The Paradox of art criticism: Jacques Derrida in front of the Greco, Henri Michaux before René Magritte

This paper analyzes the rethinking of art criticism during French post-structuralism and deconstruction in the second half of the XX century. From Michel Foucault to Gilles Deleuze, from Jacques Derrida to Jean-Claude Lebensztejn, the article develops several conceptions and functions of art criticism by means of paradox, paying special attention to Henri Michaux’s essay on René Magritte En rêvant à partir de peintures énigmatiques [Dreams like Enigmatic Paintings].

Irish social thought and the relief of poverty, 1847-1880

This paper investigates the way in which the ‘problem of poverty’ in Ireland was encountered, constructed and debated by members of the Irish intellectual and political elite in the decades between the Great Famine and the outbreak of the land war in the late 1870s. This period witnessed acute social upheavals in Ireland, from the catastrophic nadir of the Famine, through the much-vaunted economic recovery of the 1850s–1860s, to the near-famine panic of the late 1870s (itself prefigured by a lesser agricultural crisis in 1859–63). The paper focuses on how a particular elite group – the ‘Dublin School’ of political economists and their circle, and most prominently William Neilson Hancock and John Kells Ingram – sought to define and investigate the changing ‘problem’, shape public attitudes towards the legitimacy of welfare interventions and lobby state officials in the making of poor law policy in this period. It suggests that the crisis of 1859–63 played a disproportionate role in the reevaluation of Irish poor relief and in promoting a campaign for an ‘anglicisation’ of poor law measures and practice in Ireland.

Phase I and II biotransformation enzymes and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the Mediterranean mussel (Mytilus galloprovincialis, Lamarck, 1819) collected in front of an oil refinery

The aim of the present study was to investigate the responses of phase I and II biotransformation enzymes and levels of PAHs in the Mediterranean mussel (Mytilus galloprovincialis, Lamarck, 1819) collected from three sites at different distance from an oil refinery. Phase I enzyme activities as NAD(P)H-cyt c red, NADH ferry red, B(a)PMO and phase II as UDPGT. GST were measured in digestive gland while 16 PAHs (US-EPA) in whole soft tissue. An added value to the data obtained in the present study rely on the RDA analysis which showed close correlations between PAHs levels and phase I enzyme activities in mussels collected in front of the refinery. And again a significant spatial correlation between B(a)P levels and NADPH-cyt c red activities was observed using linear models. No differences among sites for B(a) PMO and phase II GST activities were observed, while the application of UDPGT as biomarkers requires further investigation. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Le thème du mensonge dans Le Petit Canard de Jacques Laurent’

ADEFFI annual conference
Trinity College Dublin
October 2007

Happy hour followed by hangover: financing the UK brewery industry, 1880-1913

In the last 15 years of the nineteenth century c.300 British brewers incorporated and floated securities on the stock market. Subsequently, in the 1900s, the industry suffered a long-lived hangover. In this paper, we establish the stylised facts of this transformation and estimate the gains enjoyed by brewery investors during the boom as well as the losses suffered by investors during the bust of the 1900s. However, not all brewery equity shares suffered alike. We find that post-1900 performance correlates positively with capital-market discipline and good corporate governance and negatively with family control, but does not correlate with indebtedness.

Control of wild rubber extraction in the forests of northeast India, 1850-1880

This paper uses the history of rubber extraction to explore competing attempts to control the forest environments of Assam and beyond in the second half of the nineteenth century. Forest communities faced rival efforts at environmental control from both European and Indian traders, as well as from various centres of authority within the Raj. Government attempts to regulate rubber collection were undermined by the weak authority of the Raj in these regions, leading to widespread smuggling. Partly in response to the disruptive influence of rubber traders on the frontier, the Raj began to restrict the presence of outsiders in tribal regions, which came to be understood as distinct areas outside British control. When rubber yields from the forests nearest the Brahmaputra fell in the wake of intensive exploitation, India's scientific foresters demanded and from 1870 obtained the ability to regulate the Assamese forests, blaming indigenous rubber tapping strategies for the declining yields and arguing that Indian rubber could be ‘equal [to] if not better' than Amazonian rubber if only tappers would change their practices. The knowledge of the scientific foresters was fundamentally flawed, however, and their efforts to establish a new type of tapping practice failed. By 1880, the government had largely abandoned attempts to regulate wild Indian rubber, though wild sources continued to dominate the supply of global rubber until after 1910.

Création littéraire sous contexte médiatisé: l'œuvre de Michel Houellebecq, Amélie Nothomb et Jacques Chessex

Partindo da análise dos processos de legitimação e de consagração que regem, a partir da segunda metade do século XX, a mediatização do campo literário, propomo-nos estudar os peri-fenómenos consequentes, tal como a correlação possível entre essa circunstância e a própria criação. O objeto deste estudo focaliza-se na produção de três escritores paradigmáticos das letras de expressão francesa europeias contemporâneas, cuja mediatização acompanha a popularidade: o francês Michel Houellebecq, a belga Amélie Nothomb e o suíço romando Jacques Chessex. Interrogamo-nos sobre as relações possíveis entre os instrumentos dessa mediatização e os seus efeitos nas opções de escrita destes três escritores. Atenta à projeção transfronteiriça de autores e de obras, resultado de uma convergência de alguns fatores de mediatização, mas também às particularidades da memória cultural e literária onde se inscrevem as literaturas respectivas (num percurso de legitimação progressiva das literaturas de periferia face à centralidade franco-francesa), a nossa reflexão visa também contribuir para uma recontextualização do cânone da literatura francesa no contexto globalizado da sociedade mediática contemporânea na qual os autores visados estão comprometidos.

O Seminário Episcopal da Conceição na formação das elites de Mato Grosso - Brasil (1858-1880)

Tese de doutoramento, Educação (História da Educação), Universidade de Lisboa, Instituto de Educação, 2015

Centro Republicano Federal de Ponta Delgada: ideologia, organização e dinâmica (1880-1888)

A criação do Centro Republicano Federal de Ponta Delgada em 1880 inscreve-se nos projectos republicanos federalistas e insere-se no quadro do seu movimento expansionista. Com a publicação do periódico A Republica Federal vinculado ao republicanismo português, o Centro instituiu o seu órgão de imprensa e principal elemento propagandístico. As suas páginas foram portadoras das novas concepções políticas e o elemento impulsionador das novas ideologias propagadas por Teófilo Braga, candidato a deputado e figura titular deste Centro. A sua leitura mostra-nos o percurso e o posicionamento político-ideológico dos republicanos micaelenses, particularmente em Ponta Delgada. Enquanto espaço público politizado, A Republica Federal foi o principal palco dos debates e disputas partidárias na luta contra as instituições monárquicas e no combate pela destituição dos poderes há muito implantados. Apresenta-nos um trajecto de contestação à centralização do poder, à oposição e resistência com que se depararam os republicanos na tentativa de por fim aos privilégios e práticas de corrupção que permitiam um controle pernicioso dos processos eleitorais, abalando inevitavelmente o conservadorismo das elites locais com costumes e preconceitos difíceis de alterar. Foi no Centro Republicano Federal de Ponta Delgada e no seu jornal que convergiram os projectos de descentralização administrativa, foram eles os promotores e foco disseminador do ideário republicano federal, aglutinando as aspirações dos republicanos que pretendem instalar-se como sistema alternativo.