1. SERIAL CATASTROPHES

Blind to disaster. The case of financial crises.
An interview with André Orléan
Financial crises follow one another but do not look alike. Yet when they happen they are discovered overnight, as though they were quite unexpected! Why do recurrent crises always seem to be unpredictable? Although they appear to be a defining feature of today's economics, what they have to tell us about the way markets operate is often overlooked.

Avian flu between care and politics.
A catastrophe foretold?
Frédéric Worms
With the threat of a global avian-generated flu pandemic, we are faced with something that cannot be characterized solely as a health hazard. Its very nature and scope force upon us concerns about healthcare dispensation, the preservation of vital relationships and the most basic rules of social life.

Food hazards and health disasters.
Frédéric Keck
The "mad cow" crisis has turned safe food into a priority for health policies. This analysis of public authorities' actions and debates among experts highlights the antagonisms that shape this issue, and finally argues in favour of an anthropological approach to our relationship with food.

Humanitarian disaster and human security.
The third age of security.
Frédéric Gros
As promoted in international conventions and resolutions, the phrase "human security" is supposed to be capable of defining a universal norm. Now, what does it refer to? How has this category been developed? It shows an evolution in the meaning of "security", which until then had referred first to the wise man's ataraxia, then to State sovereignty, and today stands a contrario for a new relationship to political evil.

Chernobyl and the invisibility of evil.
Jean-Pierre Dupuy
The challenge of climate change enhances the use of nuclear power, blotting out public concerns over the security hazards associated with nuclear plants. The Chernobyl disaster is forgotten and the number of victims is even deliberately minimized.

II. A WORLD OF CATASTROPHES?

Shock waves from the Shoah.
An interview with Daniel Lindenberg
The full extent of barbaric extermination was yet to be comprehended by the end of World War II. Similarly, it took some time and several successive stages to recognize the Shoah as the most critical event in the history of the twentieth century. But then, how did that catastrophe find its way into our own intellectual and political history?

Eschatology and apocalypse in history:
A controversial outcome.
Jean-Louis Schlegel
Does our perception of modern history not remain hostage to the notion of the end of time, and probably unbeknownst to us? The way we imagine the catastrophes menacing us elicits messianic visions or apocalyptic terror. Would we delude ourselves in believing that we can do away with notions derived from religion's legacy?

Lest disaster turn to catastrophe:
To what extent are we ready?
Andrew Lakoff
The doctrine of US civil security is based on the notion of "preparedness". However, both the population's security in the face of civil dangers and "homeland security" as part of military strategies come under the same schemes. Some aspects of each must be at loggerheads with the other.

How does one live with catastrophe? A TV soap opera: "Lost."
Barbara Villez
As in any other story of castaways, bringing together on an island the survivors of an air crash is as good an opportunity as any to stage a comprehensive metaphor of social life. A world-acclaimed American TV soap opera shows that, in contemporary imagination, a catastrophe can never be considered as foreclosed: its effects continue to be felt as it lingers on. A catastrophe is something that goes on.

A vision of the world "after".
On reading sci-fi mangas.
Véronique Nahoum-Grappe
A popular type of cartoon and worldwide success, mangas paint a dark picture of the future. The memory of the atom bomb was a defining influence on the origins and development of the genre, as are today instances of the dangers of science, freak human mutations and the definite, sinister hold of technology over nature.

Fighting terrorism, or when the judiciary lurches on the side of prevention.
Antoine Garapon
Though many authors claim that anti-terrorist schemes expose the non-democratic nature of Western governments, we should instead look beyond the notion of exception and understand these schemes as telltale signs of broader-ranging trends at work in our societies and legal systems. As we do so, we come to realise that we are moving towards a "preventative" type of justice which is not confined to the fight against terrorism.

From disbelief to action.
Benoît Pélopidas
The inordinate dimensions of potential catastrophes may run the risk of leading to some sort of fatalism or refusal to take action. Therefore, can we devise an appropriate strategy for effective action? Jean-Pierre Dupuy is trying just that with his proposed "enlightened catastrophism", which the author introduces and discusses here.

FEATURE ARTICLES

From hyper- to hypo-president: Sarkozy's big mix-up between the media and the political scenes.
Olivier Mongin
France's new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, is up against a double logjam: just when he had secured support from the media for his "big tent" efforts to reach out beyond his right-wing majority, he is falling into disfavour with those same media as he realises that he must take better care of those in that majority. This goes to show that far from being hostage to the vagaries of the media, recent political events in France only highlight the inherent limitations of the new president's early political orientations.

Belgium: Is this separatism in all but name?
Annick Jamart
For the past year or so, Belgium has been without a full-fledged government. Cobbling up a majority in Parliament is not the only challenge in a country that has experienced every possible combination between the socialist, liberal and conservative parties. The main logjam has to do with the perspective, or not, of further progress down the federal road, which could undermine the last few areas that so far have been kept out of the remits of regional or linguistic-based institutions.

Normative modernity, critical modernity and Judaism.
Stéphane Mosès
In a soon-to-be-published book-length interview, Mosès, the recently deceased philosopher, discloses the reasons behind his return to Judaism. In this excerpt, he outlines the two ways in which the tradition he had come to claim as his own can relate to modernity.

Published 2008-03-26

Original in English
© Esprit