrian was staying in Greece that year : he the beginning of the 1970s. The first edition, spent the winter in Athens and travelled, rather mediocre, was not published until 1981. among others, to Delphi. Although his Professor Knoepfler therefore resumed the itinerary is not known precisely, it seems study of this dossier in close collaboration with certain that the Emperor, in order to reach the one of his assistants, Thierry Châtelain, who sanctuary, took the road following the south defended last autumn a thesis entitled Ancient bank of Lake Copais and went through Greeks and Wetlands: Perception and Coronea. This visit was a unique opportunity Exploitation of Paludal Environments. for the people of Coronea to inform the Several letters – most of them sent to the Emperor of the difficulties their city was people of Coronea – deal with works to be encountering. Letters no. 1 and 2 (block I) conducted to protect pieces of land located on show how quickly Hadrian responded to their the south-western bank of Lake Copais. These expectations. But the enterprise was complex: documents offer a major source for the history ten years later, another letter (no. 4 according of the countryside in general, and particularly to the new sequence, implying the inversion for the history of agriculture. They also throw of blocks II and III of the original publication) Bust of Emperor Hadrian, 117-138 AD a new light on the purposes and on the reveals that the works were still taking place on (Musée du Louvre). implementation of Imperial policy regarding another river, the Phalaros, close to the big provincial agriculture. Some results of current sanctuary of Athena Itonia according to research are presented below, starting with the Pausanias (IX 34. 5). Below (or next to?) the earlierst letter of the series, in which Hadrian slab bearing this letter of the year 135 must informs the Coroneans about decisions he be placed another block, broken at left made following their request: (referred to as block III from now on). It contains the beginning of a very important To Good Fortune. Imperator Caesar letter (no. 6), apparently dating to the same Trajan Hadrian Augustus, son of deified year (by all means before 138 AD since it Trajan Parthicus, pontifex maximus, emanates from Hadrian), mentioning works tribunician power for the ninth time, thrice to be carried out on the river Phalaros. consul, to the archons, council, and demos of the Coroneans, greetings. In order to understand the purpose of the I ordered dikes to be made for the intervention of the Emperor, one should bear Cephisus and the Hercynne and the other in mind that nowadays the largest part of the rivers along the section where they now plain of the Copais is cultivated because it was flow together before emptying into the drained in 1930s after several fruitless One of the inscriptions from Coronea (Thebes Museum, 1. J.H. Oliver, Greek Constitutions of Early Roman Emperors from Inscriptions and Papyri (Philadelphia photo by Y. Kalliontzis). 1989), 264, N. 108.

N° 3 - THE LETTER 17 attempts. Accounts of travellers show that All this seems to indicate that the same prior to these works, the plain was regularly happened with Hadrian’s involvement with flooded and transformed into a swamp, a the Coroneans. The economic situation was frequent phenomenon in karstic geological difficult in mainland Greece at the beginning formations. Such a situation was a constant of the 2nd century AD. The Emperor’s action threat for villages and cultivations, as well as illustrates the support given by the Roman a real hazard for health and agriculture. What authorities to a city no longer able to protect was the situation like in ancient times? its own territory and whose population was perhaps already suffering from malaria. But Hadrian’s letters show that at the beginning why was the Emperor’s concern centred on of the 2nd century AD the plain was partly Coronea, whereas the situation in the city of cultivated or farmable, at least in what was Orchomenos – whose name appears in the then the territory of Coronea. At the beginning letters – must have been even more critical? of the 1st century AD, the geographer Strabo One of the reasons for this was certainly the (IX 2.40) writes that, according to the old federal sanctuary of Athena Itonia, located tradition, “the place occupied nowadays by near the Coronean banks of Lake Copais, Lake Copais was previously dry, that it since Trajan already had cared about giving a belonged then to the Orchomenians, its close new glory to the Itonion by turning it into the neighbours, and that all sorts of crops were regional centre of the ethnic associations New sequence of the ﬁrst cultivated”. The chronology provided is vague, (koina) of Central Greece, as a statue base inscriptions according to the but we know from other sources that the restored by Professor Knoepfler shows. author. hegemony of Orchomenos – the capital city of the powerful kingdom of the Minyans – Despite their undeniable historical value, the cannot have lasted beyond the middle of the letters of Coronea are still unknown to the 6th century BC. Besides, investigations carried general public, and even to scholars. They have out by a team of the Technische Hochschule of indeed suffered misfortunes. The great Munich brought to light a vast hydraulic Pausanias, contemporary with the Antonines network dating to the Mycenaean period and great admirer of Hadrian, was not aware of (14th-12nd BC). Other works certainly took their existence because the letters had not been place later on in order to protect the farmable displayed yet when he was in Coronea around lands from the floods – some were initiated by 160 (they must have been engraved in one go Alexander the Great around 330 BC (Strabo around 165 AD). The same has happened more IX 2.18) –, but there is no evidence that a recently: published half a century only after their systematic drainage of the plain leading to a discovery, these inscriptions escaped to complete drying out of the lake ever took place Marguerite Yourcenar who certainly would not in ancient times: these works were occasional have missed the opportunity to credit her dear and always rather limited. emperor of such a grandiose an enterprise when writing her Memoirs of Hadrian (1951)(2). Nothing indicated to the visitors of the Archaeological Museum of Thebes that on some random blocks displayed in the courtyard laid one of the best preserved Imperial correspondence in all Roman history. They will have to wait until 2009 – when the museum reopens to the public – to see the appropriate exhibition of an epigraphic documentation as instructive as some passage of Tacitus or Suetonius evoking the draining works of Lake Fucine in Central Italy. ■ Translation: Claire Grenet, ATER, (Chair of Greek Epigraphy) Revision: Fabienne Marchand (member of Cities and rivers of the Kopais Lake (reprinted from Pritchett, Studies in the staff for the Lexicon of Greek Personal Ancient Greek Topography, II, 1969, p. 92 ﬁg. 10). Names, Oxford)

2. See now Hadrian Empire and Conflict. Catalogue of the exhibition at the British Museum, July- October 2008, p. 29.

18 THE LETTER - N° 3 HISTORY OF INDIA AND GREATER INDIA

The computerized library of Afghan pictures of the Collège de France’s Institute of Indian studies

The library of the Collège de France’s India was sole and fully in charge of the Institute of Indian Studies is the main library foreign relations of Afghanistan. Some in France for classical Indian studies hundreds years ago, Indian languages (sanskrit, literatures, linguistics, ancient were spoken in Eastern Afghanistan. Some Indian history etc.). During the last twenty are still alive. Till the advent of Islam, years it also collected a very large number of cultures, faiths and politities in Eastern geographical maps, most of them in the Afghanistan were fully Indian. Ashokan scale 1: 50 000, of the Indian subcontinent, inscriptions are engraved in Kandahar and Professor Gérard Fussman, Head of the Institute of ie of the countries lying south of the Hindu- in the Laghman valley, which were then Indian Studies kush and Himalaya ranges, including included in the Mauryan (Indian) Empire. Afghanistan. Some may wonder why a Indian manuscripts, discovered in caches library specializing in classical Indian studies near by Jalalabad and Bamiyan some ten chose to acquire and keep a great number of years ago, are now adding much to our documents pertaining to Afghanistan. knowledge of early Buddhist literature. The Muslim conquest of India started Indeed for newspapers, diplomats and from Afghanistan. There were many politicians, Afghanistan is mainly part of Afghan sultans on the Delhi throne. Central Asia. For linguists, it belongs Babur, who founded the last independant mostly to the Iranian languages area. Now Muslim Indian empire, was born in too many people forget that Afghanistan Andijan, in today Ozbekistan. Starting is a composite buffer state, whose from Afghanistan with a few men, he boundaries were arbitrarily demarcated defeated the Delhi Lodi sultan, ie an by the Russian and British empires Afghan, Pashto-speaking, sultan. He between 1879 and 1886. By the choosed to be buried in Kabul, the town Gandamak treaty, signed on May 26th, he loved most, where his tomb is still to be 1879, the British forced the Amir of seen. These facts, and many others, may Afghanistan to transfer them full explain why the present head of the jurisdiction over the Korram and Pishin Institute of Indian Studies at the Collège valleys, the Sibi district, and the Khybar de France, and Professor of history of pass, ie every Afghan (Pashto-speaking) India and Greater India, started his career district lying south of the so-called Durand in Afghanistan. He was sent there to study line, till then core part of the Afghan and publish Indian inscriptions newly Empire. That Durand line became later discovered and survey archaic Indian the de facto boundary with Pakistan, but (Dardic and Nuristani) languages. When no Afghan government ever recognized back in Paris, he also used to work in the that development, less so the Pashto (ie library of the Institute of Indian Studies, Afghan)-speaking tribes settled on each which in the early sixties already kept a side of the Durand line: this is a key factor rich documentation relative to these fields, in the today Afghan conflict. much increased since.

Before 1879, Afghanistan was part of Research now needs pictures, both as Northern India. The first Afghan Empire, sources of information and illustrations. established by Ahmad Shah Durrani in So when in 2000 we had to make an 1747, included the greater part of today archive of the 3000 pictures shot for the Pakistan. Till 1919, ie till the Chanderi project, mainly funded by the Independance war, the British Viceroy in Collège de France and since published(1),

1. G. Fussman, D. Matringe, E. Ollivier and F. Pirot, Naissance et déclin d’une qasba : Chanderi du Xe au XVIIIe siècle, Publications de l’Institut de Civilisation Indienne du Collège de France, fasc. 681, Paris, 2003, 385 p.

N° 3 - THE LETTER 19 we decided to establish a picture library catalogue was ready mid-2007 and inside the Institute, no more than a few engraved on a CD-Rom containing shelves where we stored our photographs c. 6000 pictures which we sent to with a very simple catalogue. But interested institutions (Guimet Museum, colleagues who had heard about this Kabul Museum, Afghan Institute of project asked us to keep and preserve their Archaeology, French Archaeological photographic records, often quite good Mission in Afghanistan etc.). Many because they knew how to use cameras scholars could also use it and got the like professional photographers. The authorization to reproduce pictures in number of pictures we stored increased books or papers they were writing. quickly with donations from G. Fussman Georges Redard, 1960. (Afghanistan, Pakistan and Northern We were starting to computerize our India), A. Bareau (Northern India), collection of Pakistan pictures when we N. Delaruelle (South Indian temples), received two donations of Afghan pictures, H. Diserens (Northern India and both very valuable, in all more than Himalayan range), and M. Le Berre 2 000 pictures. These were outstanding (Afghanistan). To make them available, we pictures shot by Mrs Dominique Darbois, had to transform a simple depot into a true given by herself, and the late Prof Georges library, ie we started to collect and write Redard, given by his widow, down as many data we could get about Mrs Madeleine Redard. each picture (subject, place, date, even time), and make computerized indexes. We Mrs D. Darbois is a very well-known also started to digitalize pictures for the professional photographer. She published colours of some were fading away and it is many books, most of them filled with easier and safer to communicate to users pictures of children (Parana, le petit of the library digitalized pictures than dias Indien, 1953; Achouna, le petit Esquimau, or prints. This entails much work, for 1958; Faouzi, le petit Égyptien, 1965; indexing a picture library is like indexing Terre d’enfants, 2004; etc.). Her a book page by page. This work has been photographs of French Guyana done for seven years now, without Amerindians are also renowned. Her hindering the prime duty of the Institute artistic sensibility is also demonstrated in (keeping books) for we were lucky to get her two books dealing with archaeological from the Collège de France additional subjects: Angkor (text by J. Auboyer, at funds for computers and one technician’s that time head keeper of the Guimet job, currently filled by Mrs Anne-Marie Museum, Barcelona 1971) et Cordero, working under the supervision L’Afghanistan et son art (text by of Eric Ollivier, architect attached to the J. Auboyer, Paris 1968). This last book chair of History of India and Greater prints photographs, shot in 1965 and India. 1966, of monuments from Afghanistan and objects displayed in the Kabul On receiving the donation made by the son Museum. Many, maybe most, of the Kabul of the late Marc Le Berre, during many Museum possessions she then years architect and photographer of the photographed were either stolen in 1992 French Archaeological Mission in when the mujaheddins captured Kabul or Afghanistan, we decided to start the destroyed by the Talibans in 2001. They digitalizing and computerizing of the are now documented only through picture library with our Afghan collection, photographs, the best of which are, which seemed at that time not susceptible without any doubt, those shot by to get increased. It was made from 6 x 6 D. Darbois. Some were published a second pictures shot by G. Fussman and M. Le time in 2002 in a book co-authored by Berre. We have very complete data on the Francine Tissot (Kaboul, le passé subject, the spot, the date, sometimes even confisqué. Le musée de Kaboul 1931- the hour when they were shot. They 1965, Editions Findakly). Thanks to mainly show archaeological sites and Mrs Darbois’ liberality, we were able to ancient buildings, most of them now much digitalize all her Afghan pictures, damaged or destroyed. A computerized published or not. She also gave us the

20 THE LETTER - N° 3 permission to communicate them to side of the Durand line, to which is now scholars. We are glad to acknowledge here added a very large collection of pictures our great debt towards her. shot in Afghanistan from 1960 to 1980. At that time, the country was only starting Georges Redard (1922-2005) held the to change through modernization. It did chair of linguistics at Bern University not yet suffer from damages brought by (Switzerland). He had been a student, then modern powerful ammunitions nor from a close friend, of E. Benveniste at the recent galloping urbanization. Many of Collège de France and was later his the monuments and objects shown in executor. He gave to the Collège de France these pictures have now disappeared. Our a great number of Benveniste’s personal French and foreign colleagues, who have archives. His widow, Mrs Madeleine started looking at them and using them, Redard, was kind enough to donate our are quite conscious of the value of that picture library some hundreds of dias and documentation(2). Our Afghan colleagues prints, showing mainly Iran and too. We are glad to be able to repay in that Afghanistan landscapes and local people. way a small part of the debt we owe them That documentation was meant for and their fellow countrymen. For it is with illustrating books on art and geography, their help, and most often together with similar to those previously published by them, that we were able to work in their G. Redard (La Perse (Iran), Zürich 1966; country. ■ Afghanistan, Zürich 1974), or the Linguistic Survey of Afghanistan he was working upon till his death. That Survey was conceived after the model of his Swiss colleagues Jud and Jaberg’s Sprach- und Sachatlas Italiens und der Südschweiz. It was a survey of “languages and things”, ie the surveyors collected words and sentences together with the ethnographic data they referred to. The maps he was working upon would have been accompanied by pictures of landscapes showing the places where he and his surveyors collected data from 1964 till 1976 and of things and people referred to in the collected linguistic data. Many pictures were shot by professional photographers specially hired for that purpose, among them Mrs D. Darbois. The negatives of the black and white pictures are now kept in the Institute of Linguistics’ archive at Bern University. In Paris, we keep enlarged prints of most of them, and some of Mrs D. Darbois’ negatives.

Through the library of the Institute of Indian Studies at the Collège de France scholars may now use a very large collection of books and offprints on Ancient Afghanistan and Indian (Dardic and Nuristani) languages spoken on each

Buddha’ head, formerly in 2. So do we. All the photographs shown in the 97 plates of Kabul Buddhist Monuments, by G. Fussman, Kabul Museum E. Ollivier and Baba Murad, Publications de l’Institut de Civilisation Indienne, fasc. 76, 1, Paris 2008, are Photograph D. Darbois - 1965. preserved in the picture library of the Institute and available to every interested scholar and institution.

N° 3 - THE LETTER 21 COMPARATIVE LEGAL STUDIES AND INTERNATIONALIZATION OF LAW HISTORY OF MODERN CHINA

The Death Penalty and Suicide in China: Past, Present, Comparisons Seminar organized by Professors Mireille Delmas-Marty (Chair of Comparative Legal Studies and Internationalization of Law) et Pierre-Étienne Will (Chair of History of Modern China), 20-21 June 2007.

Even without reliable figures, there is no doubt What, then, of death inflicted as a punishment? that China today holds the record – by far – for Jérôme Bourgon (Institute of East Asian Studies, capital executions per country/year. Beyond Lyon) offered a thorough survey of the death general considerations on the repressive nature penalty in imperial codes. He stressed in of the Chinese regime, this reality raises a particular that in imperial times the death number of questions. This seminar has carried penalty was grounded in the principle of on with the approach adopted in 2002 and retribution: one life secures one life. An 2003 when we discussed the question of important corollary – albeit admitting of some “Democracy and Tradition in China”(1): exceptions – is that the death penalty has no carefully examining the historical past which, to serious reason for being enforced in the absence an extent still to be evaluated, is responsible for of a homicide. Another point worthy of note is present realities. Moreover, we chose this time that, in the procedure such as it applied in late to compare Chinese realities with the situation imperial times, a majority of death sentences in Japan, Europe, and the United States. did not lead to actual execution. Zhang Ning (University of Geneva) discussed “the body and The problems regarding the death penalty death penalty in imperial China” with an and, in the same way, suicide, raise first of all emphasis on the effects of such non-standard the question of how life and death are (but still legal) methods of execution as approached – certainly a far-reaching dismembering the condemned person (lingchi), question, which can in no case be reduced to scattering the remains or exposing the head, in identifying a few cultural “constants”. It terms of desecration of the body and of seemed at the very least necessary to return “shame”: as is well known, preserving the to the manifold philosophical and religious integrity of the body bequeathed by one’s sources of such notions in China. This was parents was an important tenet of the done by Anne Cheng (INALCO), Jean-Noël fundamental Confucian virtue of filial piety. By Robert (EPHE), and Catherine Despeux transforming the condemned into ghosts seen as (INALCO), dealing respectively with a threat to the society of the living, this kind of Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism. In his “judicial bad death” raised important religious presentation on suicide in China on the eve of and ritual problems, both for the state and for modern times, Pierre-Étienne Will took on lineages (the latter acquiring a considerable role these reflections starting from a body of in late-imperial society). writings by administrators. In such texts self- inflicted death is not discussed as a Execution by dismembering, which was philosophical or religious problem – even abolished in 1905 with the rest of the so-called though communication between the living “cruel punishments”, was also discussed in 1. See Mireille Delmas- and the dead, the omnipresence of ghosts, and another paper by Jerôme Bourgon, this one Marty and Pierre-Étienne so forth, are frequently mentioned – but as a devoted to the penultimate application of this Will, eds, La Chine et la social problem, as well as a phenomenon technique, in 1904, concluding a sensational démocratie : tradition, droit, institutions, Paris: impossible to comprehend in a world where case in which twelve persons from the same Fayard, 2007. “even plants and insects aspire to life”. family had been massacred on the orders of a

22 THE LETTER - N° 3 Eric Seizelet (Institute of East Asian Studies, Lyon) pointed out in his presentation on alternative sentences. His analysis indicates that there is little chance of the death penalty being abolished in Japan in the near future: the abolitionist discourse is weak and not yet heard by decision makers; democracy serves as an alibi that silences public debate of the death penalty; and international pressure is ineffective. In Europe, the approach to life and death has evolved, as Geneviève Giudicelli-Delage Mr Robert Badinter, Professors Pierre-Étienne Will and Mireille Delmas-Marty (University of Paris I) illustrated through examples of suicide and euthanasia that local notable. For his part, Luca Gabbiani highlight the dialectic between law and life and (EFEO) examined how parricides were the question of a right to death. Stefano punished in Qing China, at least in a very Manacorda (University of Naples) brought the peculiar sort of circumstance – children killing focus back to the death penalty in Europe, or their parents in a fit of madness. In traditional more precisely, its abolition in peacetime and Chinese law, madness was always counted wartime. He emphasized, however, that since among mitigating circumstances. Yet mad September 11, 2001, international police and parricides were an exception as they were judicial cooperation has increased and may systematically condemned to death by result in state “disengagement” from dismembering, in exactly the same way as if the international agreements in this area. With perpetrators were of sound mind. However, respect to the United States, Naomi Norberg such inflexibility, which was grounded in the (Collège de France) noted that the death penalty sanctity of family relations, gave rise to heated had followed two successive waves of debate among legal specialists. It all ended in popularity, but certain limits on its application, 1904, as part of the same effort to “modernize” such as in the case of minors or the mentally law that led to abolishing lingchi altogether the handicapped, and on methods of execution following year. The problem of intent, central to (lethal injection) allow one to hope that in the the debates on the responsibility of homicidal long term the current wave will definitively madmen, was likewise discussed at length by recede. the law specialists exchanging views in the course of the cases examined by Françoise Mireille Delmas-Marty believes the comparison Lauwaert (Université Libre de Bruxelles) in her illustrates that the conflict between the relative paper on “Death penalty and the jurisprudence and the universal is being overcome to some on accident in the eighteenth and nineteenth extent. Relativism has of course not centuries”. disappeared, and the representation of pairs such as “life/death” and “human/inhuman” is The second part of the seminar, which was deeply rooted in each national tradition. But devoted to contemporary legal aspects, also traditions evolve, and even if the abolitionist introduced a comparative perspective. Li movement is slow and halting, it seems Qinglan (attorney, Paris bar) began with a universal, or at least universalizable: despite the presentation on China’s (long) list of capital diversity of values underlying national legal crimes and a study of cases illustrating the provisions, abolition is gaining ground in problems lawyers encounter in defending domestic law and being strengthening in persons accused of such crimes. She noted, international law. Robert Badinter (former however, that a doctrinal debate begun in 2000 Justice Minister) is convinced of this, and views has resulted in a more limited application of the the current abolitionist movement as proof that, death penalty. Lu Jianping (Renmin University in the short or long term, abolition of the death of China) confirmed this evolution, adding that penalty is inescapable. ■ China may soon ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Lu cautioned, however, that the diversity of rights, practices and popular attitudes in China create various problems. The same is true in Japan, as

N° 3 - THE LETTER 23 MOLECULAR IMMUNOLOGY

Expanding research activities in Singapore

At the end of 2005, the A*STAR as cancer, allergy, autoimmune disorders governmental agency in Singapore asked and infectious diseases. Professor Kourilsky, who holds the chair of Molecular Immunology, to help The development of international strengthening research in immunology in cooperation. Singapore. A development plan was designed, approved in April 2006, and The decision to create Biopolis dates back gradually implemented within the to 2001. In 2004, 75% was built up and Professor Philippe Kourilsky Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN) operational. Today, it is essentially Chairman which was created for this purpose. On complete, with the potential to welcome Singapore Immunology this occasion, a cooperation agreement 4000 researchers. Technological platforms Network (SIgN) was signed on 15th December 2005, are particularly well developed. One of the between Collège de France and A*STAR. last buildings to emerge was named It encompasses mostly biology, chemistry, Immunos because it houses the mathematics and physics. immunology nucleus which the heart of SIgN. 6000 m2 of equipped laboratories The development plan for immunology were opened in September 2007. includes several actions: Ultimately, in 2 to 3 years from now, some The implementation of a strong nucleus 25 independent groups of 10 researchers of basic immunology located in the new each will work in the new facility. scientific city known as Biopolis. Recruitments are international. In January 2008, 7 groups were settled, 4 of which The setting of collaborations with other were run by Europeans. The chair of Singaporean entities particularly to ensure molecular immunology was allocated transfer towards the clinics, in fields such space where two scientific projects are

24 THE LETTER - N° 3 being developed, one dealing with innate to interface with other scientific immunity, the other with an infectious communities is about to increase disease. The funding mechanisms display significantly: under the auspices of some peculiarities. One, and not the least, A*STAR, a second scientific city, is that the A*STAR agency covers all the Fusionopolis, is being built in the close expenses of the research groups such that, proximity of BIopolis. It will be dedicated they do not have to complete for external to engineering, physical and grants. computational sciences, and will ultimately home 5000 researches. To be consistent with the objectives set by the government of Singapore, SIgN labs A number of agreements have been made in Immunos are strongly focused on basic between A*STAR and/or SIgN and immunology, preferably in humans, while foreign institution, the Karolinska gradually incorporating, as best as this can Institute in Sweeden, the Riken Institute. be done, the questions, tools and concepts Discussions are on the way with of systems immunology (Systems Australian, British and other institutions, immunology was the topic of the as well as with INSERM and the Pasteur immunology course given during the Institute, not ignoring the implemented academic year 2006-2007 at the collège agreement with the Collège de France. ■ de France) Ongoing recruitments (4 additional groups are in the process of Website: http://www.sign.a-star.edu.sg/ joining) take these priorities into account.

SIgN devotes a fraction of its funds to the promotion of collaborations involving other research groups belonging to the two large Singapore universities (NUS and NTU), hospitals and other health institutions. A scientific society, the Singapore Society for Immunologists was launched in January 2008. The potential

N° 3 - THE LETTER 25 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MEDIEVAL AND MODERN ART

‘The Grand Atelier. Pathways of Art in Europe (5th – 18th centuries)’ was the main event at the Europalia festival organized to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. Over 350 works from 160 public collections were presented at this exhibition, held at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels from 5 October 2007 to 20 January 2008. A 340-page catalogue in three languages was published by the Mercator Fund.

Excerpt of the press conference held on At a very early stage these ateliers proved 4 October 2007 by Professor Roland to be open to the Mediterranean world: Professor Roland Recht Recht, Commissioner of the exhibition: Byzantine art passed through Venice and the south of Italy, and Muslim art through “[…] Why the ‘Grand Atelier’? An artist’s Spain, and the beauty and virtuosity of its workshop or studio is both a mental and formal inventions enriched the ateliers of a craft space where the painter’s, sculptor’s artists and stone masons as far afield as or cabinet maker’s trade is taught, for the Pyrenees […]. example; where the compagnons and apprentices gradually rise to the level of Ateliers were places of intense circulation their master; and whence the reputation of both ideas and people. Their of a name is passed on by imitators, reputations were based on the originality sometimes of a remarkable standard, or or quality of their creations: Limoges by art lovers. It is a space where works are enamels, alabaster sculptures from York designed, created and often shown to or Nottingham, and retables from other artists and collectors. Brabants were exported far and wide. In Scandinavia, the Iberian lands and Central Over the centuries the European space Europe alike, luxurious commissioned itself has resembled a huge workshop, or works rubbed shoulders with mass set of workshops, with their specific productions. practices, singular styles and multiple connections. The overlaps, encounters and Themes drawn from poets’ or theologians’ direct or indirect contacts have created sensibility materialized in representations this constantly shifting European space, which exposed all social classes to new open to the outside. images such as the figure of the Virgin whose idealized beauty was influenced by We could, for instance, talk of an courtly poetry. The Virgin was depicted as itinerant grand atelier, that of migrant a mother showing tenderness towards her peoples who crossed Europea in all child. She played an essential part in the directions, with neither houses nor humanization of art in the Middle Ages. temples, and who carried with them magnificent jewellery that they created The grand atelier was also the itinerant with few tools. Their taste for adornment career of certain artists. Sculptors and is comparable to that of the manuscripts illuminators of manuscripts were great that Irish monks took with them to travellers whose careers sometimes took Christianize the continent. From them from one end of the continent to the Charlemagne’s time we can also talk of a other. The discoveries in the chateau of grand atelier between the Rhine and the Buda in Hungary, for example, attest to Seine, consisting of dozens of scriptoria, the presence of sculptors who came from close to the imperial or princes’ courts, the West to fulfil a large royal order. where scribes copied Greek or Latin texts, and prodigious artists dipped into the A new type of atelier appeared at the tradition of antiquity for scenes which dawn of the modern era: the printer’s they adapted to new programmes. office. Owing to the advent of the printing

26 THE LETTER - N° 3 press, the Treaty of Vitruve was circulated surpass it. Thanks to that surpassing, a throughout Europe and determined the court artist like Bartholomaus Spranger, future of European architecture. in the service of Rudolph II in Prague, produced an exceptional painting which In the age of Internet, a special place has both singularizes him and attests to his been reserved for books in this exhibition: prodigious artistic culture […]. a wonderful sort of library, divided into various sections, with some of the greatest This culture was completed to a large books from the history of humanity. The degree by the artists, art lovers and first circulation of books, more than any other art critics during the eighteenth century, object, has contributed to the definition owing to the existence of large collections of a European cultural space. accessible first to the nobility and then to the bourgeoisie, to whom it afforded an The grand atelier of Europe was open to opportunity to become cultured. In the the outside world at a very early stage and Enlightenment century, the grand atelier thus extended its perspective way beyond was an exhibition space where art was geographical Europe. Its view of distant available to all, to contemplate and judge. worlds – Africa, Oceania, the Americas, India, the Far East – was initially one of The final section of the exhibition is superiority: Europeans considered the devoted to the cabinets of art lovers who ‘others’ as savages, to whom they felt rivalled one another in financial means superior. But this view changed gradually. and ostentation, in the collecting of key With the Enlightenment and Cook’s works in the history of painting. In former expeditions, it became more demanding, princes’ collections represented in the almost scientific, and therefore more paintings of Franken, Teniers and Pannini, objective. art lovers are seen discussing art and thus applying their knowledge or honing their The grand atelier also consisted of the sensibility. In this way a new form of dialogue between the great masters of European sociability was born.” ■ European art during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as well as the dialogue that they had never severed with the tradition of antiquity. If art was to imitate antiquity, it also had to be able to

The catalogue is distributed in France by Éditions Actes Sud.

N° 3 - THE LETTER 27 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE SCIENCE

Research Methodologies in Psychiatry During the 20th century, psychiatry has studies, association studies, etc.) aiming at the undergone several upheavals that have identification of vulnerability factors for transformed practices but failed to provide various types of mental disorders. He mostly any certain knowledge about the nature of talked about bipolar disorders (what used to mental disorders. The Freudian methodology be called manic-depression). While underlining of the analysis of the unconscious and the the limits and methodological biases of the discovery of the main psychoactive drugs have various methods generally resorted to, he gave both led, albeit in very different ways, to the a tentative account of the results obtained so treatment of the disorders affecting far. To put things briefly: although the individuals, whereas the anti-psychiatry existence of genetic vulnerability factors is well Professor Anne Fagot-Largeault movement claimed that individual symptoms established, these factors are difficult to merely reflected the ills of society. This might identify, most notably because of their explain the tensions internal to medical interaction with epigenetic (developmental) practices, as well as the fact that the latter were factors and other likely environmental factors. challenged, the echoes of which can be found Frank Bellivier was thus able to show that in Michel Foucault’s work, from his thesis on there exists a (statistical) link between the early the Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique to the onset of a first pathological episode and the lectures on Psychiatric Power he gave at the nature (and seriousness) of the trauma the Collège de France in 1973 and 1974. patient has undergone (environmental factor), but also that there exists a link between the The new paths of research that have emerged early onset of a first pathological episode and in recent years (neuro-imaging, genetic the likelihood, for a first degree relative, of analysis, cognitive sciences) have been developing similar disorders (genetic factors). presented during the conference entitled “Psychiatric Research: Multiple Disorders, Bruno Falissard’s approach is mostly focused Common Models?” (June 1st, 2007). On on the care of the patient and the effectiveness January 31st, 2008, psychiatrist and of the treatment of her sufferings. He is in philosopher Jean-Noël Missa, Professor at the charge of children and teenagers. He has Others dates: Université Libre de Bruxelles, introduced us to presented his theoretical views in a small book - 5 May 2008, Paris, his current research on the evolution of entitled Cerveau et psychanalyse: tentative de with Prof Pierre psychiatric practices in Belgium, as they have réconciliation (L’Harmattan, 2008). The Magistretti (Collège de been described in his recent book Naissance de model he advocates intends to provide France) and Luc Mallet (INSERM); la psychiatrie biologique (PUF, 2006). A conceptual tools that are “neutral” enough to - 19 June 2008, Bonn colloquium aiming at building bridges integrate, in the same picture of cerebral (Germany), with Felix between neuroscience and psychoanalysis was functioning, genetics, psychoanalysis, and even Thiele (Eur. Akad.), held on May 2007, under the lead of Prof phenomenology. He draws a “formal brain” Michael Quante (Köln) Pierre Magistretti, who was the holder of the under the form of a mesh, each intersection of and Alain Leplège (Univ. International Chair for 2007-2008. which is constituted by a neuron that is inserted Paris 7); in various interconnected compounds. Within - 8 October 2008, Paris, This year, research on mental disorders is the topic these compounds, the alternative activation with Louis Sass and of Prof Anne Fagot-Largeault’s seminar, which is and deactivation of the neurons ends up by Bernard Granger; - 18 December 2008, entitled “Research Methodologies in Psychiatry”. stabilizing itself and produces convergence Paris, with Georges A first session, held on April 10th, was run by phenomena. We are thus led to a Chapouthier and Pierre- Prof Frank Bellivier (Créteil, Inserm U 841) and representation of subjectivity as a landscape, a Henri Castel. Prof B. Falissard (Paris, INSERM U 669). sort of cartography, in which each memory, experience or trauma constitutes an Frank Bellivier has edited, together with Prof “attractor”, that is a trace whose depth varies Marion Leboyer, a volume entitled Psychiatric according to its intensity and the level of This lectures can be Genetics. Methods and Reviews (Humana convergence reached during the memorizing downloaded from the Press, 2003). He has been involved for several process. ■ Collège de France Website. Page of Prof Fagot- years in genetic surveys and analyses Jean-Claude K. Dupont Largeault (segregation analysis, linkage studies, pair

28 THE LETTER - N° 3 HISTORY OF INDIA AND GREATER INDIA

“The cultural policies of newly independent India” A talk by Kapila Vatsyayan

Indian manuscripts, the publication of numerous volumes on the Indian arts, and excellent exhibitions of ancient and contemporary art. She has written many books, including: Classical Indian Dance in Literature; The Square and the Circle of Indian Arts; Bharata: the Natya Sastra; and Matralaksanam. Mrs Kapila Vatsyayan and Professor Gérard Fussman On 4 April 2008, at the invitation of Professor Mrs Vatsyayan is still highly active in the Gérard Fussman, Mrs Kapila Vatsyayan management of the India International Centre, a addressed a large audience on ‘The building of meeting place of Indian and foreign intellectuals the main cultural institutions of independent in New Delhi, where since 2004 she has India’. Mrs Vatsyayan, born on 25 December organized a series of high-profile seminars to 1928, has played and still does play a key role in renew and promote former political, cultural and the Indian Republic’s cultural policies. Daughter- socio-economic relations between India and in-law of a great Sanskritist, sister of a well- Asian countries (IIC-Asia Project). She is a known poet, and famous dancer, she is above all member of the upper house (Rajya Sabha) of the an intellectual who studied at the best universities Indian parliament and represents the Indian (MA in English in 1949 in Michigan, PhD in government on the executive board of Sanskrit in 1952 at Banaras Hindu University). UNESCO. Very close to J. Nehru and his family, a leading member of the Congress Party, for a long time The talk at the Collège de France was not Secretary in the Ministry of Education organized to pay homage to Mrs Kapila (Department of Arts) after occupying other Vatsyayan. She was invited to the Collège to senior positions in that Ministry, she was one of explain her audience what the motivations of the the main actors first in the implementation of the newly-independent Indian government’s cultural cultural policy of independent India, then of its policies were. It was a talk on contemporary designing. Mrs Vatsyayan was behind the history, in which she spoke standing up for over creation of many institutions, including the an hour, without a single note. She started by Centre for Research on Contemporary History, discussing the dual status of cultural institutions known as the Nehru Memorial Museum and in British India: on the one hand, purely Indian Library, the Sarnath Institute for Tibetan Studies, traditional institutions, without any British the Centre for Cultural Resources and Training presence except, in very few cases, in a private and, finally, the eminent Indira Gandhi National capacity; on the other, British institutions founded Centre for the Arts. She has worked on the by the British government in India, in which organization of museums and scientific societies, many Indians were employed but in a and the maintenance – often the rescue – of their subordinate role. collections. Mrs Vatsyayan has also striven to revitalize the Indian archaeological service, and Many traditional institutions were still thriving in has encouraged the restoration of threatened 1947. Considerable efforts had been made to historical buildings in Indianized Asia (Angkor create new ones, in which British innovations Vat, Bamiyan). In the same spirit, she has were adopted to withstand their impact on supervised the organization of large Indian art Indian culture, for instance the Brahmo Samaj, exhibitions abroad. the Ramakrishna Mission, or the University of Shantiniketan founded by Rabindranath Tagore. In 1990 Mrs Kapila Vatsyayan founded the These institutions nevertheless remained isolated, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts without government support, except in the which she directed until 2000. There she principalities where some maharajahs granted organized the systematic microfilming of all them their patronage. Notwithstanding their real

N° 3 - THE LETTER 29 utility, British institutions or those of British furthermore made a systematic effort to create inspiration – universities, museums and large national institutions for the study and centres, called Surveys because they served the development not only of Islamic, Buddhist and colonizer’s aim of drawing up inventories of classical (Sanskrit) culture, and of contemporary everything in the colony (Geological, Botanical, Indian languages, but also of English and other Zoological, Archaeological Surveys) – foreign languages. Particular attention was paid contributed to an opposition between Western to archives and especially to public or academic culture and traditional Indian culture, always libraries, with the intention of opening them seen from the outside. more to the public and preserving their richness. Special attention was paid to manuscripts as they In 1947 Nehru defined the principles of the were often neglected and in a very poor Indian federal state’s cultural policy, which he condition. considered to be as important as the creation of a democratic state and an economy that was The ‘conquest’ of Indian culture also involved strong enough to guarantee the country’s the ‘recovery’ of the great Sanskrit texts of which independence. Two main thrusts of that policy the originals had been lost but which still existed were: promotion of an Indian culture without in highly accurate Tibetan translations. These denying the Western input, by combining texts had been one of the vehicles of Indian tradition and modernity; and fostering “Indians’ influence outside the sub-continent. For this awareness” of belonging to a single large country purpose the government created the Sarnath characterized by diversity as well as profound, Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, and age-old unity. provided substantial support to the Sikkim Research Institute of Tibetology, and the Tibetan Mrs Vatsyayan noted that the Congress Party Library in Dharamshala. government was able to rely on an existing structure: a few large cultural institutions Mrs Vatsyayan also explained the efforts made administered and financed by the state; princes’ at national level to develop the study of Sanskrit patronage of the arts and literature; the and regional languages, archaeology, and the broadcasting of music by All India Radio; and conservation of historical buildings. She some history and civilization courses offered by emphasized the creation of two large institutions, universities. Yet, next to nothing had been done the National Museum of New Delhi and the for such disciplines as aesthetics or the practice of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, pointing the arts, and the state had little concern for the out that these institutions, responsible for development of cultural, individual or collective maintaining the memory of India’s greatness, had activity. been designed to be wide open to the outside as well. They moreover benefited from the expertise Although priority was given to economic of an eminent American specialist, Mrs Grace development, requiring considerable investments, Morley. the Indian government did nevertheless launch a few programmes on a national scale. Indian Due to a lack of time, Mrs Vatsyayan simply history and civilization classes were introduced mentioned in passing the efforts made by the into the high-school curriculum, the practice of Indian government to foster the development of traditional arts in villages was encouraged, new contemporary painting, dance and classical museums were created, and traditional craftwork Indian music, all disciplines dear to her, and the was supported. Nehru took a decision of great organization of Indian art exhibitions abroad. symbolic impact when he invited representatives Modestly, she chose not to mention the eminent of tribal and traditional village arts to Delhi on institution which she founded in 1990, the Indira Republic Day every year. The initiative afforded Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, nor the an opportunity to expose the urbanized Indian one in which she still plays a key part, the India elite to the creativity and richness of the tribal International Centre. These two institutions and village art and cultures of their country, perpetuate J. Nehru’s and the first Indian which until then had been despised. government’s policy of developing a specifically Indian culture which respects the past yet is open The government of newly-independent India also to change and to the best foreign influences, and founded three academies at national level (music of showing the world the importance and Mrs Kapila Vatsyayan and dance, fine arts, and literature). It modernity of this culture. ■

30 THE LETTER - N° 3 O-FUDA COLLECTION DONATED TO THE COLLÈGE DE FRANCE

O-fuda representing Jûichimen- O-fuda representing the deity O-fuda representing Emma-ô (King senju Kannon o-fuda (One- Myôken at Yanagishima (Hôshô-ji Yama) from the Ennô-ji temple in Thousand-Armed and Eleven Faced temple) in Tokyo. Kamakura. Avalokitesvara) from the Kiyomizu- kannon-dô of Ueno in Tokyo. This o-fuda is the first one obtained by Bernard Frank. The Collège de France has recently received for the first time the name of an Irish writer very ancient tradition, of the high number of the donation of about one thousand o-fuda. called Lafcadio Hearn. His mind was religious schools and traditions and of an These images were collected by the late captured at once and he became a devoted open religious attitude built on tolerance and professor Bernard Frank (1927-1996) who reader of Hearn’s works: “Within three imagination that constitutes one of the defi- was -and still remains- the only holder of the weeks I had bought a dozen of his books ning traits of Japanese people. Japan was “Japanese Civilization” chair in this institu- and taken the decision to learn Japanese one of the rare countries that had been able tion. His widow and his children have made from the next academic year.” to maintain in all its abundance this prolife- it plain that, through this donation, his work rating Buddhist pantheon that had vanished might be pursued and completed within the While reading Hearn’s works, B. Frank in so many other situations.” Institute for Advanced Japanese Studies discovered that religions mixed with almost (Institut des hautes études japonaises) that every aspect of Japanese everyday life. He Bernard Frank nourished then the dream of Bernard Frank himself directed for more felt a special attraction for the sheer multitude an inventory of data concerning these innu- than twenty years. of Buddhas and deities. In fact, when merable objects of worship, and o-fuda Buddhism reached Japan, the final point of appeared to him as a very appropriate mean O-fuda are strips of paper with written a long itinerary accomplished while absor- to bring such a project to completion. Once inscriptions or woodcut images (nowadays bing a vast array of cultural and religious again, he had discovered in L. Hearn’s pages most of them are printed using modern tech- currents, it had already reached a far more the existence of this iconographic material. In niques) distributed by temples. They repre- complex state than its original version in Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, Hearn relates sent Buddhas or other deities worshipped at India. Furthermore, Buddhism had assimi- how he had bought a small engraving of these religious sites. Faithful believers bring lated Japanese local religion, Shinto, and Emma-ô (King Yama) reproducing a them back to their homes and use them as given birth to an entirely unique and original famous sculpture of this deity made by Unkei objects of worship, asking for the deities’ world of beliefs that has survived until today. while visiting the Ennô-ji temple in protection or making vows in their presence. B. Frank in the foreword written for the cata- Kamakura. logue he projected of his o-fuda collection In 1945, as winter was reaching to an end – it made the following statement: “Through reading this text, one could not was in fact the first year after the Liberation help but wonder if Hearn was referring to a of France from German troops – Bernard “I had always felt a strong fascination general custom in all Japanese temples to Frank, then in his “philosophy class” in high towards the almost infinite variety of all the have images of their Buddhas and deities school at the Lycée Carnot in Paris (the last religious figures venerated in Japan. These engraved in a similar fashion so that they year in the French high school system) heard figures are at the same time witnesses of a could be distributed to pilgrims should they

N° 3 - THE LETTER 31 require it. If it was indeed the case, the person His aim was to study “How beliefs Japan, o-fuda collections are extremely rare who would visit the greatest number of connected with everyday life” while using because the very nature of these religious temples, transforming himself according to this popular material side by side with cano- objects prevents them to be kept more than Ernest Renan’s words into the “Pausanias of nical and doctrinal sources. He even chose as one year at home. Alas, one must add that all these temples”, would have in front of the title of one of his first seminars: “Buddhist this tradition is gradually vanishing. Some him the highly stimulating prospect of gathe- Pantheon and Japanese Society”. In the year temples have even stopped the printing and ring a vast quantity of these small figurations. 2000, we have collected his works in two the diffusion of their images. The merit of these figurations lied in their volumes: the first one, published by Odile ability to illustrate religious figures while retai- Jacob, consists of detailed summaries of his After B. Frank passed away, the incomplete ning variations brought by local traditions. seminars at the Collège de France and o-fuda catalogue he had left was taken over To compare these variations between them- appears under the title Dieux et bouddhas du by his friends and his students at the Institut selves and with canonical forms, to shed a Japon. A second volume of his studies on des hautes études japonaises. Now this light on them with the knowledge of tales Japanese Buddhism was published by the project is placed under the care of the written to justify their origins, to study the Institut des hautes études japonaises at the research unit UMR 8155 “Chinese, symbolic value of characteristic elements: the Collège de France: Amour, colère, couleur: Japanese and Tibetan Civilizations” with the nature of all these elements could not but Essais sur le bouddhisme japonais. scientific and technical help of Kokugakuin kindle a scholar’s imagination.” University and of the Historiographical As we previously mentioned, B. Frank Institute at Tokyo University. Thanks to B. Frank then started to travel throughout planned to write a complete catalogue of his Toshiba International Foundation generous Japan from North to South. In a forty-year o-fuda collection but his final illness and his funding, we have opened an internet site that span going from his first trip in 1954 to his untimely death left this work in an incom- although in progress brings to the public last in 1994, he had visited more than 2000 plete state. Yet we are fortunate enough to be access to our documents and ongoing studies temples and collected about 1000 o-fuda. able to use a precious working instrument to (http://www.ofuda.org). He classified them along six categories carry on this task. B. Frank had wonderfully defined in Butsuzô zui (An Illustrated reorganized the permanent exhibitions of One of our dearest projects is to hold an Vocabulary of Buddhist Images) – a work Japanese Buddhas brought from Japan by exhibition in Paris with all the detailed written in 1690 by a monk called Gizan and Émile Guimet in 1876 and now in the captions that were unfortunately missing at illustrated by a painter named Tosa possession of the Guimet Museum. The the Machida exhibition. On this occasion Hidenobu. catalogue he wrote on this special occasion we would like fulfill B. Frank’s wish and to has become the best handbook available on publish a catalogue raisonné of the o-fuda B. Frank’s collection is not the only one of its Japanese Buddhist iconography (Panthéon collection. ■ kind. Within European limits, we already bouddhique au Japon – Collections d’Emile Sekiko Petitmengin know of two other examples. The first one Guimet. Paris: Réunion des Musées natio- (Translated by François Lachaud) is the Basil H. Chamberlain Collection at the naux, 1991). In order to write this catalogue, Pitt-Rivers Museum in Oxford. It was o-fuda were very serviceable to him because gathered by Chamberlain (1850-1935), a they reproduced quite precisely the various British philologist and one of the founding forms taken by deities. In his study on fathers of Japanese studies in Europe. The Myôken-bosatsu, B. Frank tells how he was second collection was assembled by André able to identify precisely a statue at the Leroi-Gourhan (1911-1986), himself a Guimet Museum using a o-fuda. This statue professor at the Collège de France holding was none other than a replica of the famous the chair in prehistoric studies. This second Myôken statue at the Yanagishima temple in collection now belongs to the Musée d’eth- Tokyo worshipped by Hokusai a long time nographie in Geneva. Leroi-Gourhan had ago (Amour, colère, couleur, p. 138). also collected a hundred of o-fuda for the Musée de l’Homme in Paris (formerly in In the fall of 2006, two events organized in Bernard Frank standing in front of his o-fuda Trocadéro they are now at the Quai Branly Japan have demonstrated the value of collection. On his left the famous Japanese novelist Inoue Yasushi who made the following comment Museum). B. Frank’s collection. First the publication of about this visit: “When I visited his apartment, I his book O-fuda ni miru Nihon bukkyô made the wonderful experience of finding myself in an almost complete Japanese atmosphere impossible Professor Frank’s original approach was to (Japanese Buddhism as Seen through its to find anymore in Japan. The very reason for this use these popular artifacts as intrinsically Popular Religious Images) and consequently unique experience to happen was the presence of valuable iconographic materials in the course the exhibition of his collection at the more than one thousand of these o-fuda distributed by Japanese temples to faithful believers, of his scientific investigations as he sketched Machida Municipal Museum in Tokyo. methodically classified and ordered between his them in his inaugural speech at the Collège These two events came as a big surprise for office and the adjacent room. Rising from all these popular images, I became aware of the yearnings of de France and subsequently in his various the Japanese public who discovered a Japanese people to live free from the anguish of publications dealing with Buddhist deities. cultural heritage until then forgotten. In sickness and from natural calamities.”

32 THE LETTER - N° 3 GUEST LECTURERS Nicholas PURCELL Ofﬁcial Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History, St. John’s College, Oxford (United Kingdom) invited by Assembly of the Professors on the proposition of Prof John Scheid He has given in October and November 2007 four lectures entitled: 1. Becoming Maritime 2. The slopes of connectivity 3. On the fringes of the Mediterranean: ecology, networks, interdependencies 4. The Tethys corridor and problems of the Transeuphratean.

Is the Mediterranean a concept with terrestrial regions from which fringes of Mediterranean space from which interesting history could or seafarers are recruited. The the Bronze Age to the Middle Ages. should be written? If so, what kind comparison in turn illuminates in a of history? These were the questions new way the well-known episodes of III. On the fringes of the which underlay The Corrupting ‘becoming maritime’ in ancient Mediterranean: ecology, networks, Sea. These lectures explore how we history. interdependencies might approach the relationship This lecture has concentrated on between Mediterranean histories II. The slopes of connectivity one of the main dynamics of the and those of the world which The first lecture delineated the interactions which were explored in surrounded the Mediterranean boundary between the places where Lecture II: commercial exchange. region. They are focussed on the gens de mer were recruited, and the The aim of the exercise is to re- evidence from the ancient world, sea on which they were deployed. evaluate some of the evidence for but there are forays into more As a space, the latter was defined by the Greek and Roman trader, in the recent history. this mobilisation, and more broadly hope that the broadly ecological by its connectivity. Those who lived approach may make more sense of I. Becoming Maritime closest to the sea could be mobilised the diverse contexts and patterns of Ancient thought strictly distinguished easily and repeatedly: but this paper ancient trade than the modernising the terrestrial from the maritime. starts with cases in which the least models which we habitually use. That distinction is well understood. likely land-dwellers ‘became Like state-formation, ancient trade- This paper explores the ways in maritime’: mountain dwellers, and diasporas and réseaux marchands which ancient writers spoke of barbarians from distant interiors. turn out to benefit from being seen overcoming that separation, and ‘Becoming maritime’ now appears as features of the Mediterranean ‘becoming maritime’ instead of the as one movement along a gradient periphery. Not only are they normal orientation of human life towards the high connectivity of the connected intimately with towards the land. The locus classicus sea, and that gradient can be connectivity, but they turn out to is Herodotus 7, 144: anankasas modelled according to its have a special relationship, through thalassious genesthai Athenaious, a relationship with connectivity, and the importance of the slave-trade, precedent spectacularly developed by above all to the mobilisation of with the coercive mobilisation the Roman strategy against Carthage goods and people. Terrestrial which is turning out to be a salient in the First Punic War. The topos has interiors had their regimes of characteristic of a distinctively a long history in numerous connectivity too, and the paper Mediterranean history. essentialising accounts of unexpected explores the history of changing military success. It is worth asking polarities, in zones between sea and IV. The Tethys corridor and how this familiar framework relates continent, in which both sea-borne problems of the Transeuphratean to more realistic social and political and land-based formations can So far, the terrestrial interiors (or other histories of Mediterranean gens de dominate, a recursivity for which maritime spaces) whose histories can mer. The enquiry opens up a vision the name sociétés du ressac is be juxtaposed with those of the of the practicalities and purposes of borrowed. The dynamics of these Mediterranean have not received more or less coercive mobilisation of changes can be closely linked to the much comparative attention in this people in a maritime milieu which development of states, and an series. In the fourth lecture, the themes thereby acquires both a distinctive attempt is made to seek some of the earlier three discussions have historical personality and a certain common denominators in the been revisited to examine the type of relationship with the development of small polities on the relationship between a Mediterranean

N° 3 - THE LETTER 33 world and its neighbours to the East. le couloir de Téthys of the title. The This is a type of analysis which can be The lowland corridor which includes Mediterranean of The Corrupting Sea used with interesting results for other Mesopotamia, and which runs from takes its place as a unit with a Mediterranean margins with complex Syria to Elam and the mouth of the distinctive regime of connectivity, but essentially connective spaces, such Persian Gulf is proposed as a region which can be set alongside other such as the Sahara or the Atlantic façade. It which is both a connective space in its units, and made the subject of proposes a Mediterranean which own right, whose peripheries can be comparison, or of ‘connected continues to be a worthwhile object explored in similar ways to the histories’ involving more than one in of separate historical reflection, Mediterranean peripheries which we parallel. The zone charnière of the without being unacceptably promoted have examined, and in important Levant ceases to be a frontier between as exceptional. ■ ways a prolongation of alien realms, but a space of transition Mediterranean space, in a single unit, between closely comparable units.

Denis DUBOULE University of Geneva, Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne (Switzerland) has given one lecture during the course of Prof Anne Fagot-Largeault, holder of the Chair of Philosophy of Life Science.

Since 2006, Anne Fagot-Largeault stabilized form; in other words, it has famous problem of the primacy of has dedicated two series of lectures to to establish an ontology of the egg or the hen illustrates: from “the Ontology of Becoming”. On “becoming”, and not an ontology of the perspective of the evolutionary March 20th, 2008, she has invited “being”. Secondly, it has to avoid sciences, the egg necessarily comes Prof Denis Duboule, head of the reducing becoming to a succession of first because cells come before Department of Zoology and Animal states, and to grasp it as a set of complex beings; for the sciences of Biology at the University of Geneva, processes that are mostly development, the egg also takes to give a talk entitled: “The undetermined. This is the condition precedence over the mature Mechanisms of Biological that has to be fulfilled so that the individual because it is the variations Evolution”. ontology of becoming respects the occurring during its development specificity of life, namely that it that give it its singularity. The Ontology allows for the exceeds any alleged natural order or ontological primacy of the cell over identification of what is. Any a priori laws of change. the organism implies the rejection of scientific theory or any philosophy a preformationist doctrine, for living rests on an ontology, even if the latter Accordingly, what is living cannot be beings – be they men or mice – share may remain implicit or may often the mere execution of a program; it is the same basic biological differ from what is according to not the completion of a plan; on the mechanisms; this primacy also common sense. This ontological contrary, it implies, because of its challenges any reductionist ambition assumption is problematic for the life becoming and evolution, a history. that would try to search in the gene sciences, because “being” does not These three features are at the heart for a code of the living, for it implies always enable one to define their of Prof Anne Fagot-Largeault’s series the paying of some attention to object. For it is indeed the case that, of lectures for this year. The talk of individual variations. This lack of a in this respect, a mammal is no Denis Duboule enables one to grasp “code” appears in a striking manner different from a rock. What those in the light of the most recent in the way “architect genes”, also distinguishes the biological from the developments in experimental known as HOX genes (which are the mineral is not “being”, it is “life”. biology and developmental genetics. object of Denis Duboule’s research), The ontology of the life sciences is work. Duboule has shown that these therefore faced with two main What is living is not the mere genes do not code for a particular challenges. Firstly, it has to identify, execution of a program. This is action, but that they regulate the among all the entities, those that are obvious both with respect to construction of elements of living but that never exhibit a fully evolution and development, as the beings as diverse as organs and

34 THE LETTER - N° 3 extremities. This “pleiotropy”, or architect genes involved in that kind development of individuals. But it multi-functionality, of “architect of development, he has demonstrated also conceals a dreadful scientific genes” shows that the variations that the pentadactily we observe in challenge behind the seeming characteristic of living beings cannot rats today is neither the result of a simplicity of the project of be reduced by genetic reductionism gradual transformation from one to integrating the recursive phenomena because, as Denis Duboule explains, five fingers, nor even a necessary of development into the linear “each time nature produces an result with respect to the functional process of evolution. Embryology, at innovation, it has not produced at adaptation of what is living to its its own level, achieves this the same time the genes to create this environment. The developmental integration by postulating that one innovation, but went on to search for perspective enables us to consider that can use experimental means to go up already existing genes”. not everything is perfect in nature, but the chain of evolution by selectively that any organization results from an inhibiting the action of architect What is living is not the completion of equilibrium, a compromise: what genes; by doing so, we would be able a plan. This approach shows to what matters in an organism is the to objectify the “mechanical basis” extent the epistemological status of coordination of functions, not their of evolution. the sciences of development and that perfection; this requirement of of the sciences of evolution differ: the coordination implies that the driving But a complete and enduring sciences of evolution are interested in force in development is not the notion synthesis of evolution and the phylogenetic problem of knowing of “gradual perfection”, but that of development (evo-devo) seems quite why a certain form of life has been “internal constraint”. difficult to conceive. First of all, selected, whereas the sciences of massive oppositions seem to result development focus on the ontogenetic What is living implies a history. The from their epistemological problem of knowing how individual functioning of HOX genes also divergences, for instance with respect organisms have been constructed. enables us to conceive how it is to the role of selection pressures: do Through the study of species, possible that a “solution of they bear on the parts of living beings evolution develops a retrospective continuity”, that novelty might (external constraints) or on the view in order to understand selection emerge from such a recursive organism as a whole (internal processes and appears, in fine, as a phenomenon as development. That is constraints)? But Denis Duboule also gradualist doctrine of the adaptation an aspect of the problem also focuses on another problem that of what is living to its environment. addressed in Prof Fagot-Largeault’s seems to him to be at the heart of Denis Duboule emphasizes the fact series of lectures, under the head of biology: that of the temporal frames that evolution is, at the end of the day, the “ontological enrichment” of reference proper to the sciences of “politically correct”, to the extent that characteristic of living beings. From development and to the sciences of it inserts what is living into a linear the perspective of the biological evolution. To insert the recursive process that seems, at least mechanisms of development, the nature of development into the retrospectively, to follow a certain conditions of such an emergence are linearity of evolution would require a direction. On the contrary, the most notably due to the fact that the “complete mastery” of the way of sciences of development are interested margin of error in the action of integrating these various temporal in the singular traits of individuals, architect genes increases when the frames of reference, but we “have which are to be explained in a functions become less and less vital absolutely no clue” about such an mechanical way; they develop a for the growing organism. As far as integration. We must therefore rest saltationist approach according to embryology is concerned, this content (at least for the time being) which the embryo indeed appears to “imperfection” has to be considered with gaining additional knowledge be the “material” of evolution, but the condition for the appearance of and with trying to improve our through spontaneous, random and individual variations during control over the “time” of non progressive modifications. ontogenesis. This form of biological development and the “time” of Accordingly, experimental embryology inventiveness of what is living evolution taken in isolation. ■ belies the idea of a gradual, linear enables one to imagine, thanks to a Jean-Claude K. Dupont progression of a given species to the “transitionism”, a way of reconciling form that is most adapted to its the gradualism of evolution and the environment. Denis Duboule has saltationism of development. Such a shown this in his study of the transitionism indeed tends to give development of the extremities of some scientific credentials to the forelimbs in the embryo. By trivial affirmation according to This lecture can be downloaded from the identifying and alternatively which the evolution of species finds Collège de France Website. activating and deactivating the its substratum in the differentiated Page of Prof Fagot-Largeault

N° 3 - THE LETTER 35 Elaine FUCHS Professor at Rockefeller University, New York (United States) invited by the Assembly of the Professors on the proposition of Prof Christine Petit She has given in January 2008, four lectures entitled: 1. Stem Cells: Biology, Ethics and Potential for Medicine 2. The Biology and Genetics of Skin and Hair 3. Cell Adhesion, Migration and Cancer 4. Stem Cells of the Skin and their Lineages

birth, organs must possess a reservoirs within the developing Elaine Fuchs pioneered the field of mechanism to replenish those cells tissue. They are often used sparingly, research on hereditary skin within the tissue that die or and hence undergo fewer divisions disorders. She also initiated the become damaged with age. This than their activated progeny. The characterization of dynamic cell process of cell replacement by protective niches are composed not balances in this tissue and of the natural wear and tear is referred to only of stem cells but also a complex underlying molecular mechanisms. as homeostasis, and is fueled by “microenvironment” of neighboring Then, this research prompted her to adult stem cells which typically differentiated cell types which secrete investigate stem cells present in this reside within a tissue. Some tissues, and organize a diverse range of particular tissue as well as to study like the skin epidermis or intestinal extracellular matrix and other the onset of malignancy in the skin. epithelium, undergo constant factors that allow stem cells to She is member of the American turnover and rejeuvenation manifest their unique intrinsic National Academy of Sciences. involving the entire tissue. For properties(Fuchs et al. 2004; Moore other tissues/organs, e.g. the brain, and Lemischka 2006; Morrison and it has only been recently that Kimble 2006). Lecture 1: scientists have appreciated the Stem Cells: Biology, Ethics and existence of stem cells that have the Harnessing adult stem cells for Potential for Medicine ability to replenish specialized regenerative medicine has long neurons, glial cells and been a major focus of scientists and The remarkable ability to generate oligodendrocytes over time, even if clinicians alike. Examples of the an embryo from a single fertilized this capacity is much reduced in successful use of stem cells for oocyte, to periodically replace comparison to the hematopoietic regenerative medicine include bone dying cells within tissues and to system or epithelial tissues. marrow transplants to replace cells repair tissues damaged during Increasing evidence is pointing to of the hematopoietic system and injury, is a direct consequence of the view that most tissues of the cultured epidermal sheets for the stem cells, nature’s gift to body have adult stem cells. replacement of epidermis lost in multicellular organisms. The gold badly burned skin (Weissman standard of stem cells is the Like ES cells, adult stem cells 2000; De Luca et al. 2006). ES cells fertilized egg, which produces an undergo self-renewal, the ability to have received more attention organism replete with ~220 divide to generate self, and the ability because of their broader potential specialized cell types, including to generate cells that will differentiate and hence greater promise for reproductive germ stem cells. As to produce tissues. Adult stem cells, generating cell types to treat the embryo first develops, an outer however, typically give rise to only a injuries and degenerative protective shell of support cells, few different types of tissues, a conditions for which we presently referred to as the trophectoderm, feature often referred to as have no cures. With the promise encases an undifferentiated mass multipotent. Some stem cells, e.g. are also ethical considerations (the inner cell mass) of pluripotent germ stem cells, are thought to give dealing with the use of fertilized embryonic stem (ES) cells that will rise to only one lineage, in this case, eggs for research necessary to make the animal. As tissues and either oocyte (female germ stem cells) harness this potential. Scientists organs develop, stem cells become or sperm (male germ stem cells). have countered with technology more restricted in their options Given the fountain of youth ability of referred to as nuclear transfer, (Fuchs et al. 2004; Fuchs 2007). adult stem cells to generate tissues often mistakenly referred to as during normal homeostasis and human cloning. This technology Although cell type specification is wound-repair, these stem cells are involves making a hybrid somatic largely complete at or shortly after typically set aside in protected cell from an unfertilized oocyte

36 THE LETTER - N° 3 whose nucleus was removed and have led scientists to predict that cells from adult skin cells replaced by an adult somatic this may be possible in the future. (Takahashi et al. 2007; Yu et al. cell(Hochedlinger and Jaenisch In a pioneering study published in 2007). 2006). In collaboration with the summer, 2007, Yamanaka and laboratory of Peter Mombaerts at coworkers reported the generation This explosion of research bodes the Rockefeller University, my of germline competent “induced well for the future of human laboratory has used this pluripotent stem cells” (iPS cells) regenerative medicine. The technology to demonstrate that ES generated by retroviral infection of challenge now will be how to avoid cells and in fact healthy viable mice mouse skin fibroblasts to force the the genetic manipulation (in some could be generated from hybrid expression of four transcription cases, >50 integrated retroviral diploid totipotent cells, each factors normally expressed by ES DNAs) that occurs in generating composed of an unfertilized cells but not by adult somatic iPS cells and/or overcoming the enucleated mouse oocyte and an cells(Meissner et al. 2007; Okita et present hurdles in generating adult hair follicle stem cell, al. 2007). Unfortunately, one of the human ES cells by nuclear transfer. normally able to differentiate into transcription factors was a potent While nuclear transfer is preferable only epidermis, hair follicles and cell cycle stimulator and the mice in using epigenetic reprogramming sebaceous glands(Blanpain and generated developed tumors with rather than genetic manipulation, Fuchs 2006; Li et al. 2007). time. Since this time, however, it still uses unfertilized oocytes. Although nuclear transfer researchers have now succeeded in That said, the excitement and technology has not yet been eliminating this gene from the mix, promise of stem cells for successful for generation of human and now only three transcription regenerative medicine continues to ES cells, scientists recently factors appear to be sufficient grow and 2007 has been a very succeeded in generating primate ES (Nakagawa et al. 2008; Park et al. successful year in overcoming cells through nuclear transfer 2008). Moreover, in animal mouse technological barriers that less (Byrne et al. 2007). models of human disease, iPS cells than a decade ago were thought to have already shown promise for be insurmountable. ■ Can adult skin cells be utilized to treatments (Hanna et al. 2007), generate ES cells directly, without and in the past several months, two the use of an unfertilized oocyte? groups have independently Breakthroughs over the past year succeeded in generating human iPS

This lectures can be downloaded from the Collège de France Website. Page of Prof Petit

N° 3 - THE LETTER 37 PRIZES AND DISTINCTIONS

Balzan Prize 2007 Professor Michel Zink

The International Balzan Foundation, based in Zurich and Milan, was created in 1956 by Lina Balzan, daughter of Eugenio Balzan (1874- 1953) and heir to his fortune. Eugène Balzan, administrative director and share-holder of the leading Milanese daily Corriere della Sera, left Italy under the fascist regime in 1933 and settled in Switzerland.

Every year the Balzan Foundation awards four international prizes, two in the arts and humanities, and two in the physical, mathematical, The 2007 winners of the Balzan Prize (Prof Michel Zink, 2nd from the right) natural and medical sciences. Every three years it also awards a literature in the Middle Ages; his new literary history and the other two humanitarian prize. interpretation of the relation between towards critical thinking. The first, medieval and modern literature; and scheduled for 1-3 April 2009 at the Since 2001, each of the annual his seminal initiatives that have Collège de France and the Académie prizes has had an endowment of brought the literature of the Middle des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, one million Swiss francs (about Ages back into the cultural tradition of will be entitled: ‘Reading an old 600,000 euros), half of which has France and Europe’. text, from the Middle Ages to the to be devoted to research projects present’. Finally, Michel Zink will and the promotion of science, Michel Zink is author of twenty use part of the prize money to preferably with the participation of books on Middle Ages literature, in allocate occasional grants for the young researchers. addition to another twenty books publication of medieval literary that he co-authored or edited. Over texts. ■ Michel Zink, who received the the past two decades he has also Balzan Prize in 2007, is the seventh created and edited a huge collection Collège de France professor to be of bilingual editions of medieval honoured in this way, after Jean- literary texts in paperback (‘Lettres Pierre Serre (mathematics) in 1985, gothiques’ by Livre de Poche). Jean Leclant (Egyptology) in 1993, Yves Bonnefoy (history and critique Michel Zink’s prize money of the fine arts in Europe) in 1995, earmarked for research will be used Jean-Pierre Changeux (cognitive on three main projects. First, four neurosciences) in 2001, Marc prizes will be awarded to young Fumaroli (history and literary researchers in romance philology critique from the 16th century to and medieval literature, to enable the present) also in 2001, and them to continue their work in Paris Xavier le Pichon (geology) in 2002. and their training at the Collège de France for one year. The second The prize was awarded to Michel project is a research programme on Zink, holder of the Chair of Medieval ‘Circulation of texts, encounters French Literature at the Collège de between languages, and literary France, for his work on European milieus: around medieval France’. literature (1000-1500), including ‘his This programme will be punctuated fundamental contributions to the by four international symposiums, understanding of French and Occitan two oriented mainly towards

38 THE LETTER - N° 3 Abel Prize 2008 Professor Jacques Tits

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters awarded the Abel Prize in mathematics for 2008 to John Griggs Thompson, Florida University, and Jacques Tits, Collège de France, for their ‘profound achievements in algebra and in particular for shaping modern group theory’.

The Academy explained this choice (cf. the Abel Prize website) by pointing out that modern algebra is the fruit of two longstanding traditions in mathematics: the art of solving equations, and the use of symmetry, a © Heiko Junge/Scanpix, The Abel Prize/The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters Jacques Tits (centre) receives the Abel Prize from His Majesty King Harald in Oslo. particularly simple example of which is the tile designs of the Alhambra. important groups are finite groups, spaces with a negative curve. Tits’ These two traditions converged in the used for instance in the study of geometric approach has been essential late eighteenth century, when permutations, and linear groups, for the study and the construction of mathematicians realized that the key consisting of symmetries which finite groups. His results have inspired to understanding even the simplest preserve an underlying geometry. numerous variations and applications. equations lay in the symmetries of their solutions. This understanding was The two laureates’ work is ‘The achievements of John Thompson applied brilliantly by two young complementary: whereas John and of Jacques Tits are of mathematicians, Niels Henrik Abel Thompson has focused on finite extraordinary depth and influence. and Evariste Galois, in the early groups, Jacques Tits has worked They complement each other and nineteenth century. Their work mainly on linear groups, developing a together form the backbone of modern eventually led to the group concept as new vision of groups as geometric group theory’ (source: Abel Prize the most effective way of grasping the objects. In particular, he has introduced website). idea of symmetry. In the twentieth the concept of what is now known as century the group theory approach was a Tits building, which encodes the The Abel Prize, created in 2002 by the instrumental in the development of algebraic structure of linear groups in Norwegian government, is considered modern physics: from the geometric terms. Building theory is a to be the highest international understanding of crystalline unifying principle in a surprisingly wide distinction in mathematics. This is the symmetries to the formulation of range of applications in mathematics second time that a professor at the models for basic particles and forces. and physics, in combinatorial geometry Collège de France has been awarded In mathematics, the idea of groups has used in computer science, and in the the prize; Professor Jean-Pierre Serre proved extremely fertile. The most study of phenomena of rigidity in was the first, in 2003. ■

Niels Henrik Abel (1802-1829) was In 1825 he went to Berlin where he lost. Weary and short of money, he returned a Norwegian mathematician. One met Léopold Crelle who founded to Norway where he learned that he had of his teachers recognized and a mathematical journal, the tuberculosis. Notwithstanding his precarious encouraged his prodigious Journal für die reine und financial and professional position, he talent, and at the age of fifteen angewandte Mathematik. In published in Crelle’s journal a series of he was reading Euler, Gauss 1826 Abel returned to Paris, treatises on algebraic equations, elliptical and Lagrange. By the time he where the best of his work, a functions and infinite series, thus opening entered university in 1821 he thesis entitled ‘Research on a new avenues in each of these domains. At the had already started his work on general property of a very large same time as Jacobi, he created the theory of fifth-degree equations. After his class of transcendent functions’, elliptical functions. Abel died on 6 April father’s death he had to work hard to was carried out at the Paris Academy. 1829 at the age of 27. Two days later it was support his family. His first article was However Abel, still unknown at the time, announced in Paris that his thesis had been published in 1823, subsequent to which the was treated with little consideration. Cauchy found. The Academy awarded him government awarded him a grant to finance mislaid the thesis, that he was supposed to posthumously its grand prize for Abel par Johan Gørbitz, 1826 © Matematisk institutt, Univ. i Oslo Abel par Johan Gørbitz, 1826 © Matematisk institutt, Univ. a stay in Göttingen and Paris, the main present to the Academy, and for the rest of mathematics. centres of mathematical research. his life Abel thought that his work had been

N° 3 - THE LETTER 39 O N A UTHORITY C OLLÈGE DE F RANCE AUTUMN SYMPOSIUM 18 AND 19 OCTOBER 2007

The seventh Collège de France In Indo-Iranian the root aug- autumn symposium was held on 18 denotes strength, especially divine and 19 October 2007. The event, strength, ‘a power of a particular on a topical subject of interest to all nature and effectiveness, an the disciplines represented at the attribute of the gods’. In old usage Collège de France, bore witness to of Latin, augeo meant not the fact the universality of the institution’s of increasing but the act of teaching and the collegiality producing outside of oneself, the between its professors. This year creative action that gives rise to; slightly under half the participants hence, the privilege of the gods and Prof Antoine Compagnon were from the Collège while the rest natural forces, not of humans. This were French and foreign guests. For explains the eminent value of two days they discussed the concept auctoritas: a demiurgic act, a quality Pierre Mazeaud, former chairman of authority. of the senior magistrate, the validity of the Constitutional Council, of the testimony, the power of opened the symposium by ‘Authority. Right or power to initiative. describing moral authority – based command, to be obeyed.’ From on the traditional distinction antiquity to our contemporary Nulla auctoritas nisi a Deo, goes the between auctoritas and potestas – world, in all cultures, authority medieval saying taken from Saint and the legal authority of the – sovereignty, the sacred, books, Paul: ‘There is no authority except Constitution, and then analysing the dogma – has underpinned the social from God’. But today, is there not current plans to amend the order. In his fine chapter on constantly a question of a crisis of Constitution. Guy Canivet, until authority in Le Vocabulaire des authority, at school, in parliament, recently presiding judge of the institutions indo-européennes, in the courts, and even in science? Court of Cassation, now member of Emile Benveniste – for a long time a In virtual space there no longer the Constitutional Council, closed professor at the Collège de France – seems to be any authority at all. On the seminar by discussing the reminds us that the term auctoritas, what can the authority of the current state of the authority of the the abstract derivative of auctor, twenty-first century be based? courts, and describing the evolution comes from the verb augeo, which from an imposed justice to a in classical Latin means ‘to increase, Authority is everywhere and nowhere. negotiated justice in France. The to augment’. In the Middle Ages the Law, philosophy, religion, political proliferation of independent author was the one who amplified science, economics, sociology, and of authorities, another tendency that is the heritage of the ancients, but course the exact sciences: all our transforming the power of the state, Benveniste deemed this link to be knowledge has been questioned was examined by Louis Schweitzer, insufficient. How can the strong with regard to the function that it president of the HALDE (the High political and religious meaning of has attributed and still attributes to Authority to combat discrimination auctoritas be connected to a mere authority, as well as the need for and promote equality), and by Joël increase? authority or the consequences of the Ménard, former director of public lack of authority. health, currently president of a

P. MAZEAUD P. ROSANVALLON C. SEVERI M. ZINK J. BOUVERESSE C. AUDARD X. LE PICHON B. SAINT-SERNIN J. D. COHEN

40 THE LETTER - N° 3 think-tank set up to devise an Hence, reflection on the ethics of at the Collège de France. He ‘Alzheimer Plan’. science, whose progress requires discussed the stormy debates that recognition of authority. shook the scientific community in the With regard to more traditional sixties, when the theory of tectonic forms of authority, anthropologist Catherine Audard of the London plates had been proposed but had not Carlo Severi from the Ecole des School of Economics (LSE), focused yet prevailed. Prof Le Pichon, who Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales her philosophical thinking on the had participated in those (EHESS) noted that in certain internalization of moral standards, controversies, compared them to the societies, authority is based on an overturning the Kantian problematique ones currently dividing scientists over oral tradition, unlike the Western of the autonomy of moral doctrine: the greenhouse effect. Jean Bricmont, model where authority, text and even if the moral authority of the norm physicist at the Catholic University tradition seem to be inextricably is impossible to establish, it is of Louvain, examined the trust that linked. Jean-Marie Durand from the nevertheless possible to understand it we can have in science, and Collège de France argued that, by analysing the agents’ motives. compared it to religious faith, also in contrary to received ideas, in crisis. How can growing numbers of Mesopotamia royal authority, From a political philosophy point sceptics and relativists be convinced which inspired fear or respect, was of view, based on Plato but also on of the authority of science? Probably not absolute but bounded in many his own experience as a former by means of its applications. But is it ways. Thomas Römer from the director of education, Bertrand not the scientific community itself, University of Lausanne discussed Saint-Sernin from the Sorbonne through its procedures of the constitution of the canon of the showed how authority or the ability legitimization, for instance in the Hebrew Bible and described the to make oneself obeyed is based on leading scientific journals, who transition from royal authority, with consent and persuasion rather than guarantee the validity of science its limits, for example the prophets, constraint and subjection, and – unless the scientific community’s to the authority of the text, always therefore implies the experience of neutrality is questionable, for subject to interpretation. Michel obedience before that of command. example due to its sources of Zink from the Collège de France Treating decision-making from a funding? Edouard Brézin, phycist at spoke about the subtle link between very different point of view, the Ecole Normale Supérieure, authority and age in the Middle Jonathan D. Cohen, experimental considered the relationship between Ages, which allowed for the whole psychologist from Princeton, knowledge and belief, the mistakes range of role games, from the simple reported experiments which and cases of fraud that have copyist to the original writer. illustrate the intervention of emotive undermined the authority of science, centres of the brain in rational and the need to combat the current Jacques Bouveresse, also from the decision-making. mistrust of it. Collège de France, contended on the basis of Wittgenstein’s reflection in Science has been a counter-argument The social sciences’ also had their On Certainty, that ‘authority is to authority, but there is an authority say. In The Politician and the unthinkable without belief’. Even in of science and authority in science. Scientist, Max Weber distinguished science, knowledge is based on How is consensus built in research? three types of authority: first, that authority: ‘I know’ means that I How is scientific authority defined? of tradition, the authority of ‘the have been taught and that I have What subjection does it require? eternal yesterday’, the ‘morals been convinced. The result is a What opposition does it allow? These sanctioned by an immemorial paradox of authority in democracy, are the types of question that several validity and by the habit of for authority cannot explain itself, scientists raised, starting with Xavier respecting them’; second, authority does not have to provide reasons. Le Pichon, Professor of Geodynamics which is legalistic or rational, based

J. BRICMONT E. BRÉZIN J.-M. DURAND T. RÖMER R. GUESNERIE H. LAURENS L. SCHWEITZER J. MÉNARD G. CANIVET

N° 3 - THE LETTER 41 on ‘belief in the validity of a legal codification and objective TITLES OF INTERVENTIONS “competence” founded on the application of rules instituted ■ L’autorité de la Constitution, Pierre Mazeaud rationally’; and, finally, charismatic ■ Les métamorphoses de la légitimité, Pierre Rosanvallon authority, based on “the personal ■ Ce qui rend impératif les énoncés de la tradition: une analyse pragmatique, grace of the extra-ordinary”‘. Pierre Carlo Severi Rosanvallon of the Collège de ■ Auctor et auctoritas au Moyen Âge, Michel Zink France noted that two invisible ■ L’éthique de la croyance et la question du “poids de l’autorité”, social institutions – authority and Jacques Bouveresse trust – are declining today. But ■ Comprendre l’autorité des normes morales, Catherine Audard authority, by shifting the constraints ■ L’adoption d’une théorie scientifique: la tectonique des plaques, l’effet de serre, of the political towards the Xavier Le Pichon religious, founds a power which ■ Autorité et décision, Bertrand Saint-Sernin requires neither coercion nor ■ Interactions entre émotion et cognition dans la prise de décision, persuasion to prevail. Hence, the Jonathan D. Cohen contradiction of democratic ■ Comment justifier l’autorité scientifique?, Jean Bricmont authority, which demands ■ Sciences de la nature et théorèmes mathématiques, Édouard Brézin argumentation and self-foundation. ■ Les limites de l’autorité royale en Mésopotamie: la coutume, les Anciens, les The general will as a principle of tabous, les demandes des dieux, Jean-Marie Durand legitimacy based on election justifies ■ L’origine du canon biblique et l’invention d’une autorité scripturaire, the power of social generality Thomas Römer embodied in the republican idea of ■ La suprématie des actionnaires en question, Roger Guesnerie public service. This idea is in crisis ■ L’autorité sans État: les Palestiniens depuis l’entre-deux-guerres, Henry Laurens in a democracy which is calling for ■ Qu’est-ce qu’une haute autorité indépendante?, Louis Schweitzer proximity and participation, and ■ L’autorité médicale, Joël Ménard redefining the conditions of the ■ L’autorité du jugement, Guy Canivet exercise of power on the basis of this requirement. Two other This autumn symposium organized professors of the Collège de France, The interaction of disciplines was by a scientific committee of Henry Laurens, historian of the perfect at this symposium, the professors of the Collège de France Arab world, and Roger Guesnerie, proceedings of which will be is part of a series of inter- theoretician of economics, published shortly. ■ disciplinary symposia, funded by examined two cases of this Prof Antoine Compagnon the Hugot Foundation, on topical contemporary crisis of authority: issues in today’s society. The the shareholding company and the proceedings of these symposia are Palestinian Authority – two very published by Odile Jacob. different cases but which both illustrate the profound change of Symposium downloadable at: authority in contemporary societies. www.college-de-france.fr news and events section.

42 THE LETTER - N° 3 T HE E COLOGY OF P ERCEPTION AND THE A ESTHETICS OF L ANDSCAPE

26-27 March 2007 the uses of the notions of aesthetic judgements of its beauty vary International workshop co-organised landscape/paysage and the according to the different uses of the by the Laboratoire d’Anthropologie misunderstandings between forest (A. Nightingale). Sociale and the University of Aberdeen phenomenological approaches – where landscape and environment are Furthermore, different forms of The aim of this two-day workshop was practically synonymous (C. Tilley, relationships to the surroundings are to facilitate a dialogue between different G. Scheldeman) – and the positions known which combine both approaches to the aesthetics of landscape which restrict the notion of landscape to appreciation in general and aesthetic in social sciences, mainly between British a definition based on a limited number representations in particular without and French traditions in anthropology of criteria, the emergence of which is implying a scenic landscape perspective and human geography. Rather than a historically situated (A. Berque, as such, with its distancing between the synthesis between the symbolist P. Descola). Thus, in the English subject and the milieu. This is the major approach more prevalent in France and common usage ‘landscape’ refers most difference between Chinese and the rather more phenomenological often to the geographical notion of European landscape painting. The British approaches, the seminar pointed ‘milieu’, whereas the French ‘paysage’ ‘proto-landscape’ (paysage en gestation) out the apparent incompatibility of these corresponds to one of the possible forms of the Hopis’ architecture and ritual two theoretical poles. The potential of mediation in relation to the milieu aesthetics probably counts among these misunderstanding between both (what Berque coined as ‘cosmophany’). alternative scenic landscape perspectives traditions is probably increased by the Beyond linguistic differences, this (P. Pérez). lack of diffusion and awareness of divergence is grounded in different French writings on the subject among initial assumptions and, more generally, Conversely, the activity of the landscape Anglophone academics. to what P. Descola saw as inverse painter is itself embedded in epistemological movements in French phenomenological experience. Hence, The notion of landscape (or paysage) and British anthropological practice, according to Ingold, the need for an often appears as a Western category from philosophy towards ethnography understanding of the activities of related with notions of nature and in France and vice-versa in Britain. representation – be it the artistic wilderness. This painterly aesthetic is representation or the anthropological defined by the observing subject who is It is precisely the idea of a mediation rendering of the field – as standing in distant from the world ‘out there’, as which the phenomenological continuity with phenomenological instituted by perspectival art. In fact, as approaches reject, leading in some cases experience, and not in disjunction with the geographer A. Berque stressed in his to radical positions, such as Tilley’s it, as is usually assumed. The memory of presentation, a similar form of ‘phenomenological walk’ as a method to such experiences would then be the base artialisation or ‘aestheticisation’ of the understand past societies’ relation to the of the mechanisms by which environment already existed in China landscape (as surroundings) through the representations of the environment are well before its emergence in European direct experience of walking. stabilised, thus hinting at a possible renaissance art. Yet, despite the formal meeting point between representational similarity of artistic representations, the Most participants of the seminar treaded and phenomenological approaches of cosmological and ontological intermediate pathways between these the perception of the environment. ■ conceptions of the environment are quite diverging positions by distinguishing Nicolas Ellison different in the Chinese and European between the scenic aesthetics (paysage in traditions. Thus, for anthropologists, the a restricted definition) and other Held at the Collège de France, this question arises of how to link in each modalities of appreciation of the workshop was the third of a series entitled Landscape beyond land under the ethnographic context the forms of surroundings. Aesthetic perceptions and coordination of A. Arnason, N. Ellison, artistic depiction and the ontological conceptions of the environment are not J. Lee-Vergunst and A. Whitehouse and relationships they express. necessarily visually based. This brought financed by the Arts and Humanities both F. Myers and T. Ingold to favour Research Council (more at The participants therefore confronted the notion of ‘poetics of landscape’ to www.abdn.ac.uk/anthropology/landscape different approaches of the aesthetics of that of aesthetics. The appreciation of seminars). the environment, whether or not these the surroundings can be based on all the The book Landscape beyond Land is unfold within a scenic landscape senses and can also be normative in a currently being prepared with Berghahn perspective (perspective paysagère). The moral sense, as the example of the publishers along with a special issue of the journal Ethnos. discussions underlined the divergence in Nepalese forest shows, where the

N° 3 - THE LETTER 43 T HE P RESENT DAY TRANSFORMATION OF RITUALS IN THE T IBETAN AREA

International conference 8-9 November 2007 Collège de France and Site Descartes of the Ministère de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche

Co-organized by the Centre de Recherches sur les Civilisations Chinoise, Japonaise et Tibétaine (UMR 8155), the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Section des sciences religieuses) and the Institut des Études Tibétaines (Collège de France), and under the overall supervision of Katia Buffetrille (EPHE, Section des sciences religieuses), this conference brought together fifteen researchers from various European and American institutions (EPHE, CNRS, EFEO, University of Lille, Nanterre University, Oxford, Cambridge, Oslo University, Columbia University, University of California).

For the past several years, researchers of the UMR 8155 have been studying the dynamics of ritual. In the case of Tibet, this endeavour has been quite fruitful, even if these studies are far from complete. Ritual * has an intrinsic social dimension to it, whether performed on an individual or collective basis. And given that it is repeated at regular intervals, its form of a ritual, sometimes to the Tibetan Buddhism spread far tendencies are conservative. In spite point where the ritual disappears beyond its borders – as far as the of some scope for improvisation, a either temporarily or permanently, or Western countries where Buddhist ritual adheres to precise rules that else new rituals are born. masters went into exile. From the constitute its foundation and beginning of the Cultural determine its efficacy. While rituals In Tibet and in the wider revolution (in 1966) to CCP develop with the passage of time, Himalayan region, this process has General Secretary Hu Yaobang’s they generally do so in a very slow, already been studied extensively. visit to Tibet (in 1980), religious almost imperceptible manner. Following the occupation of the activities were banned completely Nevertheless, upheavals – whether country by the PRC, the religious, in the Land of Snow. The caused by factors internal or external political, social and cultural life of liberalization of the 1980s allowed to the community or society – may Tibet underwent sweeping numerous rituals to reappear, if bring about important changes in the changes, while at the same time often only in an abbreviated or

* Prayer flag (lungta) bought in Amdo (today’s Qinghai, a north-eastern province of Tibet) in 2002. This flag, a modern piece, represents the seven attributes of the Cakravartin: the wheel, the gem, the queen, the minister, the elephant, the horse, and the general. The horse carries the gem which fulfils all desires and is surrounded by the eight auspicious symbols.

44 THE LETTER - N° 3 altered form. More recently, other religious freedom in Mongolia ritual, its meaning, its function, its agents of change have also affected since the democratic transition in structure? Is there transformation the Tibetan Autonomous Region 1990, the emergence of the Maoist that is specific to the present time? and neighbouring regions as these movement and the “people’s war” open up to modernity (mass that drenched Nepal in blood from The quality of the discussions tourism, globalization, etc.), not to 1996 to 2006, the settlement of among the participants testifies to mention the influence exerted Tibetan refugees in Nepal, the the interest generated by the topic. locally by political forces. migration of certain Nepalese The subject deserves to be dealt population groups, the religious with in a wider context involving The gathering of researchers from liberalization in Tibet, and other geographical areas, with different backgrounds at the Buddhism’s confrontation with variations in the disciplinary conference made for interesting Western ideas (feminist discourse, approaches as needed. interaction on ritual and its for example). The rituals transformation both within Tibet considered can be grouped under The conference proceedings will be proper and in the areas under three tendencies: a strict adherence published in 2009. ■ Tibetan cultural influence. to tradition, an impoverishment of Katia Buffetrille tradition, and a deviation from The papers presented by the tradition’s original meaning. contributors covered a wide geographical area: Tibet, Nepal, All in all, the papers showed how Sikkim and Mongolia. While all limited the transformations of papers confirmed the importance rituals have been, in spite of the of rituals in the areas in question, considerable changes that have they highlighted once again the occurred in their social need to agree how the term environment – which means that “ritual” is to be understood, and to caution in the use of terminology is continue exploring the semantic called for. The question was raised, field of Tibetan ritual. Emphasis for example, of just how adequate was placed on the social, economic the term “transformation” is. If and political changes in the transformation does indeed occur, countries focused on, and the what is its precise nature? What influence of such change on rituals: does it change: the form of the

N° 3 - THE LETTER 45 BERGSON’S L’ÉVOLUTION CRÉATRICE, 100 YEARS LATER (1907-2007) EPISTEMOLOGY AND METAPHYSICS

International symposium to close now a classic in French philosophy. be refuted and others promoted. As a ‘Bergson Year’ From a biological point of view, it philosopher of intuition and duration, 23-24 November 2007 relates to a period in science that he bound them inseparably to the organized by the Collège de France belongs to the past. The spiritualist dualism of substances, which he never and the École Normale Supérieure fever has died down, and the critiques denied. This is what led him, largely with the support of the Société des Amis de Bergson and the Fondation are less devastating, for Bergson’s unjustifiably, from the study of Hugot of the Collège de France theses are no longer at the centre of intellectual operations, in the realm of contemporary debate. psychology, to the assertion of the L’Évolution independent reality of the mind, that créatrice was A variety of epistemological he claimed was the foundation of that published in 1907 approaches to Bergson’s work were same intellectual activity. when Henri Bergson presented on 23 November at the was a professor at Collège de France, ranging from While Anne Fagot-Largeault showed the Collège de ardent admiration to the reserve of how Bergson’s epistemology was France. This venue, those who demanded the right to based on metaphysics, Jean Gayon, associated with the make an assessment, and the cold philosopher and historian of biology, École Normale observations of those with an focused more specifically on the Supérieure where outsider’s view of philosophy. The influence of Bergson’s ideas on the the philosopher was following are necessarily partial biologists who founded the synthetic trained, was glimpses of the day’s proceedings. theory of evolution, the evolutionist therefore a natural orthodoxy of the twentieth century. choice for comme- According to Gayon, in 1907 morating the Bergson conferred on biological centenary of the publication of his evolution ‘the dignity of a major work. Natural, but risky, for it philosophical object’: ‘mechanism would have been tempting to take had Descartes and Leibniz; evolution advantage of the occasion to had Bergson’. Reviewing the main unconditionally praise and celebrate a artisans of neo-Darwinian doctrine, national “monument” – one who had he noted that those who cited the known glory during his lifetime, philosopher – usually the most drawing memorable crowds to his sensitive to his spiritualist lectures, as Pierre Corvol, Prof Anne Fagot-Largeault tendencies – retained above all the Administrator of the Collège de France, most general theses, referred to only noted at the opening of the symposium. in passing; that few of them had But that was not the case, which Anne Fagot-Largeault described the taken him seriously enough to actually is not surprising, considering way in which Bergson conceived of discuss his theses from a scientific that Bergson’s work triggered stormy relations between philosophy and point of view – even briefly –; and debate from the start, earning him the science, pointing out the fact that that none of them had been an most intense admiration but also the science was his reference. He wanted unconditional admirer. Bergson had harshest criticism. Bertrand Russell‘s philosophy to have the same precision the merit of explicitly defending the sarcastic comments on L’Évolution as science, and demanded ‘certainty idea that evolution was a fact, and of créatrice(1) come to mind here: “from for philosophy, as for science’ – an trying to attach philosophy to facts. the beginning to the end of this book ambition that today seems somewhat He wanted a positive metaphysics there is not a single reasoning, and naïve, commented Professor Fagot- that could be rectified by experience. therefore not a single bad reasoning; it Largeault. ‘Constituting metaphysics But remarkable as it was, his contains nothing but a poetic painting in science, with the same certainty and scientific knowledge did not enable that appeals to the imagination”. universal recognition as the others’ him to perceive the dawning of the was Bergson’s project. He believed genetics revolution that was to What has become of Bergson a that by studying scientific facts, change biology completely. century later? L’Évolution créatrice is certain philosophical doctrines could

1. B. Russell, 1928, Skeptical Essays, London: George Allen & Unwin.

46 THE LETTER - N° 3 Arnaud François examined the same François Azouvi focused on the latter question from a philosophical point of point. He examined the reception of view and tried to explain, on the basis L’Évolution créatrice between its of Bergson’s scientific sources, why publication and the beginning of the the philosopher had missed this Great War, as well as the success of the genetic watershed even though he had élan vital concept. Even though so conscientiously informed himself professional philosophers often had about the biology of his time. reservations about this concept, its emotional force, which gave it the Bergsonian epistemology was strength of a myth, guaranteed it considered from other angles as well. success among a very wide audience, Henri Hude looked at invention in especially Catholics. Azouvi Bergson’s work. Professor Dong-Hyun concluded that the success of the élan Prof Armand de Ricqlès Son, a Korean philosopher, showed vital concept tells us a great deal about how Bergson could be viewed as a French society before the First World Armand de Ricqlès also expanded on precursor of evolutionary epistemology. War, and affords us a glimpse of the this aspect, pointing out that Paul-Antoine Miquel, comparing ‘anti-egalitarian, anti-democratic, L’Évolution créatrice was a book Bergson to Darwin, showed how their anti-rationalist aspiration’ in large haunted by a huge absence: that of conception of evolution contrasted intellectual and cultural communities genetics. He reminded us that the with strictly mechanistic and at the time. French scientific community had adaptationist versions like – according been very hostile to nascent genetics to Miquel – that of American in the early twentieth century, due philosopher Dan Dennett, which made not so much to prevailing way to anthropomorphism and Lamarckism as to its opposition to considered the world, nature and Mendelism. Paradoxically, French evolution as ‘good machines biologists, attached to materialism, manufactured by good geniuses’. refused the particular character of heredity because they suspected this idea of being tainted with spiritualism. In this context, L’Évolution créatrice did not appear as a satisfactory explanation of evolution and its mechanisms. It nevertheless had a strong influence Prof Alain Berthoz on certain fields of French biology, especially paleontology. Bergson’s work moreover had the advantage of Alain Berthoz (Chair of the making the contradiction between Physiology of Perception and the Holy Scriptures and scientific Action) showed how some of data seem less outrageous to a large Bergson’s intuitions concerning audience of believers. Should we Hee-Jin Han mental life, memory, perception, conclude that it was beneficial for etc. have been confirmed by evolutionary biology? Armand de contemporary neuroscience and Ricqlès’ answer is clearly negative. Hee-Jin Han, another Korean guest- physiology, or could provide them The 1907 book contributed to speaker, undertook to set L’Évolution with fertile inspiration. Even leading French evolutionary thinking créatrice in the French vitalist though Bergson’s metaphysics, and away from genetics and from the tradition, by examining Bergson’s his conviction that the brain could reconciliation between Darwinism theses in relation to those of Paul- not be the seat of the properties of and population genetics that was to Jospeh Barthez. He compared the the mind, contradict the lead to the synthetic theory of principe vital (‘vital principle’) foundations of neuroscience and evolution. In a sense, L’Évolution developed by Barthez in Montpellier the idea that the faculties of the créatrice officialized the entry of in the eighteenth century, to the élan mind lie within the processes of the French biology into the transformism vital (‘vital impulse’ or ‘life force’) that brain, one has to recognize the crisis that was to last for 40 years and contributed so much to Bergson’s fecundity of the philosopher’s the effects of which are still felt today. fame. intuitions and the remarkable

N° 3 - THE LETTER 47 vitalism, showed the strength of his critique of intelligence. He proposed that we read L’Évolution créatrice as a theory of knowledge which rehabilitates instinct and intuition as a knowledge tool complementary to logic. Intuition provides a real affordance for grasping life forms which, because they are constantly moving, are a challenge to intelligence Prof Alain Prochiantz François Azouvi that sets forms. As Bergson said, ‘the form is simply a snapshot taken of a convergences which, with transition’. One has to think invites us to ‘think our uniqueness, hindsight, appear between some of movement to think evolution and the and therefore our solitude’. ■ his theses and contemporary creation of unpredictable newness Marc Kirsch scientific findings. that, from an evolving animality, led to the definitive separation between The talks delivered at this symposium can Finally, Alain Prochiantz, refusing to humans and animals. Bergson, read be listened to on the Collège de France condemn Bergson for spiritualism and by Prochiantz, is close to Pascal, and website.

23 november 2007 I. Epistemology at the Collège de France Anne Fagot-Largeault – Le philosophe et la science selon Bergson Jean Gayon – L’épistémologie bergsonienne Dong-Hyun Son – Bergson, précurseur de l’épistémologie évolutionniste François Azouvi – Le magistère bergsonien et le succès de l’élan vital Arnaud François – Les sources biologiques de L’Évolution créatrice Armand de Ricqlès – Cent ans après: L’Évolution créatrice au péril de l’évolutionnisme contemporain Frédéric Worms Paul-Antoine Miquel – Sélection et évolution. L’usage des analogies chez Bergson et chez Darwin Hee-Jin Han – L’heuristique du vitalisme: le principe vital de Barthez et l’élan vital de Bergson Alain Berthoz – Les théories de Bergson sur la perception, la mémoire et le rire, au regard des données des neurosciences cognitives actuelles Henri Hude – L’invention selon Bergson: hypothèse et intuition Alain Prochiantz – La forme n’est qu’un instantané pris sur une transition (Bergson) 24 novembre 2007 II. Metaphysics at the École normale supérieure Workshop 1 L’Évolution créatrice dans l’histoire de la philosophie. Sources et réceptions (coord. Frédéric Worms) Anne Devarieux, Laurent Fedi, Ioulia Podoroga, Hisashi Fujita, Matthias Vollet, Camille Riquier Workshop 2 De L’Évolution créatrice aux Deux sources de la morale et de la religion (coord. Jean-Louis Vieillard-Baron) Anthony Feneuil, Brigitte Sitbon-Peillon, Emile Kenmogne, Petr Tuma, Ghislain Waterlot Workshop 3 La métaphysique de L’Évolution créatrice. Statut du négatif (coord. Florence Caeymaex) Yala Kisukidi, Olivier Moulin, Dimitri Tellier, Yannis Prelorentzos, Antoine Janvier, Federico Leoni Workshop 4 Le problème de la matière dans L’Évolution créatrice (coord. Arnaud François) Pascal Blanchard, Nicolas Cornibert, Joël Dolbeault, Magda Costa Carvalho, Rocco Ronchi Conférences plénières Pete Gunter – Bergson’s New Concept of Analysis Jean-Louis Vieillard-Baron – Bergson et l’idée de loi scientiﬁque John Mullarkey – Breaking the Circle: Élan Vital as Performative Metaphysics Roi Tchoe – Une interprétation métaphysique de Bergson: l’âme du Phèdre de Platon et la durée bergsonienne Arnaud Bouaniche – De la surprise devant le temps à la surprise devant la création Florence Caeymaex – Positivité et indétermination. La question du négatif dans la métaphysique de Bergson Frédéric Worms – Ce qui est vital dans L’Évolution créatrice

48 THE LETTER - N° 3 GLOBALIZATION: FIGURES AND PROBLEMS

protection of health, the Symposium organized by the Institut du Monde Contemporain environment, biodiversity, security 13-14 December 2007 and peace, for instance, all call for The talks delivered at this symposium, answers at national and international partially reported here, can be listened level. Prof Delmas-Marty explained to in full on the Collège de France that the concept of the rule of law is website. often ambiguous on an international scale. Instead of firmly establishing The first day of the symposium was the separation of the powers devoted to reflection on globalization, underlying the two principles of the pertaining in particular to the issues rule of law – legality and judicial Prof Pierre Rosanvallon of governance and legitimacy in law, guarantees –, international practices economics and politics. This reflection tend to be characterized by a which structurally embodies the was based on a finding common to all confusion of powers. general interest and theoretically three fields, viz. that in today’s world, serves it. In France, institutions the main economic concepts, political According to her, an international rule representing the general interest used institutions and legal precepts invented of law can be conceived of only in the to be based on a competitive principle to conceptualize the nation state, form of a legal monster, the product of of election: the competition or political regulation, or legal and some kind of hybridization of examination was considered as a economic organization, are no longer governance methods and the rule of perfection and even a sort of suited to a rapidly changing law. From governance it would have accomplishment of the idea of international order. In the new to borrow the art of organizing election, in so far as it allowed for not international order a wide diversity of relations between state and non-state only a choice but also an informed institutions has developed, ranging actors who exercise power. But to choice in which the best, the most from general assemblies of states, such guarantee its legitimacy and ensure its competent and the most virtuous as the UNO, to specialized effectiveness, the monster would also candidates were selected. organizations such as the WTO, the have to draw its inspiration from the ILO and courts of justice. All these methods of the rule of law, so that it In its different forms, democracy is institutions are currently forced to can endeavour to subordinate powers considered to be the system which specify their role, to reconsider their to the principles of the law. If this structurally binds and balances the mode of functioning, and to re- monster is to be viable, it will have to principle of majority decision-making establish their legitimacy on a new be able to transpose the concept of with that of justification by unanimity. basis. The aim of this day was to public power into a stateless This equilibrium disintegrated in the comparatively review the situation. It international sphere, or to try 1980s, and new forms of legitimacy afforded an opportunity for solutions at the interface of the legal, emerged. practitioners and theoreticians to political and economic fields. come together to discuss the subject. Legitimacy ‘of establishment’ cannot In his talk Pierre Rosanvallon noted be seen as a possible framework for In the first talk, Mireille Delmas- that the functioning of democracies is the legitimacy of international Marty pointed out that our societies supposed to reach an equilibrium institutions because they have not are facing a new challenge spawned between two forms of legitimacy. The been established by universal suffrage, by globalization: how to govern first is the legitimacy of ‘establishment’ without government, and how to (légitimité d’établissement): it is based establish the rule of law without the on suffrage which, at the time of the state? In the context of globalization, French Revolution, was designed to interdependencies have developed to achieve unanimity, before being such an extent that most social transformed into a principle of debates require solutions – legal and majority rule. The second is the judicial, as well as political and legitimacy of ‘identification’ (légitimité economic – which are both national d’identification), which is supposed to and international. Debates on achieve a form of unanimity or social From left to right: Marie-Angèle Hermitte, sustainable development, the generality. It has consisted for example Mireille Delmas-Marty, Philippe Descola, struggle against poverty, and the in the organizing of a civil service Roger Guesnerie and François Bourguignon

N° 3 - THE LETTER 49 or else only incidentally. Legitimacy Pierre Rosanvallon concludes that the of governance: the nation state, the ‘of identification’ is no more social recognition of international supranational model, and the appropriate, for there are neither organizations is related less to a ‘Westphalian’ international model. He social classes of civil servants nor legitimacy of establishment than to a noted that the difference between the rational forms of organization that more functional legitimacy Westphalian model and the one allow for this identification with the corresponding to the qualities of towards which the organizations of general interest. On the other hand, government and institutional forms international governance have to tend, three new forms of power are that have been presented. lies on the path from diplomacy to currently developing, with new types democracy. The essential ingredient of of legitimization. The first form of this path is transparency – what Pierre power is that of independent Rosanvallon calls publicity (publicité). authorities which fulfil a function of Transparency is the raw material of social general interest by keeping at an international democratic system of an equal distance from all governance. It is the condition for the particularities. The second is that of exercise of the virtues of regulation institutional transformations which and resistance to interest groups. have spawned constitutional courts P. Lamy concluded optimistically, that organize democratic life in the contending that systems of governance long term. Finally, the third form of are driven by a sort of evolutionary power, increasingly central in our law: they evolve with the nature of the democracies, is the return of the problems they have to solve. An question of government, with the evolution of this kind is underway, emphasis not simply on the Pascal Lamy and it seems that the objective is a organization of public authorities, but democratic system. also on the virtues and qualities of International organizations lack the those who govern: probity, justice, fact of existing in a public space and The session on 14 December was order, benevolence, proximity, making public arguments heard and devoted to the notion of a ‘world attention to singularity, etc. Today’s accessible to the community. public good’. Mireille Delmas-Marty democracies are defined as opened the day with a presentation of governments and not only as regimes. Based on his experience as former this concept which appeared a few This is a response to citizens’ demand European Commissioner, now years ago in the vocabulary of the UN which no longer concerns new forms Director General of the WTO, Pascal Development Programme and of the of institution only, but also qualities Lamy analysed different models of World Bank. It denotes a category of of government. These three governance and examined the place, goods characterized by two main movements lead to a new definition in this framework, that can be criteria which are above all economic: of the problem of representation. assigned to the European Union and first, no exclusion, which means that the WTO. He presented three models the goods can be used by everyone;

13 December Théories et pratiques de la gouvernance: droit, économie et politique Gouvernance et État de droit – Mireille Delmas-Marty, Professor, Collège de France Les puissances publiques à l’heure de la mondialisation – Jean-Arnaud Mazères, Professor, University of Toulouse Le problème de la légitimité des institutions internationales – Pierre Rosanvallon, Professor, Collège de France Deux modèles de gouvernance : l’Union Européenne, l’OMC – Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the World Trade Organization Gouvernance, marché, mondialisation – Roger Guesnerie, Professor, Collège de France Les leçons d’une expérience : le cas de la Banque Mondiale – François Bourguignon, Director, École d’économie de Paris, former Chief Economist of the World Bank 14 December La problématique des biens publics mondiaux La patrimonialisation des espaces naturels – Philippe Descola, Professor, Collège de France Qu’est-ce qu’une allocation équitable des droits de polluer ? – Jon Elster, Professor, Collège de France Intérêt général et droits de propriété intellectuelle en matière pharmaceutique, l’inutilité de la notion de bien public mondial – Marie-Angèle Hermitte, Research Director, EHESS Propriété intellectuelle, innovation et climat – Claude Henry, Research Director, École polytechnique Biens collectifs et gouvernance mondiale : le cas du climat – Roger Guesnerie, Professor, Collège de France

50 THE LETTER - N° 3 of humanity’ has been successful: it international institutions or even of has been used in a fair number of private actors. It allows for the international documents, including reconciliation of the concept of conventions of a restrictive nature, territoriality with the interests of the which thus qualify the world’s natural world community. But to strike a and cultural heritage, gradually balance between the economic, legal including, from one text to the next, and political aspects, one has to be the moon and other celestial bodies, able to legally determine the ocean and sea beds, the human responsibilities, to rank collective genome (1997) and, recently, cultural preferences in terms of common Prof Jon Elster diversity (Unesco Convention, 2003). values, and to harmonize them with Through these a specific legal regime fundamental rights external to the and second, no competition, which is outlined, involving non- market: the right to health and safety, means that use of the goods by some appropriation and non- protection of the environment, and does not compromise their use by discrimination, as well as the so on. others. The goods in question very participation of various countries in often concern heterogeneous issues This day’s programme was designed such as the prevention of contagious in an interdisciplinary perspective, and diseases, the struggle against climate the topics were chosen to illustrate the change, the strengthening of the diversity both of the objects qualified international trade system and of as ‘world public goods’ and of the financial stability, the establishment of functions of production, access, and peace and security, etc. The underlying management. idea relates to the notions of a common interest and solidarity. The Roger Guesnerie concluded the day concept of world public goods can be by examining the case of international related to other mechanisms born in institutions working on climate policy. the legal sphere. The idea of solidarity François Bourguignon Opposed to the models of policies of free of all links with national quantity, which impose maximum sovereignty and territoriality was its management. This concept could CO2 emission standards, and price already germinating in Grotius’ work. have served to link up heritage-related policies which subject CO2 emissions It was implemented in 1912 in a draft aspects and the realization of a to a carbon tax, for instance, he convention on Spitzberg, which collective good. However, the analysed possible alternatives and contained the three principles of non- resistance of states, concerned about concluded that the establishment of appropriation, openness to citizens of preserving their territory and appropriate institutions and of an all states, and neutrality in wartime. sovereignty, has led to a decline in the effective climate policy would be a The idea was subsequently adopted, use of the concept of a common crucial challenge in the coming after two world wars and several heritage of humanity. It was notably decades. ■ ecological disasters, under the name absent from the manifesto of the first Marc Kirsch ‘common heritage of humanity’ – a Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, limited term used in 1967 by the Ambassador to setting objectives for greenhouse of Malta, in anticipation of the third gas emissions. On the other hand, the conference on maritime law. It brings preamble of the Rio declaration states to mind several ideas. First, the res that the Earth, the home of communis of Roman law, adopted by humankind, is an interdependent sixteenth century jurists and whole. The text thus contains the theologians and then by the school of seeds of the principle of solidarity, natural law, which is opposed to space while urging us to seek the realization appropriated as a territory, a symbol of the common good through means of sovereignty. But a ‘common less openly opposed to states’ own heritage’ also relates to the notion of interests than that of a ‘common trust, found in English common law, heritage’. which incorporates future interests and confers on the state the duty to We see the appearance of the notion manage natural resources in the public of world public goods, placed under interest. The term ‘common heritage the guarantee of states and Prof Philippe Descola

N° 3 - THE LETTER 51 WITTGENSTEIN: ON IMAGES, LANGUAGE AND MIND

Symposium organized by perhaps in practice, a possibility to Prof Jacques Bouveresse, put it in accordance with the use, ie (Chair of Philosophy of Language to show in a concrete way the and Knowledge) psychological mechanisms which 10-11 April 2008 are at work in the head of the thinker and which the picture gives When we ignore what somebody is the impression of referring to. When thinking, or when we do not we see how the picture in question understand why they act as they do, is liable to be taken not only we sometimes say: “I don’t know seriously – as is right and proper – what’s going on in his head”. This but also literally by many Jean-Jacques Rosat expression is an image: it is as if philosophers of the mind, we can thoughts were going on in a box, feel at ease about the reality of the the role of images in Wittgenstein’s closed to everybody except its ties between the carelessness as to philosophy in general, and owner. Wittgenstein observes: “The the effective working of the particularly in his philosophy of picture should be taken seriously. language and some typical forms of psychology. We should really like to see into his intellectual confusion, and, head. And yet we only mean what consequently, about the importance Wittgenstein’s reflection on concepts elsewhere we should mean by of the philosophical reflexions such as that of picture (Bild), model saying: we should like to know applied by Wittgenstein to such (Modell, Vorbild), and representation what he is thinking. I want to say: situations.(2)” (Darstellung) played as decisive a role we have this vivid picture – and that at the time of the Philosophical use, apparently contradicting the As Bouveresse has already shown in Investigations (1936-1945) and the picture, which expresses the Le Mythe de l’intériorité(3), the Remarks on the Philosophy of psychical.(1)” The contradiction Wittgensteinian criticism of our Psychology (1946-1949) as at the time between the use and the picture is pictures of the mind – the picture of of the Tractatus (1914-1921). But, the following: on one hand, we use the “inner”, for example – is against the background of this the two expressions, the one which concerned less by these pictures as underlying continuity, a number of is a picture and the one which is such than by the theoretical changes occurred in his way of not, in the same way, and we give constructions which we are inclined understanding and using these to them both the same meaning; to build on them. Forgetting that concepts. but, on the other hand, there is they are images, we finally attribute something more in the expression to the object that we describe – in Moreover, Wittgenstein’s treatment which is a picture, since this picture the present case, the mind – specific of images underwent significant suggests that we should like to see features following from the form of changes over time. A number of the mental process in the other’s the description that we endorse. As them which had first been head, as we see her inscrutable face far as the images themselves are considered from a critical point of or her mocking smile. concerned, they are our images, our view were eventually reassessed and forms of expression; so, they have rehabilitated. Similarly, his In La demande philosophique –the “to be taken seriously”. But what understanding of their fitting into long version of his inaugural lecture exactly does “to take seriously the language and their connection with at the Collège de France in 1995 –, images of the mind” mean? our representations of its Jacques Bouveresse comments the functioning changed in the course quoted remark in these terms: A rehabilitation? of his work. Those changes can be “There is here no more than a brought to light through a picture, which seems actually to The conference Wittgenstein: comparison between the manuscript contradict our effective use of the Images of the Mind took place at sources of the so-called expression; but this picture the Collège de France on the 10th “phenomenological period” (1929- encourages us easily to believe that and 11th of April 2008. Its aim was 1932) and those of the philosophy there exists, in principle and even to put to the test a set of ideas about of psychology (1946-1949),

1. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trad. G.E.M Anscombe, § 427. 2. Jacques Bouveresse, La demande philosophique, éditions de l’éclat, 1996, p. 33. 3. Jacques Bouveresse, Le Mythe de l’intériorité, éditions de Minuit, 1976/1987.

52 THE LETTER - N° 3 A conference organized in 2001 to how some philosophers (Russell, commemorate the 50th anniversary Carnap, Sellars, Anscombe, Kripke, of Wittgenstein’s death was by example), as well as certain dedicated to the texts written during writers (like Thomas Bernhard) his two last years (1949-1951) used Wittgenstein to elaborate their when, continuing his analysis of own ideas and work. The aim is psychological concepts, he also to study how his thought is, or simultaneously embarked on new could be, used in various domains reflection on colours and on (philosophy of religion, philosophy certainty(4). In 2001-2002, the of mind, or anthropology, for Élise Marrou annual seminar was the occasion of example). ■ a debate between the cognitivist, Jean-Jacques Rosat particularly if we take the latter as a phenomenological and grammatical ‘resumption’ (Wiederaufnahme) of approaches to the philosophical a number of issues, examples and problems of perception(5). At the insights already present in the same time, in 2000-2003, Jacques former. Wittgenstein’s reassessment Bouveresse gave three series of of the role of images in the second lectures on Perception, Reality and half of the 1940s is conspicuous in Appearance, where Wittgensteinian his treatment of images of the mind grammatical analysis played an (the inner, the stream of important part, as several chapters consciousness, the contents of of the book derived from them Programme experience, the tapestry of life) and attest(6). In 2006, the conference of the functioning of our language Wittgenstein: Experience and - Wolfgang Kienzler (Iéna): The (the logical germs, the meaning- Subjetivity raised the following psychological concepts from the body image). Not only does questions: “In what way can Philosophical Grammar to the Wittgenstein rehabilitate those language, which is necessarily Investigations. images (or, at least, some of their public and common (and possibly - Sandra Laugier (Amiens) : La voix est-elle une image de l’esprit ? uses), he also shows that they lie at scientific), refer to experience - Élise Marrou (Paris X & Paris I) : the heart of our most ordinary (Erlebnis), which is supposed to be “L’essentiel dans l’intention, c’est language games. “private”, inner and subjective? l’image”. La ﬁgurativité à l’épreuve How can we characterize the de l’intentionnalité. A grammar of mind statements with which we describe, - Jean-Philippe Narboux (Bordeaux) : in the first person, our sensations or La pensée aux dimensions de l’image. This conference was part of a series our visual space, our pains or our - Denis Perrin (Grenoble) : of initiatives taken these last years by emotions? In such statements, what Ressemblance et synopsis : l’aveugle the Chair of Philosophy of Language part does the word ‘I’ play? How à la signiﬁcation comme objet de comparaison. and of Knowledge to further can its grammar be described? Who - Jean-Jacques Rosat (Collège de (7) understanding of Wittgenstein’s says ‘I’? ” France) : Les paraphrases, images philosophy of psychology and to du langage et images de l’esprit. highlight the fecundity of his so- The 2008-2009 seminar is entitled - Joachim Schulte (Zurich): The Life called “grammatical” or Uses of Wittgenstein. The purpose is of a Picture. “conceptual” approach to the to draw attention to a variety of - Ludovic Soutif (Paris I) : L’image contemporary philosophy of the past, present and possible uses of du contenu. mind – an approach based on the Wittgenstein’s thought and work. It - Edoardo Zamuner (Édimbourg, analysis of our language games and is not, strictly speaking, to discuss Melbourne): Wittgenstein on Perception, Emotion, and of the sense or non-sense of certain or evaluate such or such an Expression. expressions in a given situation. interpretation, but to understand

4. Jacques Bouveresse, Sandra Laugier & Jean-Jacques Rosat (éd.), Wittgenstein: dernières pensées, Agone, 2002. 5. Jacques Bouveresse & Jean-Jacques Rosat (éd.), Philosophies de la perception. Phénoménologie, grammaire et sciences cognitives, Odile Jacob, 2003. 6. Jacques Bouveresse, Langage, perception et réalité. Tome 2: Physique phénoménologie et grammaire, Jacqueline Chambon, 2004. 7. Several contributions to this conference are available on the website of the Collège de France: www.college-de-france.fr (section: recherche/laboratoire/Prof Bouveresse)

N° 3 - THE LETTER 53 THE NOTION OF FUNCTION FROM LIFE SCIENCE TO TECHNOLOGY

Symposium by Professor Armand de as the human science aspects (e.g. Ricqlès (Chair of Historical Biology ‘functionalist’ psychologies) and the and Evolutionism) technological ones. 21-23 May 2008 For the biologist, functions appear as This symposium was organized by direct or indirect results of the Armand de Ricqlès (Collège de arrangement of the structures that France) and Jean Gayon (Paris 1 University) in the framework of the serve as their material medium. The Incentive Coordinated Action of the structure-function twosome is Ministry of Higher Education and expressed at all levels of the Research, entitled ‘The notion of biological scale and above all in the function in the human, biological and very term ‘to be alive’: ‘Structures medical sciences’, coordinated by without functions are corpses; Prof Armand de Ricqlès J.Gayon (IHPST, UMR 8590/ Paris 1/ functions without structures are CNRS/ ENS), in scientific partnership ghosts’ (Wainwright). The structure- In biology, explanation in terms of with A. de Ricqlès (UMR 8570, function opposition/ complementarity function has often led to the Adaptations and evolution of osteomuscular systems/MNHN/Paris organizes the classification of the generalization of a more or less 6/ CNRS/ Collège de France), F. Parot biological sciences, starting with the avowed finalism, or a more or less (REHSEIS, UMR 7596/ CNRS/ Paris anatomy-physiology duality. The shameful one, that we believe no 7/ IHPST) and O. Houdé omnipresence of the concept of scientist should ever resign him- or (Neurofunctional Imagery Group, function is fairly easy to understand herself to. UMR 6095 CNRS/ CEA LRC 36V/ because it implicitly proposes a Paris 5/ Caen University). justification of the data observed, in To avoid a finalistic view of function It brought together thirty-six speakers other words, the hope of a rational and to confine themselves to a strict from eight countries. understanding of the facts. Referring ‘functionalism of observation’, to function is always giving the philosophers and biologists sought The notion of function is one of the beginning of an explanation. The an adjustment of this notion for a most familiar in biology: it function of a structure, the reason for long time, without much success. It encompasses ‘what something [the its presence, is to fulfil a certain role was only in the latter half of the cell, tissue, organ, etc.] does’ in the in the (efficient) operation of a twentieth century that systematic general economy of the organism. In system or organism, in a particular reflection was undertaken on the human societies we speak of the physiological or environmental very sense of the term function and function of the doctor, the lawyer, circumstance. Is this the beginning of on the value of functional the engineer; in technology, that of a a rational explanation or the explanations. tool (screwdriver) or a complex appearance of an explanation? In device (carburettor). These various science an explanation has to be Two large families of the conception uses are homogeneous and causal: explaining means examining of function, generally without any emphasize the effectiveness or the causes of effects, as the cause finalistic connotation, were necessity of an element or an agent must always precede the effect. But in identified. in the functioning of the entity in traditional functional explanation which they are incorporated. there is a paradox: the explanation of Etiological conceptions envisage the structure, that is, the cause of its function from a fundamentally Since the Renaissance this notion has existence, lies in the functional effect historical, genetic and evolutionary constituted a powerful intellectual itself. We therefore have a final perspective: function corresponds to tool in at least three areas (apart explanation and not a causal one, in a progressively selected activity from mathematics): biology and the sense of the physico-chemical (which procures a selective medicine (function of an organic sciences. This is not a problem in advantage) in the continuation of the part); technology (function of a technology, where the professed ancestral forms of an organism. tool); and socio-political reflection intention is teleological. But the final Systemic conceptions of function are (economic and social function of an Aristotelian cause, which switches a-historical: they do not take into activity). The biological aspects of round the explanation relative to the account the genesis of functions in the concept of function were course of time, is consequently the organism’s evolution but account discussed at the symposium, as well unacceptable for the natural sciences. for functions here and now, as

54 THE LETTER - N° 3 emergent properties that necessarily objects or convergent circumstantial functional plurality of structures, at stem from the organization of the clues. This biology is based the price of a sub-optimal systems in which they are essentially on a comparative method adaptation, not the key to manifested. which can be used to highlight evolutionary change? correlations and thus to suggest These two conceptions correspond inferences or to substantiate Topics: to a distinction made by the great demonstrations, but which cannot 21 May: origin of functional evolutionist Ernst Mayr. In an article provide the formal demonstration of discourse in the life sciences and published in 1961, he showed that a causality, as this property is psychology; philosophical theories there were two biologies with generally reserved for the of functions; function, selection and different explanatory regimes: a experimental sciences. The adaptation. biology of imminent or immediate etiological conception of function 22 May: structures and functions in causes, and a biology of historical or has strong affinities with morphology and palaeontology; mediate causes. The biology of evolutionary biology. cognitive structures and functions; imminent causes – those at the level functional attributions in of the living organism – is a At this point, the explanation of the experimental biology. functional biology. That of mediate structural-functional relationship in 23 May: functions and origins of causes – which explains data by biology seems intrinsically complex, life; function and dysfunction; reference to the evolution of since it should combine at least two functional reasoning in the organisms – is an evolutionary main components, functionalism engineering sciences and the life biology. These two biologies are and historicism, with substantially sciences. useful for accounting for structural- different epistemological regimes, functional relations but, because of especially as regards the mode of The vitality of the discussions during their different relationships with administration of proof. It is the symposium and during the time, their epistemological regimes therefore not surprising that we do conclusions highlighted the interest differ. Functional biology, which is not have only a single, non- as well as the current problems and physiological, is an experimental telelogical, concept of function. limits of functional discourse in the science whose methods are very life sciences, psychology and close to those of the physico- The congruent relationship between technology. ■ chemical sciences: these are structure and function, obvious in Prof Armand de Ricqlès nomological sciences, which living machinery as in human formulate general laws. The technology, leads to the key concept evidence regime is experimental of adaptation, so fundamental in here: the systemic conception of evolutionism. Are all organic function is perfectly suited to it. structures strictly adapted to one or more specific functions? Does any On the other hand, evolutionary evolving change necessarily take biology, which belongs to place through the adaptation of paleontology, is an idiopathic or structures to functions, that is, by the paletiological science, that is, one gradual ‘tracking’ – by potentially that studies ‘that which existed only modifiable structures and under the once’ – that is, the entire domain of control of natural selection – of historical sciences. Rather than functions that are increasingly The symposium proceedings will be experimental demonstrations, these congruent with the conditions of available shortly in audio on the sciences generally resort to environments which themselves are webpage of Prof de Ricqlès, demonstration by accumulation of perpetually changing? Is the www.college-de-france.fr

The participants at the symposium

N° 3 - THE LETTER 55 COLLECTIVE WISDOM: PRINCIPLES AND MECHANISMS

International symposium organized the three related and distinct by Professor Jon Elster (Chair of notions of wisdom, intelligence, and Rationality and Social Science) and collective wisdom. Gloria Origgi the Institut du Monde Contemporain, illustrated the phenomenon of with the support of the Hugot collective wisdom with several Foundation of the Collège de France examples borrowed from the world 22-23 May 2008 of the Internet such as the search engine Google, the collaborative The goal of this conference was to encyclopedic project Wikipedia, and clarify the emergent phenomenon the online market Ebay. called “collective wisdom,” or Erolf Tortort 80 “collective intelligence,” or In the afternoon, Jon Elster used the “wisdom of the crowds,” as it can idea of collective wisdom to consider Hélène Landemore defended the be observed in groups of various the ideal size, composition, and other idea that democracy is normatively size and nature, such as information relevant features of an epistemically desirable because its two main markets, teams of scientists, juries, superior constituent assembly. institutions (and probably others as political assemblies, and perhaps Philippe Urfalino proposed to well), inclusive deliberation and even democracies themselves. distinguish between two modes of majority rule, give it an epistemic collective decision within “aeropagus” edge over any variant of the rule of The conference brought together (or expert committees), viz. apparent the few, channeling what researchers in human and social consensus and the rule of unanimity. Landemore calls “democratic sciences who have contributed to Scott Page then presented the results of reason” or the collective intelligence clarifying this notion of collective his research on the micro-foundations of the people. Bryan Caplan then wisdom or have been led by their of collective intelligence in terms of made the exact opposite claim, viz. research to develop an interest in it. aggregation of individual predictions, that democracies tend to do poorly Researchers in philosophy, stressing that individual sophistication because of citizens’ systematic economics, political science, and cognitive diversity are equally cognitive biases (in particular on cognitive sciences and sociology important in the emergence of the economic issues) thus suggesting the have thus examined the notion of phenomenon. Christian List finally delegation of more decisions to collective wisdom. The term argued that that the impossibility small pools of experts or to the “wisdom” was chosen for its theorems (Arrow’s and those related market itself. Gerry Mackie then generality, presenting the advantage to what is known as the “discursive criticized Caplan’s hypothesis of an of subsuming more technical dilemma”) often discussed in the uninformed and irrational citizen as notions such as those of social sciences do not necessarily empirically unfounded. “intelligence” or “rationality.” invalidate the idea of collective wisdom, despite the problem of In the afternoon, Ariel Colonomos The first morning of the conference “coherence” that may appear between presented the meaning and stakes of was devoted to examples and a first the result of an aggregation of the idea of collective wisdom for the attempt at defining the general idea individuals’ conclusions and the result discipline of international relations. of “collective wisdom.” Elen Riot that can be derived from an Adrian Vermeule then criticized the opened the conference by presenting aggregation of individuals’ premises. abuse of “many-minds arguments” and commenting on the conclusions in legal theory. Dan Sperber and of the famous 2004 bestseller by The second day turned to Hugo Mercier finally proposed an James Surowiecki “The Wisdom of applications of the idea of collective evolutionary interpretation of Crowds.” Emile Servan-Schreiber wisdom in the domain of politics human reasoning as having first and explained how information-markets and the law. David Estlund raised foremost a social function, that of work and why their predictions questions about the normative fostering group intelligence rather about verifiable facts (such as foundations of an epistemic than individual understanding. election results) can surpass approach to democracy and the predictions based on polls or expert philosophical reasons that justify During those two days, several judgments. Daniel Andler then limiting or enlarging the pool of external discussants contributed to offered a philosophical reflection on decision-makers in a democracy. the quality of the debates. Be here

56 THE LETTER - N° 3 Prof Jon Elster Hélène Landemore Philippe Urfalino gratefully acknowledged: Karen Programme Croxson, Arnaud Le Pillouer, 22 mai Stéphanie Novak, Pasquale Introduction by Jon Elster Pasquino, Pierre Rosanvallon and Collective Wisdom: Deﬁnition and Examples Yves Sintomer. ■ The Wisdom of Crowds Reconsidered Hélène Landemore James Surowiecki, The New Yorker (Discussant: Elen Riot) What has Collective Wisdom to do with Wisdom? Daniel Andler, Paris IV, IUF (Discussant: Gloria Origgi) Collaborative Filtering: the Wisdom of the Internet Gloria Origgi, CNRS (Discussant: Scott Page) Deciding, Predicting, Judging The Optimal Design of a Constitution-making Process Jon Elster, Collège de France (Discussant: Arnaud Le Pillouer) The Optimal Rule of Decision-making for Areopagus: Argued Voting or Apparent Consensus? Philippe Urfalino, CSTA, EHESS (Discussant: Stéphanie Novak) Microfoundations of Collective Wisdom Scott Page, Michigan University (Discussant: Karen Croxson) Group Deliberation and the Revision of Individual Judgments: A Social-Choice-Theoretic Perspective Christian List, London School of Economics (Discussant: Karen Croxson) 23 mai Collective Wisdom and Democracy Democracy Counts: Should Rulers be Numerous? David Estlund, Brown University (Discussant: Pierre Rosanvallon) Democratic Reason: the Mechanisms of Collective Intelligence in Politics Hélène Landemore, Collège de France (Discussant: Yves Sintomer) Majorities against Utility: Implications of the Failure of the Miracle of Aggregation Bryan Caplan, George Mason University (Discussant: David Estlund) Rational Ignorance and Beyond Gerry Mackie, University of California San Diego (Discussant: Yves Sintomer) Collective Wisdom and the Law The Wisdom of International Decisions Ariel Colonomos, CERI, CNRS (Discussant: Pasquale Pasquino) The proceedings can be downloaded Many-minds Arguments in Legal Theory from the Collège de France website Adrian Vermeule, Harvard Law School (Discussant: Jon Elster) (Prof Elster's pages) and will soon be Collective Wisdom: An Evolutionary Perspective available in video on Prof Elster's page: www.college-de-france.fr Reasoning as a Social Activity (co-production Collège de France/ Dan Sperber and Hugo Mercier, CNRS, Institut Nicod CERIMES) (Discussant: Philippe Urfalino)

N° 3 - THE LETTER 57 CLIMATE CHANGE: THE ROLE OF THE SUN AND OTHER EXTERNAL FORCINGS

Symposium organized by the existence of a pluri-decennial Prof Édouard Bard (Chair of Climate tendency, which at the most would and Ocean Evolution) be very limited. That is why the 30 May 2008 Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) considers that over Édouard Bard, Professor at the the past century the increase in the Collège de France, explained that the sun’s energy flow has contributed energy flow received from the sun, very little to global warming. the ‘solar constant’ (total solar irradiance), varies on numerous time Other indirect measurements of solar scales. Since the formation of the activity enable scientists to sun, some 4.6 billion years ago, its reconstruct phenomena which took luminosity has increased by about place before the era of satellites. The 30%. In its youth the earth’s surface flow of cosmic particles and therefore received less energy, which disturbances of the magnetic field on probably helps to explain certain the earth’s surface, both controlled Prof Édouard Bard periods of extreme glaciation. Closer by the sun’s magnetic field, can be to the present, in recent centuries, measured further back than a components affected most by the various findings have attested to the century. Beyond that, cosmogenic sun’s activity. variability of the sun’s activity. The isotopes – formed through the aurora borealis and sunspots interaction of cosmic rays on the Sylvaine Turck-Chièze, from the observed since the invention of the atmosphere, especially carbon-14 Stellar Plasmas and Nuclear astronomical telescope have enabled and beryllium-10 – are highly Astrophysics Laboratory of the CEA, scientists to demonstrate the valuable tools enabling scientists to Saclay, described the modelling existence of a pronounced 11-year go back thousands of years. Since the contribution to the knowledge of the cycle, as well as cyclic or irregular sun’s activity is the origin of functioning of our star. Models of variations of dozens or hundreds of variability of both these isotopes, varying complexities are used to test years. These variations of solar their very good correspondence is different hypotheses of functioning, activity have been related to climate proof of their reliability as tracers of and to foresee their evolution. changes in Europe, reconstructed by the sun’s activity. Unfortunately, all Sylvaine Turck-Chièze reviewed historians and confirmed by paleo- these records are too indirect to current knowledge and noted that climatologists. For example, the allow for the quantification of the observations of the SOHO ‘little ice age’ from the fourteenth to variations in the solar energy flow. satellite launched in 1995 had led to the eighteenth centuries corresponds For this reason, many attempts to a new view of the sun. The mystery globally to a period of weak solar explain climatic variations in recent of the sun’s internal dynamics was activity (Maunder, Spörer and Wolf centuries in terms of the sun’s activity partially elucidated, although Minima), whereas the subsequent are based only on empirical questions remain on the solar core global warming is broadly correlations. The physical and the interaction between the synchronous with an increase in mechanisms which could explain the magnetic field of the radiative region solar activity. climatic impact of solar activity have and that of the convective region. not yet been identified. The It was however only when significance of this impact for the Gérard Thuillier, of the CNRS sufficiently precise measurements prediction of future climate change Service d’Aéronomie at Verrière-le- taken by satellites became available, is so great that a pluri-disciplinary Buisson, followed with a talk on the about thirty years ago, that this solar approach, in which astrophysicists main climate forcings and the energy flow could be quantified and collaborate with climatologists, is possible mechanisms of the sun’s the variations demonstrated. Total essential. The aim of this symposium impact on climate. No general solar irradiance varies by about was thus to bring together scientists agreement exists on reconstructions 0.1% during an 11 year cycle. But from different disciplines, to discuss of total solar radiation for the past, the past thirty years of observations the sun’s functioning and that of the but new projects are under way to have not made it possible to prove climate system, especially the various provide additional data. Gérard

58 THE LETTER - N° 3 (climate’s sensitivity to a forcing). In particular, the models serve to break down this response into the different interactions peculiar to the climate system. One of the main results is to limit the contribution of clouds to about a quarter of the climate’s global response. Thus, even if solar activity played a role via clouds, this component of the climate could not amplify the variations of solar activity any more significantly.

This day devoted to climate change and the role of the sun and other external forcings afforded the opportunity for scientists from different communities, with related research subjects, to come together. The symposium enabled them to Photo-montage summing up earth-sun relations (NASA). review the current state of knowledge and the many questions Thuillier presented the PICARD climate changes over the next that remain unanswered. ■ experiment, the aim of which is to century, especially in the framework Mélanie Baroni and Gilles Delaygue measure total solar irradiance as well of the IPCC. The models predict that as the sun’s diameter, as the two are these interactions will amplify global related. The experimental mission is warming due to greenhouse gases, scheduled for next year in the ideal rather than limiting it. conditions of development of the next solar cycle, Cycle 24. Claudia Stubenrauch, of the Laboratoire de Météorologie Thierry Dudok de Wit, from the Dynamique of the CNRS and École Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie Polytechnique described the main de l’Environnement of the CNRS radiative properties of clouds and the and the University of Orleans, different means used to measure described the impacts of solar these properties on a global scale. activity on the earth’s environment, Clouds play important but complex mainly in terms of bombardment of roles in the climate system. It has particles and electromagnetic wave been suggested that their formation emissions. He emphasized the could be influenced by the solar ultraviolet component of these activity, which is why it is essential to emissions, which presents a relative measure clouds as thoroughly as variability far larger than that of possible. Claudia Stubenrauch thus total irradiance, and whose impact showed that the different types of on the stratosphere (via the measurement taken by satellites are formation of ozone) could be complementary and should be used significant. in association with one another to obtain complete information on Olivier Boucher, from the British different clouds and their properties. meteorological office, Hadley Centre, explained how current Finally, Sandrine Bony-Léna, from climate models take into account the the same Laboratoire de internal interactions of the climatic Météorologie Dynamique, showed system, based on biogeochemical how climate models further our cycles, especially the carbon cycle. understanding of the climate’s These models are used to forecast response to external disturbances

N° 3 - THE LETTER 59

I NSTITUTIONAL D ATA COLLÈGE DE FRANCE ORGANIZATION CHART

Administrator of the Collège de France: Pierre CORVOL The Administrator of the Collège de France is a Collège de France professor, elected by his/her colleagues to direct the institution for a period of 3 years.

Professors of the Collège de France

I – MATHEMATICAL, PHYSICAL AND NATURAL SCIENCES

❍ Analysis and Geometry — Alain CONNES ❍ Differential Equations and Dynamical Systems — Jean-Christophe YOCCOZ ❍ Partial Differential Equations and Applications — Pierre-Louis LIONS ❍ Number Theory — Don ZAGIER ❍ Quantum Physics — Serge HAROCHE ❍ Mesoscopic Physics — Michel DEVORET ❍ Elementary Particles, Gravitation and Cosmology — Gabriele VENEZIANO ❍ Physics of Condensed Matter — (not appointed yet) ❍ Climate and Ocean Evolution — Edouard BARD ❍ Observational Astrophysics — Antoine LABEYRIE ❍ Chemistry of biological processes — Marc FONTECAVE ❍ Chemistry of Molecular Interactions — Jean-Marie LEHN ❍ Chemistry of Condensed Matter — Jacques LIVAGE ❍ Human Genetics — Jean-Louis MANDEL ❍ Genetics and Cellular Physiology — Christine PETIT ❍ Biology and Genetics of Development — Spyros ARTAVANIS-TSAKONAS ❍ Morphogenetic Processes — Alain PROCHIANTZ ❍ Molecular Immunology — Philippe KOURILSKY ❍ Microbiology and infectious diseases — Philippe SANSONETTI ❍ Experimental Cognitive Psychology — Stanislas DEHAENE ❍ Physiology of Perception and Action — Alain BERTHOZ ❍ Experimental Medicine — Pierre CORVOL ❍ Historical Biology and Evolutionism — Armand de RICQLÈS ❍ Human Paleontology — Michel BRUNET

II PHILOSOPHICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

❍ Philosophy of Language and Knowledge — Jacques BOUVERESSE ❍ Philosophy of Life Science — Anne FAGOT-LARGEAULT ❍ Anthropology of Nature — Philippe DESCOLA ❍ Economic Theory and Social Organization — Roger GUESNERIE ❍ Modern and Contemporary History of Politics — Pierre ROSANVALLON ❍ Writings and cultures in modern Europe — Roger CHARTIER ❍ Contemporary Arab History — Henry LAURENS ❍ Rationality and Social Science — Jon ELSTER ❍ Comparative Legal Studies and Internationalization of Law — Mireille DELMAS-MARTY

III – HISTORICAL, PHILOLOGICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SCIENCE

❍ Pharaonic Civilization: Archaeology, Philology, History — Nicolas GRIMAL ❍ Assyriology — Jean-Marie DURAND ❍ Biblic communities — Thomas RÖMER ❍ History and Civilization of the Achaemenid World and of the Empire of Alexander — Pierre BRIANT ❍ Epigraphy and History of the Ancient Greek Cities — Denis KNOEPFLER ❍ Religion, Institutions and Society in Ancient Rome — John SCHEID

62 THE LETTER - N° 3 ❍ Indo-Iranian Languages and Religions — Jean KELLENS ❍ History of India and Greater India — Gérard FUSSMAN ❍ Intellectual History of China — Anne CHENG ❍ History of Modern China — Pierre-Étienne WILL ❍ National Antiquities — Christian GOUDINEAU ❍ Turkish and Ottoman History — Gilles VEINSTEIN ❍ French Mediaeval Literature — Michel ZINK ❍ Modern and Contemporary French Literature: History, Criticism, Theory — Antoine COMPAGNON ❍ Modern Literatures of Neo-Latin Europe — Carlo OSSOLA ❍ History of European Medieval and Modern Art — Roland RECHT

Annual Chairs (2008-2009) ❍ Chair of Artistic Creation — Pierre-Laurent AIMARD ❍ European Chair - Sustainable Development - Environment, Energy and Society — Henri LERIDON ❍ International Chair - Knowledge against Poverty — Esther DUFLO ❍ Chair of Technological Innovation - Liliane Bettencourt — Mathias FINK

Emeritus Professors of the Collège de France

❍ Anatole ABRAGAM — Nuclear Magnetism ❍ Maurice AGULHON — Contemporary French History ❍ Étienne-Émile BAULIEU — Bases and Principles of Human Reproduction ❍ Georges BLIN — Modern French Literature ❍ Yves BONNEFOY — Comparative Studies of the Poetic Function ❍ Pierre BOULEZ — Invention, Technique and Language in Music ❍ Pierre CHAMBON — Molecular Genetics ❍ Jean-Pierre CHANGEUX — Cellular Communication ❍ Claude COHEN-TANNOUDJI — Atomic and Molecular Physics ❍ Yves COPPENS — Palaeontology and Prehistory ❍ François-Xavier COQUIN — Modern and Contemporary Russian History ❍ Gilbert DAGRON — Byzantine History and Civilization ❍ Jean DAUSSET — Experimental Medicine ❍ Jean DELUMEAU — History of Religious Mentalities ❍ Michael EDWARDS — Literary Creation in English ❍ Marcel FROISSART — Corpuscular Physics ❍ Marc FUMAROLI — Rhetoric and Society in 16th and 17th century Europe ❍ Jacques GERNET — Social and Intellectual History of China ❍ Jacques GLOWINSKI — Neuropharmacology ❍ Gilles Gaston GRANGER — Comparative Epistemology ❍ François GROS — Cellular Biochemistry ❍ Jean GUILAINE — European Civilizations in the Neolithic and the Bronze Age ❍ Ian HACKING — Philosophy and History of Scientific Concepts ❍ Pierre HADOT — History of Hellenistic and Roman Thinking ❍ Claude HAGÈGE — Linguistic Theory ❍ Françoise HÉRITIER — Comparative Studies of African Societies ❍ François JACOB — Cellular Genetics ❍ Pierre JOLIOT — Cellular Bioenergetics ❍ Yves LAPORTE — Neurophysiology ❍ Jean LECLANT — Egyptology ❍ Nicole LE DOUARIN — Molecular and Cellular Embryology ❍ Xavier LE PICHON — Geodynamics ❍ Georges LE RIDER — Economic and Monetary History of the Hellenistic Orient ❍ Emmanuel LE ROY LADURIE — History of Modern Civilization ❍ Claude LÉVI-STRAUSS — Social Anthropology ❍ Edmond MALINVAUD — Economic Analysis ❍ André MIQUEL — Classical Arabic Language and Literature

N° 3 - THE LETTER 63 ❍ Philippe NOZIÈRES — Statistical Physics ❍ Jean-Claude PECKER — Theoretical Astrophysics ❍ Jacques PRENTKI — Theoretical Physics of Elementary Particles ❍ Daniel ROCHE — French History in the Age of the Enlightenment ❍ Jacqueline DE ROMILLY — Greece and the Development of Moral and Political Thinking ❍ Jean-Pierre SERRE — Algebra and Geometry ❍ Michel TARDIEU — History of Syncretisms in Late Antiquity ❍ Javier TEIXIDOR — Semitic Antiquities ❍ Jacques THUILLIER — History of Artistic Creation in France ❍ Jacques TITS — Group Theory ❍ Pierre TOUBERT — Occidental History ❍ Paul-Marie VEYNE — History of Rome ❍ Nathan WACHTEL — History and Anthropology of Meso- and South American Societies ❍ Harald WEINRICH — Romance Languages and Literatures ❍ Jean YOYOTTE — Egyptology

Administration ❍ Director of Cultural Affairs and External Relations: Florence TERRASSE-RIOU ❍ Director of Administrative and Financial Affairs: Jean-François RIGONI

LECTURES GIVEN BY THE PROFESSORS ABROAD

BELGIUM ❍ Free University of Brussels ● Édouard BARD (holder of the Chair of Climate and Ocean Evolution) Past and future climates.

BRAZIL ❍ University of São-Paulo (Levi-Strauss chair) ● Mireille DELMAS-MARTY (holder of the Chair of Comparative Legal Studies and Internationalization of Law) Penal law on the inhuman.

CHINA ❍ Institute of Otolaryngology, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing ● Christine PETIT (holder of the Chair of Genetics and Cellular Physiology) Hearing and deafness.

❍ City University of Hong Kong ● Jean-Marie LEHN (holder of the Chair of Chemistry of Molecular Interactions) Supramolecular Chemistry – From Molecular Recognition towards Self-Organization.

GERMANY ❍ University of Bonn (Ernst Robert Curtius chair) ● John SCHEID (holder of the Chair of Religion, Institutions and Society in Ancient Rome) The meaning of rites in Roman religion.

● Michel ZINK (holder of the Chair of French Mediaeval Literature) Poetry as narrative. Medieval examples.

❍ University of Kiel ● Édouard BARD (holder of the Chair of Climate and Ocean Evolution) The tropical record of abrupt climate changes.

64 THE LETTER - N° 3 GREECE ❍ University of Athens ● Spyros ARTAVANIS-TSAKONAS (holder of the Chair of Biology and Genetics of Development) The development biology and evolutionary implications of Notch signaling crosstalk.

ITALY ❍ University Ca’Foscari, Venice ● Pierre-Étienne WILL (holder of the Chair of Histoy of Modern China) 1. Militarism and the revolutionary connection in late-Qing and early Republican Shaanxi province 2. Engineers and state-building: Li Yizhi (1882-1938) and his circle.

NETHERLANDS ❍ University of Utrecht ● Édouard BARD (holder of the Chair of Climate and Ocean Evolution) The last deglaciation.

RUSSIA ❍ M.V. Lomonossov Moscow State University ● Jean-Marie LEHN (holder of the Chair of Chemistry of Molecular Interactions) Supramolecular Chemistry - From Molecular Recognition towards Self-Organization.

SINGAPORE ❍ Agency for Science and Technology ● Pierre CORVOL (holder of the Chair of Experimental Medicine) Normal and abnormal angiogenesis.

SWEDEN ❍ University of Uppsala ● Jacques LIVAGE (holder of the Chair of Chemistry of Molecular Interactions) Soft chemistry synthesis of advanced materials.

● Christine PETIT (holder of the Chair of Genetics and Cellular Physiology) Hereditary deafness: from the genes to the cellular and molecular mechanisms of hearing.

SWITZERLAND ❍ University of Lugano ● Carlo OSSOLA (holder of the Chair of Modern Literatures of Neo-Latin Europe) "Renaissance" and "creation" in the 16th century.

TUNISIA ❍ University of Tunis ● Jacques LIVAGE (holder of the Chair of Chemistry of Molecular Interactions) Breakthroughs in solid state chemistry.

UNITED KINGDOM ❍ Maison française d’Oxford ● M. Pierre BRIANT (holder of the Chair of History and Civilization of the Achaemenid World and of the Empire of Alexander) Recent research on the Achaemenid Empire.

❍ Cambridge University ● Édouard BARD (holder of the Chair of Climate and Ocean Evolution) The ocean record of the last deglaciation.

N° 3 - THE LETTER 65 UNITED STATES ❍ University of Chicago ● Édouard BARD (holder of the Chair of Climate and Ocean Evolution) High latitude and tropical records of rapid climate changes.

● Stanislas DEHAENE (holder of the Chair of Experimental Cognitive Psychology) Reading in the brain: 1 - The visual word form area: myth or reality? 2 - Mirror errors: evidence for neuronal recycling in reading acquisition. 3 - Subliminal and supraliminal processing of words and digits.

● Serge HAROCHE (holder of the Chair of Quantum Physics) Exploring the quantum dynamics of atoms and photons in cavities.

● Michel ZINK (holder of the Chair of French Mediaeval Literature) Courtly poetry, courtly short stories. What poetry recounts.

❍ Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Harvard University - Portland University ● Alain BERTHOZ (holder of the Chair of Physiology of Perception and Action) Main simplifiers in the cerebral mechanisms of perception and action.

❍ Yale University, New Haven ● Michel DEVORET (holder of the Chair of Mesoscopic Physics) Single Electron Effects in Mesoscopic Systems.

66 THE LETTER - N° 3 The Collège de France, an Internationally Open Institution

Policy of Openness Some Figures Berlin, 2007). The proceedings of these conferences are published. The Collège de France’s renown The following statistics give an is a result of the interaction and idea of this international The fact that half of the exchange collaboration that each of its outreach: programmes (assignments or Chairs maintains in its own invitations) have been situated discipline with specialists abroad. Ten of the 52 permanent Chairs within Europe bears witness to Based on these extensive and are currently occupied by foreign the Collège‘s participation in the varied networks, the institution professors, and a total of 35 movement to integrate European has gradually developed an professors have occupied the two research and higher education. In assertive policy of annual Chairs reserved for addition, close to one third of its internationalization, which has foreigners. exchange programmes have been become one of its priorities. with the USA. Finally, strong ties Since 1995 the professors of the also exist with Brazil, China, Various measures favoured this Collège de France have Singapore and the Middle East. orientation in the late 1980s and undertaken some 350 teaching early 1990s: the creation of an assignments abroad (ie the Prospects European and an International lectures and seminars that are Chair, the authorization to part of their teaching, but The legibility and visibility of the recruit foreigners to all excluding additional talks and Collège de France’s international permanent and annual Chairs, lectures that they may be invited activities are a constant concern, and the possibility for professors to deliver). One third of these and signing agreements is an to delocalize up to a third of their assignments are provided for in appropriate means to that end. lectures and seminars abroad. In agreements signed by the Collège. However, in view of the specific parallel, the institution managed nature of the Collège and its to increase the number of foreign Since 1995, 418 foreign lecturers relatively small size, its intention scholars invited every year to from 37 countries have been is not to multiply the number of teach under its Chairs. guests at the Collège. new partnerships. Instead, the institution will endeavour to With the number of exchanges Finally, about a third of the fifty deepen existing relationships, increasing, the Collège started to “young researchers” that the with a strong focus on reciprocity enter into agreements with Collège hosts in its laboratories and hosting foreign “young foreign institutions for the and libraries every year are from researchers” under its Chairs and creation of Chairs to host its own abroad. in its laboratories. In fact this professors. The aim was to will be one of the priorities for establish sound relations. The In recent years the Collège de the coming years. first agreement was signed in France has moreover organized 1997 for the creation of a Lévi- European multidisciplinary The broadcasting of the Collège’s Strauss Chair at the Institute for conferences both in Paris teaching on the Internet Advanced Studies, Sao Paulo (“European science and substantially increases and University. Since 2003-04 the consciousness”, 2004) and diversifies its outside, and policy has been intensified and to abroad (“A better world for all: especially foreign, audiences. date fifteen agreements have been realistic project or crazy dream”, This programme will go from signed (see Box). Brussels, 2006; “The New World strength to strength as more and of public health and prevention”, more lectures are made available

N° 3 - THE LETTER 67 on line, eventually with France in Brazil in 2009, the Francophone universities, and to translations so that they are Collège is involved in various make it possible to follow accessible to non-francophone scientific events, in partnership debates via video-conferencing. ■ publics as well. with the French and Brazilian Olivier Guillaume science academies. Finally, the Responsible for International Relations In the immediate future, a Collège has engaged in a number of activities are planned partnership with the Agence for the 2008-09 academic year, Universitaire pour la including several lectures series Francophonie (AUF). It plans to by Collège de France professors: broadcast the new Chairs’ in Tunis (for the third inaugural lectures (“Knowledge consecutive year) in partnership against poverty”, 8 January with the Embassy of France; at 2008, and “Sustainable the Maison Française in Oxford; development”, 5 March 2009) and at the Institut Français of live on the “digital campuses” Madrid. As part of the Year of that the AUF has set up in

LIST OF INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS ■ Belgium (22 June 2007) Free University of Brussels (and other universities of the French community in Belgium) ■ Brazil (October 1997, renewed on 30 September 2002) University of Sao Paulo / Institute of Advanced Studies (Lévi-Strauss Chair) ■ Brazil (16 December 2004) Forum of the Universities of Rio de Janeiro (Celso Furtado Chair) ■ Canada (November 2003) Universities of Quebec (CRÉPUQ) ■ Czech Republic (17 March 2008) Charles University of Prague ■ China (10 March 2007) City University of Hong Kong ■ Germany (29 January 2008) University of Bonn (Ernst Robert Curtius Chair) ■ Israel (15 May 2007) Hebrew University of Jerusalem / Institute of Advanced Studies ■ Italy (28 May 2004) National Research Council (CNR) ■ Lebanon (6 April 2006) Saint Joseph University of Beirut ■ Singapore (15 December 2005) A*STAR - Agency for Science, Technology and Research ■ Spain (5 March 2004) Botin Foundation Chair ■ Sweden (8 June 2004) University of Uppsala (and other Swedish universities) ■ Switzerland (14 February 2008) University of Lausanne – Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne ■ USA (26 April 2006) University of Chicago

68 THE LETTER - N° 3 LECTURES AND LECTURE SERIES BY FOREIGN PROFESSORS INVITED BY THE ASSEMBLY OF THE PROFESSORS

State chairs reserved for foreign scholars

❍ Ahmad BEYDOUN, Professor at the University of Beirut (Lebanon) 1. From the 1943 Pact to the Taef agreement: Resistance to deconfessionalism 2. What “independence” actually meant 3. A new inter-community deal? 4. Does the Lebanese political system have a future?

❍ Maria Giovanna BIGA, Professor at “La Sapienza” University of Rome (Italy) Syria in the 3rd millennium B.C. according to the Ebla archives. 1. Life at the Ebla court 2. Organization of the Eblaite state; royalty and the management of power 3. The Ebla kingdom and its neighbours 4. Ebla religion.

❍ Gyorgy BUDZÁKI, Professor at Rutgers University, Newark (United States) Rythms of the Brain: Neuronal synchrony 1. Metabolic and wiring costs of excitatory and inhibitory systems 2. Oscillatory and non-Oscillatory emergence of cell assemblies 3. Internally advancing assemblies in the hippocampus 4. Coupling of hippocampal and neocortical systems.

❍ José Emilio BURUCÚA, Professor at the University of San Martín (Argentina) 1. The concept of otherness and pictorial representations of the history of Ulysses since the Renaissance. 2. Ancient massacres and modern massacres: problems of historiography and of representation. 3. The Pathosformeln of laughter and European engraving in early modernity. 4. The engravings of Quichote in 17th century France.

❍ Jean COHEN, Professor at Columbia University, New York (United States) Rethinking Sovereignty, Rights and International Law in the Epoch of Globalization: 1. Sovereignty and International Law: A Dualist Perspective 2. Cosmopolitanism and Empire 3. Intervention, Occupation and Human Rights 4. Towards the Constitutionalization of International Law.

❍ Elaine FUCHS, Professor at Rockefeller University, New York (United States) 1. Stem Cells: Biology, Ethics and potential for Medicine 2. The Biology and Genetics of Skin and Hair 3. Cell adhesion, Migration and Cancer 4. Stem Cells of the Skin and their Lineages.

❍ Diego GAMBETTA, Professor at Nuffield College, Oxford University (United Kingdom) The theory of signals and its application to human behaviour.

❍ Peter GOLDEN, Professor at the University of Rutgers, New Jersey (United States) 1. The origins and shaping of the Turks of medieval Eurasia; Ethnicity in Medieval Eurasia 2. The origins of the Khazars and their conversion to judaism in a Eurasian context, ie the adoption of universal faiths by the Turkic nomads 3. Sacral kingship among the early Turkic peoples with particular reference to the khazars 4. The Qïpchaqs: origins and migrations.

N° 3 - THE LETTER 69 ❍ Orly GOLDWASSER, Professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel) The archaeology of Egyptian thinking: classification and categories of the ancient Egyptians.

❍ Albert de JONG, Professor at the University of Leiden (Netherlands) The four phases of Mazdean religion.

❍ Leonid KOGAN, Professor at the State University of Russia 1. Introduction: general botanic terminology and names of plant parts 2. Wild plants 3. Domesticated plants: cereals and vegetables 4. Domesticated plants: trees and vines.

❍ Nicholas PURCELL, Ofﬁcial Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History, St. John’s College, Oxford (United Kingdom) 1. Becoming maritime 2. The slopes of connectivity 3. On the fringes of the Mediterranean: ecology, networks, interdependencies 4. The Tethys corridor and problems of the Transeuphratean.

❍ Jose Alexandre SCHEINKMAN, Professor at Princeton University (United States) Long Term Risk.

❍ Victor STOICHITA, Professor at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) Of tears and Saints.

70 THE LETTER - N° 3 EVENTS AT THE COLLÈGE DE FRANCE – 2007-2008

October May ❍ Concert ❍ Concert in the framework of the Collège de France ❍ Public talks by the Foundation for the lectures at Aubervilliers Commemoration of the Shoah ❍ De Gennes Days, symposium in honour of ❍ ARC “Young Researchers’ Day” (Association Pierre-Gilles de Gennes (Pierre-Gilles de Gennes pour la Recherche sur le Cancer) Foundation) ❍ Seminar on Asian epigraphy (Prof J.-M. Durand) ❍ Symposium: “Napoleon III, the Man, the ❍ Collège de France Autumn Symposium: “On Politician” (Napoleon Foundation) Authority“ ❍ Symposium: “The Notion of Function from Life Science to Technology” (Prof A. de Ricqlès) November ❍ Open day of the School of Neurosciences ❍ Re-opening session of the IHEST (Institut des ❍ Symposium: “Mamluks, Turks and Ottomans” Hautes Etudes pour la Science et la Technologie) (Prof H. Laurens – G. Veinstein) ❍ Symposium: “Tibet” (Research team received Alain Thote) June ❍ Symposium: “The Islamization of Central Asia” ❍ 3D Symposium (Prof A. Berthoz) (Prof G. Veinstein) ❍ Seminar on terrorism “Typologies du terrorisme et ❍ Public talks by the Foundation for the communauté(s) de valeurs” Commemoration of the Shoah (Prof M. Delmas-Marty and Prof H. Laurens) ❍ Establishment of the IUF (Institut Universitaire de ❍ Symposium: “L’ivresse de la liberté. The 1908 France) Revolution in the Ottoman Empire” ❍ Bergson’s L’évolution créatrice, 100 years later (Prof G. Veinstein) (1907-2007) Epistemology and Metaphysics ❍ Symposium: “The monarchisms of the East” International conference to conclude Bergson Year ❍ Symposium: “The Struggle against Exclusion by (Prof A. Fagot-Largeault) the Educational System: a Challenge” (Ecole ❍ “Envie d’Amphi” (Mairie de Paris) Polytechnique Alumni Association) ❍ Prize-giving for the International Ideas ❍ Open day of the Collège de France Biology Competition (Mission de Préfiguration) Institute ❍ Talk on Paul Bert, Association des Members des Palmes Académiques

December ❍ International symposium: “Barhebraeus and the Syriac Renaissance” (Prof M. Tardieu) ❍ Awarding of the INSERM prize (Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale) ❍ Open day of the Neuropsychology Society (Société de Neuropsychologie de Langue Française) ❍ Symposium: “Globalization: Figures and Problems” (Prof P. Rosanvallon) ❍ Awarding of the INRIA Science Academy prize (Institut National de la Recherche en Informatique et Automatique)

January ❍ Symposium: “Images and Design in Figurative Writing” (Prof N. Grimal)

April ❍ Symposium of the Union Rationaliste (Prof G. Fussman) ❍ Symposium: “Wittgenstein: On Images, Language and Mind”(Prof J. Bouveresse)

N° 3 - THE LETTER 71 RESEARCH TEAMS RECEIVED

The policy of hosting research teams was implemented ■ Alain THOTE on the basis of an Assembly vote dated 18 March Centre for Research on Chinese and Japanese 2001 to contribute towards the training of young Civilization (UMR 7129) research teams and to enhance the Collège’s scientific ■ Lyne BANSAT-BOUDON potential. In some cases it was a temporary solution Institute for Indian Studies for teams directed by a professor about to retire. ■ Xavier JEUNEMAITRE Genes and blood pressure mineralocorticoid Space permitting, these teams, which have to obtain (U 772) the approval of their parent institution and to receive ■ Catherine LLORENS-CORTES on-going funds from it, can be officially hosted by the Central neuropeptides and the regulation of body Collège de France team for a four-year contract, fluid homeostatis and cardiovascular functions renewable once. (U 691) ■ Jean-Michel DENIAU They receive a € 10,000 annual grant and may obtain The dynamics and physiopathology of neuron ATER and lecturing posts, on the same basis as the networks (U 667) laboratories of the Chairs. ■ Boris GUTKIN Computational neuroscience The final decision to host these teams is taken by the ■ Christian GIAUME Assembly of Professors, after evaluation by a Junctional communication and interaction commission of professors. between neuronal and glial networks ■ Claude RANGIN and Pierre HENRY Teams currently hosted: EGERIE (Team Geodynamics of Exchange Research-Industry-Learning) ■ François TRONCHE Molecular genetics, physiology and behaviour UMR: Unité mixte de recherche (UMR 7148) (Combined Research Unit) ■ Christian ROBIN U: Unité (Unit) Semitic studies (UMR 7119)

TEMPORARY POSITIONS AT THE COLLÈGE DE FRANCE – 2008-2009 (MAÎTRES DE CONFÉRENCES AND ATER)

Temporary positions permit to receive yearly 38 Maîtres Nationality Number de conférences (Assistant Professors) and 13 ATER American 1 (Research Assistants and Post-Doctoral positions) in Argentinian 1 the chairs and research laboratories at the Collège de Brazilian 2 France. Chinese 1 French 33 French-American 1 Greek 1 Italian 3 Japanese 1 Lebanese 1 Romanian 1 Spanish 1 Swiss 1 Tunisian 1 Ukranian 1 Uruguayan 1

72 THE LETTER - N° 3 THE COLLÈGE DE FRANCE INSTITUTES

The Collège de France has four Institutes: Biology; ● Xavier Jeunemaitre – Inserm U772 – Genes and the Contemporary World; Literary Studies; and the Blood Pressure Far East. These are informal structures with no ● Catherine Llorens-Cortes – Inserm U691 – official status from an administrative point of view. Central neuropeptides and the regulation of body They group together Chairs and hosted teams. fluids ● François Tronche – CNRS UMR 7148 – The Institutes are created or closed on the initiative Molecular Genetics, Neurophysiology and of the professors concerned, after a formal decision Behaviour by the Assembly. ● Christian Giaume – Inserm U840 – Junctional communication and interaction between neuronal They promote and facilitate research by defining and glial networks. common projects and by pooling technical staff, equipment (technical facilities, libraries, etc.) and Prof Anne Fagot-Largeault, holder of the chair of premises. Philosophy of Biological and Medical Science, and Prof Armand de Ricqlès, holder of the chair of The modalities of these Institutes’ organization may Historical Biology and Evolutionism, also vary. participate in discussions concerning the Collège de France Institute of Biology. Institute of Biology The aim of the Institute is to promote the research The Collège de France Institute of Biology, created in being done within the Collège de France, via several 1983 on a decision of the Assembly of Professors, actions defined by the professors of the Institute and includes the Collège’s Professors of Biology (whether applied by its Coordination Committee. This their laboratory is located at the Collège itself or committee consists of staff from each of the units and elsewhere) and the teams hosted by the Collège. The research laboratories located on the Marcelin incumbent President is Alain Berthoz. Berthelot site. It is chaired by the President of the Institute of Biology. Chairs whose laboratories are located at the Institute of Biology: Shared resources: ● Alain Berthoz – Physiology of Perception and - animal facilities: conventional and transgenic Action (CNRS UMR 7152) - technical platforms: confocal imaging and ● Pierre Corvol – Experimental Medicine (Inserm electron microscopy, neural imaging U833) - equipment for studying behaviour in rodents - document library Chairs whose laboratories are not located at the Collège de France: Scientific activities: ● Spyros Artavanis-Tsakonas – Developmental - Seminars by each professor or laboratory, and Biology and Genetics PhD examinations ● Stanislas Dehaene – Experimental Cognitive - Seminars organized jointly by different Psychology (Inserm-CEA 562) professors and hosted teams ● Philippe Kourilsky – Molecular Immunology - Organization of the Institute of Biology’s ● Jean-Louis Mandel – Human Genetics (Inserm Science Day. U596) ● Christine Petit – Genetics and Cell Physiology One of the Institute of Biology’s most important (Inserm U587) missions is to enable young teams to occupy ● Alain Prochiantz – Morphogenic Processes research space on a four-yearly basis, renewable (arrival on the Marcelin Berthelot site in 2008) once.

Hosted teams located within the Institute of Shared funding: Biology (they benefit from all the Institute’s Funding is provided by the Collège de France resources): Voronoff Foundation and a grant from the ● Jean-Michel Deniau – Inserm U667 – Dynamics Collège’s Federative Institute of Biological Research and Pathophysiology of Neuronal Networks (IFR 52, Inserm-CNRS).

N° 3 - THE LETTER 73 Institute of the Contemporary World ● Roland Recht: History of european medieval and modern art The Institute of the Contemporary World was ● Michel Zink: Literatures of medieval France created in 2005. Emeritus Professors: It groups together six Collège de France Chairs, ● Yves Bonnefoy: History of the poetic function five of which are located on the Ulm site and one ● Marc Fumaroli: Rhetoric and society in Europe on the Cardinal Lemoine site: (16th–17th centuries) ● Harald Weinrich: Romance languages and ● Mireille Delmas-Marty – Comparative Legal literatures. Studies and Internationalization of Law ● Philippe Descola – Anthropology of Nature Michel Zink is currently the Director of the ● Jon Elster – Rationality and Social Sciences Institute of Literary Studies. Odile Bombarde, ● Roger Guesnerie – Economic Theory and Social lecturer, is responsible for the secretariat and Organization coordination. ● Henry Laurens – Contemporary Arab History ● Pierre Rosanvallon – Modern and For the past fifteen years, the Institute of Literary Contemporary History of Politics Studies has regularly organized colloquiums under the responsibility of one of its members. These The Institute is coordinated by a professor on the colloquiums bring all of its members together basis of a two-year rotating system. Pierre around a common research programme. Examples Rosanvallon is coordinator for 2006 and 2007. include Yves Bonnefoy’s annual colloquium on ‘Poetry’s self-awareness’, held at the University of The members of the Institute are currently all Sarrebruck in 2005; Michel Zink’s colloquium on participating in a multi-disciplinary study on L’œuvre et son ombre. Que peut la littérature globalization, focused on the following three secondaire? (Editions de Fallois, 2002); and Carlo dimensions: democracy, the rule of law, and the Ossola’s colloquium on Pétrarque et l’Europe market. (Editions Million, 2006).

Three key topics are addressed: The Institute of Literary Studies recently launched - Management of global collective (public) goods a new programme on translation. A preparatory - National sovereignty in question and the question day will be held in the autumn of 2007 and the of governance first colloquium is scheduled for 2008. - Towards a global political society: law and politics in the constitution of an international Finally, the Institute of Literary Studies is closely order. associated with the publication of the History of the Collège de France, coordinated by Marc Fumaroli. Several colloquiums will address these issues in The first volume was published in 2006. 2007 and 2008. Study days will also be devoted to the problems of terrorism and civil wars. The Collège de France’s Oriental Institutes

Institute of Literary Studies As a pioneer in oriental studies in France and in some cases in the world, the Collège de France has The Institute of Literary Studies combines the Collège de always had very rich libraries in this field. Its France Chairs devoted to literature studies and related collections were enhanced by the transfer in 1973 subjects (history of art, history of books): of the oriental studies institutes from the former Sorbonne. To a large extent, these libraries had Professors: always been open to researchers from outside the ● Roger Chartier: Writing and cultures in modern Collège de France. But their statuses differed Europe considerably, they functioned independently, and ● Antoine Compagnon: Modern and they did not belong to the French university library contemporary literature: history, theory, critique system, which cut them off from an essential source ● Michael Edwards: Studies of literary creation in of funding (for staff and operating costs). The English development of catalogues accessible via Internet ● Carlo Ossola: Modern literatures of neo-latin also necessitated the choice and purchase of new Europe management systems, the costs of which exceeded

74 THE LETTER - N° 3 the means of individual libraries. Finally, most of Buddhist and Confucian texts are all too often at the libraries were affiliated with a Chair and the crux of contemporary issues or violence for consequently depended on its existence. In such their current importance to be denied. cases the Collège could be tempted to maintain a particular Chair to ensure the survival of its library, 5. This reform has been endorsed by agreements which was often the only one of its kind in France. with the Collège de France’s main partners (the Under-directorate of libraries of the Ministry for The reform adopted on 26 June 2005 by the Higher Education and Research, the General Assembly of Professors consisted primarily in Directorate of the CNRS, the BULAC (university systematizing a series of measures, most of which library of languages and civilizations), the national had been taken previously by the Collège to remedy institute for living oriental languages and this situation. civilizations, and the institute for research on the history of texts). The sharing of competencies and 1. The Oriental Institutes now form a federation funding has thus been defined. ■ of five Institutes with a large degree of managerial independence and no legal ties with the Chairs:

2. The Oriental Institute’s documentary collections are considered to be specialized sections of the general library. This will eventually lead to the unification of the catalogues and to a coordinated procurement policy. The collections are currently part of the university documentation system (SUDOC).

Oriental Institutes

Ancient Arabic, Egyptology Middle Byzantium Turkish Far East East Islamic studies

India Tibet China Korea Japan

3. It is primarily the institutes, that is, institutions devoted to research and managed jointly with researchers, most of whom are from outside the Collège, that use the libraries. These institutes have the means to publish. Each of them is run by a Director and a Scientific Committee appointed for three years. The Federation of Institutes is headed by the Council consisting of Collège de France professors and a Scientific Committee with diverse outside personalities.

4. Although the collections are considered to be ‘classical’, and the researchers are often specialists in Antiquity or the Middle Ages, the contemporary world falls within their research field. This is not only because classical India ended with the arrival of the British, and the chronological limit of China was the end of the Manchurian Dynasty (1912). The linguistic collections have no chronological limit and the Bible, the Koran, the Veda, and

N° 3 - THE LETTER 75 COLLÈGE DE FRANCE WEBSITES – PODCASTS

Since its creation in 2000 the Collège de France website In one year, they have been downloaded has grown considerably. The Institution’s lectures are 1,400,000 times and classified first by the ‘iTunes’ thus disseminated more widely, both nationally and podcast reader. Internet users can also download them internationally, and Internet users are offered a directly from the website; there have been technically efficient and aesthetic tool. This process has 458,619 downloadings during the same period. During been enhanced by the use of new technologies. the coming year we hope to double this dissemination. As regards the scientific Chairs, the documents In November 2006 the French website was redone projected during lectures are also available, as it is often completely: clearer navigation; a more informative essential to a sound understanding. This technology has home page on the Institution’s current news; more a considerable educational value and caters mainly for modern site, with quality iconography; an architecture students. that affords rich possibilities for the presentation of content; the integration of new media: podcasts, audio Some videos are also available and we are planning on and video; an RSS feed (system of subscription to a offering Internet users short interviews with Collège de selected site); a relevant search engine and optimized France professors. referencing of all contents for specialized search engines and directories (insertion: keywords, scientific abstracts, In May 2007 an English-language website was created, titling of downloaded documents, etc.). with the following sections:

In this new version, some sections have been ● Professors: a presentation of their research domain, a highlighted, e.g. publications (these pages are very biography and bibliography, a list of professors and frequently consulted) and research. In the latter section Chairs, honorary professors and deceased professors one of the Institution’s main purposes is highlighted, as ● Research: presentation of the research laboratories, well as its main mission: the professors’ own original the Institutes and the teams hosted research. Each professor has his or her own space of at ● Institution: history of the Collège de France, least six web pages. functioning of the Institution, archaeology, projects and libraries The website does not only describe the Collège de ● Lecture agenda, news France’s history and functioning. It is designed ● International: presentation of conventions with foreign essentially to make this Institution known, in order to partners promote the diversity and quality of its teaching and ● Publications: presentation of all the Institution’s research work. Implicit therein is the objective of publications disseminating this scientific material as widely as ● Search engine. possible, in a spirit of openness, free-of-charge access, and scientific sharing. Over one thousand scientific This site is designed to meet an international public’s documents (lecture notes, abstracts, bibliographies, etc.) expectations. The ergonomics are however identical to are currently available for downloading. the French one, to preserve the unity and identity of both sites. The English site will be developed further The website is also a tool made available to all the during the next few months. ■ professors and emeritus professors for disseminating scientific documents (PDF or audio) to an audience close to their research field (students, researchers, lecturers, etc.) and for presenting their bibliography and/or biography to other colleagues or organizations.

Since September 2007, over a period of one year, there have been 854,993 connections to the Collège de France website.

In the same period, in order to increase the dissemination of lectures and to enable more people to have access to their audio transmissions, a system of audio podcasting was set up for 20 professors’ lectures.

76 THE LETTER - N° 3 PUBLICATIONS – 2007-2008

The Collège de France has a partnership with the Éditions Fayard and the Éditions Odile Jacob for publishing the inaugural lectures of the professors, some lectures of invited professors and the proceedings of some of the Collège’s colloquiums.

Éditions Fayard

Collection “Leçons inaugurales” ❍ Pierre MAGISTRETTI, La neuroénergétique : De la synapse à l’image, forthcoming (November 2008) ❍ Michel DEVORET, De l’atome aux machines quantiques, forthcoming (November 2008) ❍ Michel BRUNET, Origine et histoire des hominidés, forthcoming (November 2008) ❍ Gérard BERRY, Pourquoi et comment le monde devient numérique (2008), n° 196 ❍ Roger CHARTIER, Ecouter les morts avec les yeux (2007), n° 195 ❍ Alain PROCHIANTZ, Géométries du vivant (2007), n° 194

Hors Collection : ❍ Jean GUILAINE, Les Racines de la Méditerranée et de l’Europe, Leçon de clôture (2008)

Éditions Odile Jacob

❍ CHANGEUX J.P. (éd.), L’Homme artificiel (2007) ❍ REISSE J. et. CHANGEUX J.-P. (éds.), Un monde meilleur pour tous, 2008 ❍ COMPAGNON A. (éd.), De l’autorité, 2008 ❍ BOUVERESSE J. et WAGNER P., Mathématiques et expérience, forthcoming (January 2009) ❍ EVERS K., Neuroéthique, forthcoming (2009)

Yearbook

❍ Cours et travaux du Collège de France. Résumés 2006-07. Annuaire 107e année.

DVDs Coproduction Collège de France / CNED / Doriane Films

❍ Michel BRUNET, Origine et histoire des hominidés, 2008. ❍ Manfred KROPP, Un philologue lit le Coran, 2008. ❍ Roger CHARTIER, Ecouter les morts avec les yeux, 2007.

The inaugural lectures of Profs. A. Prochiantz, G. Berry, P. Magistretti can be downloaded on the website of the Collège de France (www.college-de-france.fr).

N° 3 - THE LETTER 77 COLLÈGE DE FRANCE AUTUMN SYMPOSIUM – 2008-2009

At the origins of human dialogue: Speech and music

16-17 October 2008

From where does our species get its singular ability to Although none of these questions are new, partial give meaning to the expression of acoustic signals? answers are emerging from advances over the past two Speech and music shape social cognition through the decades in the cognitive neuroscience of music and sharing of emotional states, intentions, symbols and language. New concepts, tools and research subjects cultures. Why and how did these communication are arising from the encounter between neurobiologists, systems appear during Human evolution? Darwin evolution specialists, philosophers, psychologists, argued that there were musical changes in the voice anthropologists, psycho-acousticians, informaticians, under the effect of emotion, and saw the production of linguists, musicologists, interpreters and composers. meaning as an intermediate step in the acquisition of This symposium will illustrate just how stimulating and speech. Does that mean that there are links between the fertile this reflection is. ■ sounds emitted and processed by the two systems? Can we talk of musical language? Or should we agree with Wagner that music starts where the power of words ends?

Programme

Thursday 16 October Friday 17 October

Du signal acoustique à la perception Plasticité et éducation ● Entendre : les bases physiologiques de l’audition ● L'apprentissage du chant chez l'oiseau : l'importance Christine Petit, Collège de France des influences sociales ● Helmholtz et la théorie physiologique de la musique Martine Hausberger, Université de Rennes, France Jacques Bouveresse, Collège de France ● Comment les enfants apprennent-ils leur langue maternelle ? Parole et musique : le propre de l’homme ? Ghislaine Dehaene-Lambertz, CNRS, Centre NeuroSpin ● Mice, chimpanzees and the molecular basis of language ● Variability in brain plasticity : how can musical Wolfgang Enard, Max-Planck-Institute of evolutionary training improve cognition ? Anthropology, Germany Helen Neville, University of Oregon, U.S.A. ● L'auto-organisation dans l'évolution de la parole Le dialogue en échec Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, INRIA, France ● Amusies et mécanismes cérébraux de la perception Diversité des cultures, invariance des structures ? musicale ● Comment formaliser la diversité des langues ? Isabelle Peretz, Université de Montréal, Canada Luigi Rizzi, University of Siena, Italy ● Les raisons de l’autisme ● Entre parole et musique : les langages tambourinés Monica Zilbovicius, INSERM, CEA, France d’Afrique Centrale De la parole au chant Simha Arom, CNRS, langues- musiques-sociétés, France ● De la parole et du bruit : l’organisation de la L’invention de nouveaux modes de communication compréhension orale ● Capter la parole vive : la notation de la musique de la Christian Lorenzi, ENS, CNRS, Université Paris Descartes parole ● Parole-chant : L’opéra Roger Chartier, Collège de France Claude Hagège, Collège de France ● Poésie et musique Musique du langage, langage de la musique Michael Edwards, Collège de France ● Musique et parole, de l’acoustique au numérique ● Synthèse de la voix parlée et chantée Jean-Claude Risset, CNRS – LMA, France Xavier Rodet, IRCAM, France ● « Parole, Parole, Parole » ● Concert par Donatienne Michel-Dansac, soprano Peter Szendy, Université Paris X Nanterre, France Réalisation informatique musicale IRCAM ● L’émotion dans le langage musical Hèctor Parra : Strette / Georges Aperghis : Récitations Emmanuel Bigand, CNRS, Université de Bourgogne (extraits) The programme and lectures will be available on www.college-de-france.fr

78 THE LETTER - N° 3 History, through time As the Renaissance spread throughout Europe, great minds started to explore subjects that had previously aroused no curiosity, and the invention of printing meant that the wealth of philosophy contained in the chefs-d’œuvre of Antiquity was becoming more widely available. Teachers capable of interpreting and commenting on these matters were in demand. Thus, the Collège Royal was set up, which later became known as the Collège de France. 1530 King François I, on the advice of Guillaume Budé, his «master of the library», appointed six «royal readers»: three for Hebrew (François Vatable, Agathias Guidacerius, Paul Paradis), two for Greek (Pierre Danès, Jacques Toussaint) and one for mathematics (Oronce Finé). Their lectures were free and open to anyone1551 1551 After requisitioning the Collèges de Tréguier and de Cambrai where he installed «royal readers» in 1551, Henri II extended the range of subjects taught by the Collège to philosophy. He created a chair for Ramus (Pierre de la Ramée), a notorious and controversial anti-Aristotelian philosopher, who then went on to teach mathematics from 1559 onwards. 1567 The Collège was mentioned for the first time in a document. It was a diploma awarded to Nicolas Goulu, certifying that he was qualified to teach Greek. 1610 On August 28, Louis XIII laid the first stone of a new building bearing the following inscription: «In the first year of the Reign of Louis XIII King of France and of Navarre, aged nine, and of the Regency of Queen Marie de Médicis his mother MDCX » (En l’an premier du Regne de Louis XIII Roy de France et de Navarre, agé de neuf ans, et de la Regence de la Royne Marie de Médicis sa mère MDCX). 1699 On January 18, 1699, the Collège Royal was granted its coat of arms: against a sky blue background there is a silver book lying open in which are written the words Docet omnia. The book is surrounded by three golden fleurs-de- lis, two at the top and one at the bottom. 1707 There were now twenty chairs: eleven for the arts, nine for scientific subjects. 1772 Louis XV entrusted the architect Jean-François Chalgrin with the construction of the Collège Royal. Chalgrin was a winner of the Grand prix de Rome and a member of the Académie d'architecture. On May 16, the Collège was incorporated into the University of Paris. It regained its independence in 1794. On March 22, 1774, the Duc de La Vrillière laid the first stone of the new buildings, which were completed in 1778. 1824 A picture portraying the establishment of the «royal readers » by François I (on display in the Assembly room). It was painted by G. Guillon Lethière. 1870 The Collège Royal then the Collège Impérial became the Collège de France. There were now forty professors. 1963 The creation of two new chairs brought to fifty-two the number of professors. 1976 The professors were allowed to give some of their teaching outside Paris. 1988 The professors were allowed to give some of their teaching abroad. 1989 Creation of the European chair. 1992 Creation of International chair. 1998 Inauguration of new Collège de France premises. The renovation was carried out by the architects Bernard Huet and Jean-Michel Wilmotte. 2005 Creation of the chair of Artistic Creation. 2006 Creation of the chair of Technological Innovation - Liliane Bettencourt. AGENDA

Academic Year 2008-2009

New Chairs Created ● Physics of Condensed Matter New Professors ● Pierre-Laurent AIMARD, Chair of Artistic Creation 2008-2009 ● Anne CHENG, Chair of Intellectual History of China ● Esther DUFLO, International Chair - Knowledge against Poverty, 2008-2009 ● Mathias FINK, Chair of Technological Innovation - Liliane Bettencourt 2008-2009 ● Marc FONTECAVE, Chair of Chemistry of biological processes ● Henri LERIDON, European Chair - Sustainable Development - Environment, Energy and Society, 2008-2009 ● Thomas RÖMER, Chair of Biblic Communities ● Philippe SANSONETTI, Chair of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases The Inaugural Lectures will take place at 6 pm in the Marguerite de Navarre Lecture Hall. ● 20 November 2008: Philippe SANSONETTI ● 11 December 2008: Anne CHENG ● 8 January 2009: Esther DUFLO ● 22 January 2009: Pierre-Louis AIMARD ● 5 February 2009: Thomas RÖMER ● 12 February 2009: Mathias FINK ● 5 March 2009: Henri LERIDON ● 26 March 2009: Marc FONTECAVE Guest Conference Speakers ● Maurizio BETTINI, Professor, University of Rome (Italy) ● Fernando BOUZA, Professor, University Complutense of Madrid (Spain) ● Jonathan COLE, Professor, Columbia University, New York (USA) ● Andrea GIARDINA, Professor, Italian institute of Human sciences of Florence (Italy) ● Marilyn LAVIN, Emeritus Professor, University of Princeton (USA) ● Irving LAVIN, Emeritus Professor, Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton (USA) ● Michael E. MEEKER, Emeritus Professor, University of California, San Diego (USA) ● Henry OHLSSON, Professor, University of Uppsala (Sweden) ● Philippe Van PARIJS, Professor, University of Louvain (Belgium) ● Aldo SCHIAVONE, Professor, Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane, Florence, Naples (Italy) ● Renate SCHLESIER, Professor, Institut fur Religionswissenschaft, Freie Universität, Berlin (Germany) ● Biagio VIRGILIO, Professor, University of Pisa (Italy) ● Gerhard WOLF, Director, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz (Italy)

WWWWWW. COLLEGECOLLEGE- DEDE- FRANCEFRANCE. FRFR

The Letter of the Collège de France Directeurs de la publication : Pierre CORVOL, Administrateur du Collège de France et Florence TERRASSE-RIOU, Directrice des Affaires culturelles et des relations extérieures Direction éditoriale : Marc KIRSCH - Patricia LLEGOU Traduction : Liz LIBBRECHT - Conception graphique : Patricia LLEGOU Crédits photos : © Collège de France, PATRICK IMBERT - Reproduction autorisée avec mention d’origine. ISSN 1958-1408 - Impression : ADVENCE

11 place Marcelin-Berthelot – 75231 Paris cedex 05 Prix : 5 €