In this course, we will examine the concept of the “Western Tradition” from a post-colonial viewpoint. During the Enlightenment, starting with the project of a European “republic,” ideas of rationality and progress played key roles in shaping the Western consciousness and self-consciousness. Such postures of rationality and progress are often seen as essential parts of this tradition. In order to understand such positions we will start by looking at theories about tradition formation. We will then exam critiques of the Western Tradition based on texts by thinkers such as Aimé Césaire, Charles Mills, Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Dipesh Chakrabarty, and Gayatri Spivak. According to such critics, The West’s idea of itself is only possible by denying non-Western countries and peoples the same possibility. This course examines these critiques and examines whether the price of the idea of Western rationality and progress has been forms of economic domination, slavery and colonialism. Finally, this course will asks how to deal with this legacy.
- Profesor: Sequoya Yiaueki
This course will help students to learn how to approach their research and how to write their Master's thesis using a research example. The research example looks at political protest as a complex speech act with interlacing forms of distributed agency. Seeing protest this way, we will look at what protest aims to do, what it actually does, when it should be considered successful or not. This will look at the role protest plays in public democratic practices, specifically what its "expressive" power is, as well as what kind of expressive power (the masses, non-govermental organisations, govermental agencies, the state) the different actors have, whether they are directly involved in the protest or just have to contend with it.
- Profesor: Sequoya Yiaueki
L’historien est souvent sollicité dans l’espace public. Sa parole est censée valoir expertise : pour valider une mémoire – celle de victimes, celle de groupes dominés, celle d’un régime, celle de groupes humains –, pour essayer de discerner dans le passé des éléments nous permettant d’imaginer un futur de plus en plus incertain ou pour comprendre et questionner les crises actuellement traversées par nos sociétés. Attentes qui rentrent parfois en tension avec le pluralisme interprétatif qui marque l’historiographie des dernières décennies.
Ce cours, qui prendra la forme d’un séminaire, a pour ambition de faciliter une réflexion sur ce qui doit fonder le métier d’historien et sur les usages sociaux de l’histoire.
Pour cela il propose une réflexion sur les grands courants et les grands débats qui ont animé la communauté historienne ainsi que sur les principales directions prises actuellement par la recherche.
Il s’organisera autour de la lecture de textes qui seront discutés à chaque séance ; ainsi que sur des débats thématiques illustrés, là-aussi, par des lectures.
- Profesor: Philippe Darriulat