Diogenes articles from March 2000

Diogenes archives from March 2000

A School for Children of the Twenty First Century.
March 22, 2000... Twentieth century: my name is Ephraim Naana `My name is Ephraim Naana, I have already told you on one of these many occasions when you have come here before closing time to speak about my school.(1) In my village, since you ask me, there...

From Captain Swing to Pancho Villa. Instances of Peasant Resistance in the Historiography of Eric Hobsbawm.
March 22, 2000... Eric Hobsbawm is a man of the Enlightenment: does he not define socialism as the last and most extreme heir of the eighteenth century's rationalism?(1) So it is not surprising that the distinction between `modern' and `primitive' or `archaic'...

Language of Dark Times. Canetti, Klemperer and Benjamin.
March 22, 2000... What relationship is there between violence and language?(*) What happens when language is the main target of attack? We should perhaps begin by defining the inner logic of violence, and then tackle the question of the monstrous hybrid it has...

European History and Cultural Transfer.
March 22, 2000... The European community that is in the process of being created is still searching for its history. For a few years now, the publishing market, which has been attempting -- under the heading of `European history' -- to construct a shared past...

Representation of the Past in Films: Between Historicity and Authenticity(1).
March 22, 2000... The genre of the `historical film', or `history film', is protean to such a degree that it is possible to grasp its true nature only by studying the relationships it entertains with history, which is the sole common denominator capable of...

Extraterrestrials of the New World.
March 22, 2000... The fact that the Earth is no longer seen as at the centre of the Universe is the reason normally put forward to explain the rejection of heliocentrism. However, this version does not hit the mark. We should remember particularly that Man's...

The Notion of Totality in Indian Thought.
March 22, 2000... The East has seen totality in a far more consistent and systematic way than the West; and India more so than any other civilisation in the East.(1) When the Swami Siddheswarananda came to France to lecture on Vedic philosophy, he entitled his...

Ethnopsychiatry and its Reverses: Telling the Fragility of the Other.
March 22, 2000... Do they merit being `mad'? Reading the vast panorama of the history of Western medicine in general and psychiatry in particular sheds an interesting light not only on social constructions and representations but also on the perception of...