The Music of Rene Drouard de Bousset (1703-1760): a Source Study and Stylistic Survey, with Emphasis on His Sacred Output

<p>Rene Drouard de Bousset (1703-1760) was an admired composer and an organist of renown. This thesis examines this musician's life and work, and attempts to bring Bousset's music, hitherto largely unknown, to the attention of musicologists and performers today. Primarily a source study, the thesis makes a survey of all known copies of Bousset's published works, addressing questions of dates, reprints and corrections. Historical context and musical style are also discussed. Particular emphasis is given to Bousset's sacred music in the French language two volumes of sacred cantatas and eight settings of Odes sacrees by Jean-Baptiste Rousseau - and its place within the French tradition of Psalm paraphrase settings. The figure of J.B. Rousseau is also examined, as the librettist of Bousset's Odes, and as an important literary contributor to French music at the turn of the eighteenth century. The source study is supplemented by a catalogue in the style of the PhilidorOeuvres database produced by the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, containing all Bousset's known works, extant and lost. This exposition of Bousset's compositional output is prefaced by a biographical overview assembled principally from eighteenth century publications and archival documents. Volume II of this thesis comprises a critical performing edition of Bousset's first volume of Cantates spirituelles (1739).</p>

“El vent lluita per ésser flor”. La idea de la metamorfosi en la poesia de Joan Brossa i Federico García Lorca

In the studies on poetry by Joan Brossa, his literary inspirations from the French tradition are indicated, but his connection with Spanish-language literature is almost nonexistent. The purpose of this article is to present Brossa’s testimonies about his Federico García Lorca readings and to compare his “Sonet del pur estrèpit” (1949) with Lorca’s “Muerte” (1931). Both poems show textual and conceptual similarities and share the theme of metamorphosis, so we propose their analysis to look for possible inspirations in different philosophical and aesthetic traditions (surrealism, Ovid, Darwin, Zen Buddhism).

Lévi-Strauss’s Critique of Durkheim

Lévi-Strauss’s critique of Durkheim is considered an important one for two reasons. First, it is a discussion about the nature of social reality, and it therefore raises questions about the philosophical foundations of Durkheimian sociology. Second, it is regarded as a turning point in the French tradition of social anthropology, Lévi-Strauss’s purpose being to put forward structuralism as a solution to Durkheimian difficulties. In this chapter, first I outline Lévi-Strauss’s core arguments, and then I reassess the significance of his critique in light of the recent debates about his structuralist program in France. I will show that the orthodox view on the relation between the Durkheim school and Lévi-Strauss’s structuralism is oversimplified because it relies heavily on Lévi-Strauss’s own claims, and as a consequence, also oversimplifies Durkheim’s account of social reality. By examining concepts such as “symbolism,” “obligation,” “institution,” “norm,” and “action” in both Durkheim’s and Lévi-Strauss’s theory, I will show that Lévi-Strauss’s structuralist turn is in fact a cognitivist one, which, instead of offering solutions to Durkheimian questions, dismisses those questions.

Sacred foundations of A. Scriabin's fret system in relation to O. Messian's modality

The purpose of the article is to understand the archetypal root of the whole-tone constructions of Fret structures of A. Scriabin and A. Messian in reflecting the detachment from the harmonic system that is relevant for the twentieth century in favor of a linear-melodic approach, determined by the archaic structures of the Indo-Iranian melodic basis. The methodology of the research is a cultural and historical concept in the traditions of A. Losev, in which certain means of expressing art are tested by the cultural genesis and cultural ideas of the time. We use analytical, comparative-historical, and genre-nominative musicological approaches based on aesthetic, cultural, and philosophical positions. The hermeneutical lines of the intonation approach in musicology in the traditions of B. Asafyev and B. Yavorsky in Ukraine, which are in contact with the verbal-centrist approach to music in the French tradition and are clearly expressed by J.-J. Rousseau and his followers of the level of Y. Kristeva, are also important for the work. The scientific novelty is determined by the primacy of the author of the study in the statement of the origins of the sacred determination of Fret thinking and O. Scriabin, and O. Messian in the cultural incentives of Indo-Iranian archaism. This stimulated "scythism" in the Slavic art world of the early twentieth century and Celtic-eastern references to the developments of C. Debussy, determining the Indo-philosophical orientation of Fr. Messian's franciscanism. Conclusions. Cultural and social sources of interval-fret constructions by A. Scriabin and A. Messian point in both cases to the Iranian-Indian basis of European archaism, which in the French composer finds a frank bias towards Hindu-philosophical and rhythmic borrowing. IN O. Scriabin paradoxically closes the search for Scythian-Iranian roots of archaic semantic positions, multi-vector discussed in the circles of Russian Futurists (led by N. Kulbin) and Polish Symbolists. The semitone-whole-tone melodic basis, which encourages support for the quart in A. Scriabin and K. Debussy, fueled the discovery of a new modality of A. Messian, which established in the vanguard of the second wave Scriabin's "nerve" as a mysterious and liturgical interpretation of the musical expression in "Light" by K. Stockhausen, the memorial symbolism of L. Nono and absurdist abstractionism of the works of P. Boulez, others.

Le système juridique unitaire à l’epreuve du droit coutumier : la nécessité d’une territorialisation du droit

"The French State is a unitary State as opposed to federal States, in which there is one Constitution providing for provisions applicable throughout the territory of the French Republic. Unity can be found in a legal unity first, in this the unitary Law is the one that does not admit of territorial differenciation. A political and organic unity, since there is only one Parliament, one Government. A social unity eventually, which consists of the admission of a single French people. If the French tradition is based on a centralized system, the implementation of the process of territorial decentralization led to reconsider the uniformity of the Law precisely with the question of territorial differenciation and territorialisation of Law. The present study proposes to return to the consideration by unitary Law of local territories including the overseas territories with the problem of reconciling such a system with customary Law. Keywords: unitary Law, customary Law, territorial decentralization, territorialisation of Law, the overseas territories "

A ‘semio’ approach to fashion discourse: critical perspectives on the luxury industry

This book offers rich and clear critical perspectives on the luxury fashion industry and its market mediations. It relies on a multi-layered methodology and deals with a wide variety of materials: texts, images, but also objects, experiences, exhibitions, buildings, interiors. By doing so, Mouratidou demonstrates the unity (in other words: the standard format) of the politics of re-presentation in the luxury fashion industry and the unity of the semio approach she defends. Grounded on the semiotic analysis of discourses (from Greimas to Dondero and Fontanille), this approach includes the numerous insights of the most recent works in Communication studies. The book also offers a fruitful overview of the French tradition of critical works on cultural industries and mediations (from Barthes to Jeanneret); it also sheds light – most appropriately – on this tradition’s Critical Theory background (Benjamin, Adorno & Horkheimer, Debord). In addition, we must also highlight Mouratidou’s terminological creativity. In her case studies, she proposes a range of stimulating theoretical terms, such as re-presentation, semiotic capital, culturalisation, fictivation, event-formula, and others adopted from theatre studies.

Other Places

The final chapter of Modernist Disguise offers an analysis of the contemporary manifestations of masquerading in daily life, on the stage and in the gallery. In a series of physical sites where face and body masking are overtly displayed, ‘Other Places’ are evaluated for functional and poetic potential as showcase sites. The author argues that place profoundly impacts and determines the nature of a form’s statement and its theatricality, as a mise en scène of the body. Performers and participants in disguising events, like Carnivals, fashion shows, street theatre, circus and dance, produce meaning in an exchange of visual, non-verbal discourse. The photographs documenting these happenings extend the life of identity research. The complex interplay of masked subject, photographer and camera is deeply steeped in meanings and degrees of performativity. Dynamic spaces identified and diagnosed in this chapter include the artist’s studio, the photographer’s studio, scenographic and mediated spaces, formal proscenium stages, arena theatres and the actor-training studio. Nuances of the masked actor in the rehearsal atelier, stimulated by learning methodologies utilised by Jacques Lecoq in the French tradition, present the act of virtually, temporarily inhabiting an ‘Other Place’ through the act of fixed-form mask play and transformative performance.

Women as authors, audience, and authorities in the French tradition

This chapter considers the role played by women in French linguistic thought from the sixteenth century to the period up to 1900. I begin by presenting grammars, dictionaries, and other metalinguistic texts by women before looking at their function as dedicatees or as the intended audience of such texts. Next, I examine the role played by women as editors, philologists and, in particular, as translators, an activity closely related to metalinguistic writing and the development of a standard written language. Third, I outline the development of women’s education and their responsibilities as educators, whether as mothers or in more formal settings. Finally, I consider the role played by women as linguistic models, and examine what metalinguistic texts have to say about their language—whether positive or negative—and how this contributes to the emergence of le bon usage (‘good usage’) in the French tradition.