Under the old regime, abortion did not exist as a distinct legal category. Yet it was practiced and criminalized when associated with sexual transgressions. How does one write the history of an unimagined concept and a hidden practice?
At a time of increasing appeals for moderation and lifestyles more respectful of nature, a new book proposes an original approach: to use the concept of asceticism to grasp practices of voluntary renunciation as a kind of spiritual experience.
How is sociology produced today? Drawing on their intersecting career paths, three sociologists reflect on their working conditions and how these affect their scientific output.
What social meaning can be given to the romantic relationships of adolescents? A comparative study examines perceptions of love and conjugality among young people from different backgrounds, paying particular attention to the question of gender in adolescence.
Drawing on the resources of ethno-accounting, Geneviève Pruvost conducts a fascinating investigation into “alternative” lifestyles in rural areas.
The separation of church and state is a principle that is often difficult to apply. In some cases, a delicate balance must be struck between religious freedom and equality.
Criticized for its repeated failures, the French police seem to desperately lack an explicit approach for dealing with demonstrations. They could take inspiration from the principle of de-escalation promoted throughout Europe.
A five-year investigation reveals how the most militant blue-collar workers in Sochaux are growing older but continuing to stand up for their beliefs even after their retirement.
Are we responsible for our own health? Yes, according to advocates of liberal public policy. Yet this position fails to acknowledge social inequality’s serious pathogenic effects.
While we have entered the age of generative AI, it is worth having a look at how computers can help literature scholars and intellectual historians to explain the life of concepts, aesthetics and genres.
By following inmates who were not initially religious but who later found God in prison, Thibault Ducloux rethinks our understanding of the social conditions that produce and preserve faith.
How can we reconcile the working classes with ecology? By reminding ecologists of the need to address together production and consumption. Doing so would lead to the constitution of “biocommunism,” the fundamental concepts of which are outlined by Paul Guillibert.
Drawing on textual sources and the history of language, Jean-Louis Roch highlights the ambivalence of charity in the Middle Ages and traces the desacralization of the figure of the poor at the dawn of modernity.
Laurent Coumel has written a wonderful essay on the social history of the late Soviet Union. He shows how Soviet society was subject to the same dynamics as western European society: the rise of individualism, leisure, and the desire for comfort.
Architects are making the earth uninhabitable. Rather than reusing materials that already exist, they push for greater resource extraction and produce waste that cannot be recycled.
According to Thomas Blom Hansen, Indian cities have become spaces of exclusion, fear, and sharpened enmity. He describes how Muslims are victims of an entanglement of communal violence, state complicity, and systemic discrimination.
Marginal and maladjusted childhood (which includes orphans, vagabonds, and delinquents) has a history. While the concept has been condemned, it has also been studied extensively and resulted in institutions designed to deal with it.
Mickaëlle Provost seeks to understand oppression through lived experience, in all its uniqueness. She also shows how shared awareness of this suffering and the ways in which it is erased can create solidarity and pave the way for collective resistance.
In a study initiated by Fondation Abbé Pierre, sociologist Denis Merklen explores activism in working-class neighborhoods. The book illuminates both the social logics at work and the forms of activist creativity, but tends to overemphasize the role of institutional actors.
What are the reasons, a sociologist wonders, that gangs of young people get in “trouble”—that is, engage in rivalries that often lead to death?
Was the Enlightenment already in crisis at the end of the 18th century? This unsettling hypothesis is examined through the lens of several thinkers who diagnosed the collapse of the ideals of peace, liberty, and progress amid empire, revolution and economic ruin.
What bitter knowledge travel brings! In fact, why travel at all? And can we inhabit the world while journeying through it?
With the frontier of automation now extending to emotional skills, Allison Pugh sheds light on the human capacity to forge connections. Irreducible to machines, these core connections give meaning to professional work and remain crucial in many sectors.
The “double life” of the great English novelist George Eliot combines the literary field with the experience of marriage. Her works form the crucible for reflections on love, social norms and freedom.
We need to rebuild universalism, not as an overarching model to be applied to all regions of the world, but on the basis of their own singularity—laterally, not from above.
The mass slaughters of dogs carried out in Mexico and Europe in the 19th century seem to have been a rehearsal for the human holocausts of the 20th century.
This fascinating political sociology study looks at the lifestyles and subjective perceptions of average National Rally voters in the South of France. It sheds light on the racist motivations behind people’s support for the party.
How did French Jews view Nazism? Beginning in 1933, they organized and prepared for war with a lucid yet often resigned outlook on Hitler’s Germany.
Christianity is based on an egalitarian indifference to sexual difference, but in practice treats women very unequally. God the father has replaced the pagan idea of the Earth Mother, who celebrates humanity’s shared belonging to Gaia.
French liberalism, which first emerged during the Restoration, focused not only on individual rights: it also shaped the history of the mass as a subjugated political entity.
By scapegoating international organisations, Trump’s attacks are undermining multilateralism and the liberal order that emerged in 1945. This American disengagement is reopening the debate on a possible alternative leadership role for the EU.
The colonial period was eager to classify races according to their biological and cultural dispositions for war. The prejudice would persist through the wars of decolonization.
We talk about the Earth without truly understanding it. An overview of recent knowledge about the “Earth system” and its concerning state invites us to promote a new way of looking at the environment and the political approaches required.
A rumour is circulating in some African countries: the French state is organising penis thefts to offset declining fertility. The rumour, spread by Russian propaganda, has become fake news.
According to Frédéric Monferrand, Marx considers capitalism as a vast effort to put nature to work. This includes human bodies, as well as non-human environments. Monferrand outlines a “historical naturalism,” demonstrating its political and ecological relevance.
Charles Serfaty presents an economic history of France that is both accessible to as many readers as possible and incorporates the contributions of recent academic research.
As a professor of education, Bianca Baldridge highlights the importance of extracurricular programs for young people, and the lack of social recognition enjoyed by community-based educators.
Few ancient authors had a discourse on slavery. Even so, many spoke about it, often indirectly or between the lines, either to criticize or justify it.
It is hard to do without the concept of exploitation when describing the many forms of injustice created by capitalism. Marx remains very much our contemporary.
From 1562 to 1598, as the Wars of Religion deprived France of its reference points, strategies for mastering, disguising, and eliminating religious signs became necessary for survival. External markers of identity provide crucial insight into what civil wars do to a society.
