Within the conceptual framework of comparative discourse linguistics, this article examines the similarities and the differences between Anglo-American and French Usenet newsgroups and builds hypotheses about the implicit rules which govern the respective ethnolinguistic communities. The comparison is focused on cultural perceptions of questions and explanations occurring in the messages posted in these newsgroups. Both discursive operations have different conversational functions in the Anglo-American and the French messages. Their cross-cultural analysis shows that within the Anglo-American newsgroup, the purpose of the (...) discussion is to get a better comprehension of the complexity of issues, whereas the purpose within the French newsgroup is to maintain an ordinary conversation between equals. (shrink)

A fascinating book demonstrating the influence of alchemy and esoteric traditions on the mature art of Marcel Duchamp.

Disciplinary issues -- Field studies -- Appendix: Theory of law : legal ethnography, or, the theoretical fruits of the inquiries into folkways. /// Reedition of papers in English spanning from 1995 to 2008 /// DISCIPLINARY ISSUES -- LAW AS CULTURE? [2002] 9–14 // TRENDS IN COMPARATIVE LEGAL STUDIES [2002] 15–17 // COMPARATIVE LEGAL CULTURES: ATTEMPTS AT CONCEPTUALISATION [1997] 19–28: 1. Legal Culture in a Cultural-anthropological Approach 19 / 2. Legal Culture in a Sociological Approach 21 / 3. Timely Issues of (...) Central and Eastern Europe 24 // COMPARATIVE LEGAL CULTURES? [2001] 29–48: 1. Legal Comparativism Challenged 29 / 2. Comparative Legal Cultures versus Comparative Law 34 / 3. Contrasting Fields 40 [a) The Historical Understanding of Socialist Law 42 / b) Convergence of Civil Law and Common Law 44] 4. Concluding Remarks 46 // THEATRUM LEGALE MUNDI: ON LEGAL SYSTEMS CLASSIFIED [2005] 49–75: 1. Preliminaries 49 / 2. Proposals 50 / 3. Impossible Taxonomy, or the Moment of Practicality in Legal Mapping 69 / 4. Diversity as a Fundamental Quality of Human Existence 74 // LEGAL TRADITIONS? IN SEARCH FOR FAMILIES AND CULTURES IN LAW [2004] 77–97: 1. Comparative Law and the Comparative Study of Legal Traditions 78 / 2. ‘System’, ‘Family’, ‘Culture’, and ‘Tradition’ in the Classification of Law 80 / 3. Different Traditions, Differing Ways of Thinking 85 / 4. Different Expectations, Differings Institutionalisations in Law 88 / 5. Different “Rationalities”, Differing “Logics” 92 / 6. Mentality in Foundation of the Law 94 / 7. Defining a Subject for Theoretical Research in Law 96 // SOMETHING NEW, SOMETHING OLD IN THE EUROPEAN IDENTITY OF LAW? [1995] 99–102 --- FIELD STUDIES -- MEETING POINTS BETWEEN THE TRADITIONS OF ENGLISH–AMERICAN COMMON LAW AND CONTINENTAL-FRENCH CIVIL LAW: DEVELOPMENTS AND EXPERIENCE OF POSTMODERNITY IN CANADA [2002] 105–130: I. Canadian Law in General 105 / II. Canadian Legal Developments in Particular [1. The Transformation of the Role of Precedents 112 / 2. The Transformation of Law-application into a Collective, Multicultural and Multifactorial Search for a Solution 116 / 3. Practical Trends of Dissolving the Law’s Positivity 120 / 4. New Prerogatives Acquired by Courts 125 {a) Unfolding the Statutory Provisons in Principles 126 / b) Constitutionalisation of Issues 127 / c) The Supreme Court as the Nation’s Supreme Moral Authority 129}] // MAN ELEVATING HIMSELF? DILEMMAS OF RATIONALITY IN OUR AGE [2000] 131–163: I. Reason and its Adventures 1. Progress and Advance Questioned 131 / 2. The Human Search for Safety Objectified 133 / 3. Knowledge Separated from Wisdom 135 / 4. Pure Intellectuality thereby Born 137 / II. The Will-Element Formalised in Law 5. Mere Voluntas in the Foundation of Legal Positivism 141 / 6. Formalism with Operations Fragmented 145 / III. The State of America Exemplified 7. “Slouching into Gomorrah” 147 / IV. Consequences 8. Utopianism-cum-Voluntarism 154 / 9. With Logic in Posterior Control of Human Formulations Only 159 / V. Perspectives 10. And a Final Resolution Dreamed about 161 // RULE OF LAW? MANIA OF LAW? ON THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN RATIONALITY AND ANARCHY IN AMERICA [2002] 165–180: {Transformation of American Law and Legal Mentality 165 / With Repercussions on the Underlying Ethos 168 / Legislation through Processualisation 170 / With Hyperrationalism Added 172 / Example: Finding Lost Property 172 / Practicalness Veiled by Verbal Magic 173 / Ending in Jurispathy 175 / Transubstantiating the Self-interest of the Legal Profession 178 / Post-modernity, Substituting for Primitiveness 178} // TRANSFERS OF LAW: A CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS [2003] 181–207: 1. Terms 182 / 2. Technicality 190 / 3. Contrasts in Transfers of Law 200 {Contrasts 200 / Criticisms 202 / Alternatives205} 4. Conclusions 206 // THE DANGERS FOR THE SELF OF BEING SELF-CENTRED: ON STANDARDS AND VALUES [2002] 209–212 --- APPENDIX -- THEORY OF LAW – LEGAL ETHNOGRAPHY, OR THE THEORETICAL FRUITS OF THE INQUIRIES INTO FOLKWAYS [2008] 213–234 1. Encounters 213 / 2. Disciplines 218 / 3. The Lawyerly Interest 223 / 4. Law and/or Laws 226 / 5. Conclusion 233 --- Index of Subjects 235 / Index of Normative Materials 242 / Index 244 . (shrink)

It might be best to begin this discussion of the historian's predicament with a concrete experience. In the early summer of 1944, as the German army retreated northwards in Italy to establish a more defensible front against the advancing Allied forces along the so-called “Gothic Line” in the Appenines, its units carried out a number of massacres, usually justified as reprisals against local “bandit” (i.e., partisan) activity. Fifty years later some of these village massacres in the province of Arezzo, hitherto (...) left to the memories of the villages’ own survivors and the local historians of the Resistance, provided the occasion for an international conference on the memory of German massacres in World War II. (shrink)