Claude Lefort et Cornelius Castoriadis : regards croisés sur Mai 68

Comme tous les moments révolutionnaires, Mai 68 n'est jamais complètement passé : il reste vivant pour la pensée politique contemporaine. En 1968, Cornelius Castoriadis et Claude Lefort, deux des principaux penseurs politiques de la France de l'après-guerre, proposaient leurs lectures des événements de Mai en France dans un livre important : Mai 68 : la Brèche. Pour le vingtième anniversaire des événements, ils écrivaient à nouveau sur ceux-ci, en cherchant à examiner leur postérité à la fois sociale et intellectuelle. Ces interprétations de Mai 68 font apparaître des convergences aussi bien que des oppositions théoriques entre les deux auteurs, qui concernent aussi bien le rôle de l'intellectuel que les définitions de la révolution, du pouvoir et de la démocratie. Mai 68 sert ainsi de révélateur, qui éclaire des aspects importants du dissensus politique et théorique qui a opposé Castoriadis à Lefort dès les années 1950.

Like Man, Like Woman: Roman Women, Gender Qualities and Conjugal Relationships at the Turn of the First Century

Modern scholarship often discusses Roman women in terms of their difference from their male counterparts, frequently defining them as 'other'. This book shows how Roman male writers at the turn of the first century actually described women as not so different from men: the same qualities and abilities pertaining to the domains of parenthood, intellect and morals are ascribed by writers to women as well as to men. There are two voices, however: a traditional, ideal voice and an individual, realistic voice. This creates a duality of representations of women, which recurs across literary genres and reflects a duality of mentality. How can we interpret the paradoxical information about Roman women given by the male-authored texts? How does this duality of mentality inform us about gender roles and gender hierarchy? This work analyses well-known, as well as overlooked, passages from the writings of Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Suetonius, Quintilian, Statius, Martial and Juvenal and sheds new light on Roman views of women and their abilities, on the notions of private and public and on conjugal relationships. In the process, the famous sixth satire of Juvenal is revisited and its topic reassessed, providing further insights into the complex issues of gender roles, marriage and emotions. By contrasting representations of women across a broad spectrum of literary genres, this book provides consistent findings that have wide significance for the study of Latin literature and the social history of the late first and early second centuries.

FXYD Proteins Reverse Inhibition of the Na+-K+ Pump Mediated by Glutathionylation of Its {beta}1 Subunit.

The seven members of the FXYD protein family associate with the Na(+)-K(+) pump and modulate its activity. We investigated whether conserved cysteines in FXYD proteins are susceptible to glutathionylation and whether such reactivity affects Na(+)-K(+) pump function in cardiac myocytes and Xenopus oocytes. Glutathionylation was detected by immunoblotting streptavidin precipitate from biotin-GSH loaded cells or by a GSH antibody. Incubation of myocytes with recombinant FXYD proteins resulted in competitive displacement of native FXYD1. Myocyte and Xenopus oocyte pump currents were measured with whole-cell and two-electrode voltage clamp techniques, respectively. Native FXYD1 in myocytes and FXYD1 expressed in oocytes were susceptible to glutathionylation. Mutagenesis identified the specific cysteine in the cytoplasmic terminal that was reactive. Its reactivity was dependent on flanking basic amino acids. We have reported that Na(+)-K(+) pump β(1) subunit glutathionylation induced by oxidative signals causes pump inhibition in a previous study. In the present study, we found that β(1) subunit glutathionylation and pump inhibition could be reversed by exposing myocytes to exogenous wild-type FXYD3. A cysteine-free FXYD3 derivative had no effect. Similar results were obtained with wild-type and mutant FXYD proteins expressed in oocytes. Glutathionylation of the β(1) subunit was increased in myocardium from FXYD1(-/-) mice. In conclusion, there is a dependence of Na(+)-K(+) pump regulation on reactivity of two specifically identified cysteines on separate components of the multimeric Na(+)-K(+) pump complex. By facilitating deglutathionylation of the β(1) subunit, FXYD proteins reverse oxidative inhibition of the Na(+)-K(+) pump and play a dynamic role in its regulation.

La question de la politique dans la pensée du politique de Claude Lefort

La contribution propose une exploration longitudinale de la manière dont s'articulent chez Lefort, d'une part, sa compréhension des dimensions constitutives du politique avec, d'autre part, sa lecture d'événements singuliers de la politique française. La période considérée va de Mai 68 aux événements de l'hiver 1995. On montre que le cadre théorique d'arrière-plan, ce que Lefort appelle "le politique", commande très largement la lecture qu'il fait des événements par lesquels il se laisse convoquer. Plus précisément, on montre que, conçu sous l'interpellation de l'expérience totalitaire, ce cadre s'ordonne pour penser les choses politiques à la lumière de la différence totalitarisme/démocratie. Et du même coup, n'est pas en mesure d'accorder un caractère politiquement signifiant à ce qui se déroule dans la "sphère économique", en particulier le fantastique creusement des inégalités survenu depuis au moins la moitié des années 80 du siècle dernier. S'il est vrai que le totalitarisme, sous son visage "soviétique" en tout cas, semble ne plus constituer une menace politique crédible, on s'interroge, pour conclure, sur la pertinence de l'approche lefortienne dans la perspective des luttes émancipatrices.