Mística y seducción : el affaire Cadière-Girard y el triunfo de la racionalidad ilustrada en Thérèse philosophe

[en] This article aims at examining the theoretic and literary models of sexuality offered in the libertine novel Thérèse philosophe, focusing on its representation of the Cadière-Girard affair. During this scandalous trial that took place in the Parliament of Aix-en-Provence in 1731, Jean-Baptiste Girard (Jesuit priest) was accused by Marie-Catherine Cadière (penitent) of sorcery and sexual abuse, while he claimed these charges were calumnies. We seek to show the development of a rationalist, demystifying, scientific perspective on this affair, characteristic of Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, which tended to neutralize and obliterate charismatic religiosity. [fr] Cet article a pour but d’examiner les modèles théoriques et littéraires de la sexualité offerts par le roman libertin Thérèse philosophe, en se concentrant sur la façon dont l’affaire Cadière-Girard y est représentée. Pendant ce procès judiciaire qui a eu lieu au Parlement d’Aix-en-Provence en 1731, Jean-Baptiste Girard (père jésuite) a été accusé par Marie-Catherine Cadière (pénitente) de sorcellerie et abus, ayant reçu elle-même une dénonciation pour calomnies. On cherche à montrer le développement, autour de cette affaire, d’une perspective rationaliste, démystifiante et scientifique, propre des Lumières au XVIIIe siècle, à partir de laquelle la religiosité charismatique se neutralise au point de l’oblitération.

Vietnamese masculinities in lê thi diem thúy's The gangster we are all looking for

The defeat of South Vietnam in 1975 transformed Vietnamese men into fleeing refugees, boat people, and state-sponsored asylees. Writing against the popular and scholarly representations of Vietnamese refugee men as incapacitated objects of rescue, this paper provides an in-depth analysis of the intimate, insightful, and intense portrayal of Vietnamese masculinities in lê thi diem thúy’s novel, The Gangster We Are All Looking For. Focusing on the “sad and broken” father in the novel, the article conceptualizes his bouts of domestic violence neither as a private family matter nor an example of individual failing, but as a social, historical, and transnational affair that exposes the conditions—war, urban neglect, poverty—under which Vietnamese masculinity is continually produced, negotiated and transformed.