LES BELLES LETTRES Rights Guide

Frankfurt Catalog 2013

LES BELLES LETTRES Stand 6.1 C72 www.lesbelleslettres.com 95 boulevard Raspail - 75006 Paris - France Droits étrangers - Foreign Rights Marie-Pierre Ciric Téléphone 33 (0)1 43 54 47 57 E-mail : [email protected] Catalog translated by Carol MACOMBER [email protected] - Tel./Fax: (717) 355-2472 For Spanish and Portuguese - Eduardo MELON Tel + 34 91 365 25 16 Fax + 34 91 364 07 00 E-mail : [email protected]

For Italian - Agnese INCISA

Tel/Fax + 39 011 885642 E-mail : [email protected]

For Greek - Niki DOUGÉ

Tel + 33 1 45 86 07 48 Fax + 33 1 45 86 07 48 E-mail : [email protected]

For Russian - Anastasia LESTER Tel + 33 1 45 88 16 72 E-mail : [email protected]

For Japanese - Bureau des copyrights français - Corinne QUENTIN Tel + 81 358 40 88 71 Fax + 81 35 84 08 872 E-mail : [email protected]

For Corean - Yung Sun Choi

Tel + 82 2 338 7430 Fax + 82 2 338 7434 E-mail : [email protected]

Contents History of Italian intellectuals: Prophets, philosophers and experts by Frédéric Attal

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The fever of war: Byron, the philhellenes, and the Greek mirage by Hervé Mazurel

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Mourning Power: Essays on Abdication by Alain Boureau

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Isias Cults by Laurent Bricault

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Galen of Pergamon by Véronique Boudon-Millot

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Inventing Writing by Pierre Déléage

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Interviews by David Tuaillon

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AIDS: an Anthropological Challenge by Françoise Héritier

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Ruben’s Glory by Philippe Muray

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Treatise on Contracts by Sylvain Piron

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The France of Louis XIV by Jean-François Bassinet

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Naples from the Baroque Era to the Edge of Enlightment by Luca Salza 17 Torture in Antiquity by Guillaume Flammerie de la Chapelle

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Nights of antiquity by Virginie Leroux

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Manhattan Volcano by Pierre Demarty

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Return to Wenzhou by Olivier Jobard & Fanny Tondre

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The Mongols by Olivier Laban-Mattei & Lisandru Laban-Giulani

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History of Italian Intellectuals: Prophets, Philosophers and Experts

From the Communism of Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) to the rejection of Berlusconi-ism: History of the century of Italian intellectuals

May 2013 - 772 pages

Italian intellectuals, who emerged in the early 20th century, embraced the political passions of their era. The nation, Fascism, and Communism – not to mention anti-Communism, Liberalism, Catholicism, and Socialism – were so many political affiliations which these intellectuals joined, led, or built up. Yet no history of Italian intellectuals could be limited to the ideas which they helped to formulate and develop. Intellectuals are also defined by their integration into society, the role they strive to play in that society, and their stand with regard to the ruling classes. They would rather define themselves as independent from the influence of individuals wielding political power, just as they most often choose to reaffirm the autonomous nature of the culture they represent. This work obviously relies on an extensive bibliography yet, more importantly, it is based on original archival, epistolary or literary sources. The author adopts a chronological approach, first tackling the role intellectuals played in the national resurgence of the 20th century’s first two decades, their ambiguous ties with Fascism, the reality of post-World War II Communist hegemony in their midst, the impact of liberal or socialist anti-Communism, the tenuous position of those claiming to be Catholic, the long decades of protests in which intellectuals were both actors and denigrators, sometimes on the front line, until the Republic’s crisis and the rise of Berlusconi-ism, which proved to be yet another divisive issue among Italian intellectuals.

Frédéric Attal an École normale supérieure graduate who holds an Agrégation and a PhD in History from Institut d’études politiques in Paris, is a Senior Lecturer at École normale supérieure in Cachan. His thesis was devoted to the study of Napolitan intellectuals from 1943 to 1964. He is the author of Histoire de l’Italie de 1943 à nos jours (Armand Colin, 2004), and his current research is on post-World War II U.S. public diplomacy in Italy in the intellectual, scientific and academic arenas.

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The Fever of War: Byron, the Philhellenes, and the Greek Mirage

European military, artistic, and intellectual opposition to the Ottomans in the struggle for Greek independence (1821–1832)

May 2013 - 248 pages

In the spring of 1821, when the Greeks rebelled against Ottoman rule, the event generated a vast and powerful solidarity movement throughout the West. While distant philhellenic committees lent the insurgents moral and material support, volunteers from all four corners of the continent – and even from America – headed eastward in the hope of matching the Ancients and restoring Greece to its former glory, but also imagined themselves as new crusaders come to free a Christian country from four centuries of Muslim domination. In close proximity among their ranks were young romantics filled with an irrepressible desire to prove themselves at long last in the heat of battle, as well as a number of old soldiers who had fought in Napoleonic conflicts and had been unable to reintegrate themselves into civilian life. In an effort to recreate their experience as closely as possible by combining a study of philhellenic imagination with a cultural history of warrior nomadism and a historic anthropology of combat, the aim of our inquiry is first and foremost to analyse the dynamics of a collective fantasy and the psychological economics of a disillusionment. For once the volunteers set foot in the country, the Greeks’ hostile reception, their strange manner of fighting and the extreme violence displayed in the theatre of war transformed the volunteers’ initial enthusiasm into profound bitterness. What is surprising is that their very limited number – some 1,200 men – and their largely unhappy experience were ultimately eclipsed by the powerful myth surrounding Lord Byron’s arrival in Greece and his death in Missolonghi, which gave this body of combatants a very special place in volunteer mythology and in the process of sacralising war, which the West experienced throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

Hervé Mazurel Holder of an agrégation and a PhD in Contemporary History, Hervé Mazurel is an ATER at Université d'Orléans who co-leads, with Sylvain Venayre, a seminar at Université Paris I on “L'Europe des guerres lointaines (1820–1930).” As a specialist in Europe of the Romantic era and the history of sensibilities, he is particularly interested in rereadings of the European colonial expansion throughout the 19th century.

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Mourning Power: Essays on Abdication

From Saint Francis of Assisi to General de Gaulle – five renowned historians expound on the theme of abdication

March 2013 - 204 pages Abdication, as a renouncement of power, constitutes the pure state of an act of will within the political sphere. It occurs when a sovereign body subject to no authority but its own decides to abolish itself. The aim of this book is to relate and expand upon Jacques Le Brun’s founding masterly work, Le Pouvoir d’abdiquer. Essai sur la déchéance volontaire, published in 2009 by Gallimard. The book was a huge surprise, because in it a specialist of Classical Age mystical literature, was giving a general lesson in political science. Indeed, this book compensated for a gap in, or repression of, the political theory which had failed to place the annihilation of abdication at the core of its subject: culture abhors a vacuum. Jacques Le Brun showed how a mystical interpretation of annihilation could thus account for events which had been overlooked in political debates focusing on the foundation and origin of powers. Until this book appeared, such events were viewed as so many episodes, as mere power-related incidents. Our project extended these variations to the cases mentioned, yet not explored, by Jacques Le Brun, neither in the first historic era, with the abdication of Queen Christina of Sweden (Corinne Péneau), nor in prior eras with the resignation of Pope Celestine V placed in the overall perspective of the 13th century (Alain Boureau), nor in later eras with the departures of De Gaulle (Jean-Michel Rey). Pierre-Antoine Fabre, for his part, contributed to the material with the doctrinal case of the Jesuit superior’s abdication in favour of his assistant in the Constitutions of the Jesuit Order (mid-16th century), while Jacques Le Brun focused on identifying the contemporary ramifications of abdication in Nino Moretti’s film Habemus papam and in contemporary performances of King Lear.

Alain Boureau, who is Director of Graduate Studies at the EHESS, is a medievalist. Corinne Péneau is a Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne and an expert on Scandinavia and electoral systems.

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Isiac Cults

March 2013 - 576 pages

The diffusion throughout the entire Mediterranean Basin and even beyond (to Arabia, India and far-off Brittany) of the cult of several deities originating from Egypt (Isis and her consort Sarapis, their son little Harpocrates, Anubis the jackal-headed god, Apis the Bull of Memphis, and even Osiris) is one of the Hellenistic and Roman eras’ most remarkable phenomena. Our understanding of the extent to which non-Egyptians respected this divine family – long based upon scattered literary texts, some lovely Greek and Latin inscriptions and impressive statues in Rome, Athens and elsewhere – has been greatly enriched and refined through the study and analysis of thousands of artefacts unearthed since the Renaissance (jewellery, statuettes, papyrus, ceramics, coins, etc.). In this copiously illustrated book, the author presents several hundred such documents translated where appropriate into French and annotated, revealing the extraordinary influence that Isiac cults had on the GrecoRoman world’s populations for nearly eight centuries.

Laurent Bricault, whose PhD is in Egyptology, is a professor of Roman history at Université de Toulouse II Le Mirail.

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Galen of Pergamon: Physician and Philosopher

A captivating biography about a gladiators’ physician

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October 2012 - 416 pages

Rarely has any author of Antiquity told us as much about himself, rarely has any autobiographical matter been as abundant, and rarely has any work had more impact than these writings by Galen, which have been translated into Arabic and Armenian, and have travelled as far as China. This physician’s life was, indeed, fascinating. Born in Pergamon in the early 2nd century AD, Galen (129-216) was taught by a father whom he loved so much that it was only after the latter died that Galen decided to leave his native city to join the respected Hippocratic tradition of itinerant doctors. After caring for gladiators he settled in Rome, where his office as Commodus’ personal physician (AD 161-192) afforded him the leisure to devote himself to his research. Both revered and envied, he probably had no choice but to leave Rome shortly before his death. The latter gave rise to many legends, including a curious one which claimed that the doctor died while trying to find Christ’s disciples. Despite all that, Galen should not be perceived as a scientific author solely devoted to complex technical and philosophical postulations. Quite to the contrary, Galen liked to talk about himself and indulged in doing so throughout the twenty thousand-odd pages comprising his treatises preserved in Greek in the benchmark compendium of his complete works – the Karl Gottlob Kühn edition published in Leipzig between 1821 and 1833. Despite this bounty of first-hand sources, uncommon for Antiquity, the task of writing Galen’s biography is anything but straightforward: other evidence about the doctor is rare, late and unreliable, and Galen’s admissions in his writings are neither free of guile nor of ideology. The challenge of writing this book was obviously a source of enjoyment for the biographer, whose enthusiasm is as infectious as her conciseness.

Véronique Boudon-Millot is a Professor at Université Paris Sorbonne and Director of CNRS Paris IV’s Laboratoire Médecine grecque. She initiated the first edition of Galen’s Ne pas se chagriner (2007) and served as director of the CUF edition.

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Inventing Writing: North American Indian Prophetic and Shamanic Rituals of the 17th to 19th Centuries

An anthropological approach to a now-extinct mode of communication, between the oral and the written

May 2013 - 248 pages This work is both a historic study and an ambitious theoretical discussion on the discovery of an unrecognised phenomenon: the invention and use of writings among North American Indians. Between the 17th and 19th centuries, prophets and shamans formulated original inscription techniques in order to ensure that ceremonial discourses would be passed on to future generations. For the first time in this book, such writings are compared to each other based upon the most exhaustive study possible of sources which demonstrate that North American Indians invented selective writings whose notation principles were considerably different from those of the writings with which we are familiar, such as the Latin alphabet. Inventer l’écriture makes it possible to formulate an innovative theory. At the moment all writings were first invented they were attached writings: their purpose was to transcribe pre-existing rituals within the framework of institutions organising their transmission and recitation. This reversed perspective introduces a new venue for further reflection on the origin of the key writings which have appeared throughout humanity’s history in Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and among the Mayas. The writing invention issue can thus be freed from evolutionist approaches which have never managed to correctly address selective writings, as well as from sociological approaches which limit themselves to linking the emergence of writing to the origin of the State. Inventer l’écriture offers readers a series of conceptual tools which can be used to answer one simple question: why have humans on several occasions produced the immense intellectual effort required to invent a new writing form?

Anthropologist Pierre Déléage is a member of the Laboratoire d’anthropologie sociale of Collège de France.

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Interviews

In the workshop of one of the greatest living dramatists

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May 2013 - 248 pages Edward Bond agreed to comment on thirty of his plays, preferably chosen from among the most recent and bestknown in France. In candid remarks focusing on highly specific aspects of his work, he reveals how his plays were constructed and staged, and challenges overcome, thus revealing his writings’ exceptional density, precision and coherence. In the process, he also highlights the depth and wealth of his knowledge of the theatre and of its role in the lives which all human beings have in common. Although not claiming to be a practical guide for actors or directors, this book does offer anyone (whether spectator or professional) who wants to explore this outstanding dramatic work – as informative as it is disconcerting – some first-hand concrete guidelines for reading (and performing in) these plays, not according to some assumed intentions, but for what they actually are and for what they truly can impart to us.

Edward Bond was born in London in 1934 into a lower working-class family. As a child, he witnessed bombings, was excluded from attending school, and started working at the age of 15. He was self-taught in the world of the theatre and began writing in the late 1950s. His work was noticed by the Royal Court Theatre, which put on his first plays and with which he remained associated until the 1970s. His first publicly performed play, Saved, written in 1965, caused a scandal that made him famous before it became an international hit. Since then, he has written more than fifty plays for the leading institutional British theatres, as well as for student and activist troops and young audiences. He also inspired widespread debates on the theatre, its anthropological foundations and its cultural, political and moral function. After breaking away from the British theatrical stage in the 1980s, he focused his efforts in England on plays and theoretical writings for young audiences. His work has been widely disseminated in Europe and particularly in France, where his plays have been highly popular since the 1990s and have received extensive media coverage, largely thanks to Alain Françon’s celebrated stage direction. David Tuaillon, who holds a PhD in Performing Arts from Université Bordeaux 3 Montaigne, is one of few French specialists in Edward Bond’s work.

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AIDS: An Anthropological Challenge

What AIDS says about mankind

May 2013 - 274 pages

In 1989, Françoise Héritier, ethnologist, professor and member of Collège de France, was appointed by François Mitterrand to head the French National AIDS Council. This advisory body, which is still active, had been created to examine the “ethical and technical” issues which this new ailment caused for society. During her tenure as Chair, Françoise Héritier wrote several articles on the disease’s most salient aspects, notably on the stigmatisation of the infected person’s partner – especially in cases where the latter is a foreigner – as well as on the fluids (blood, sperm and milk) by which the HIV is transmitted, and which had already been the main thrust of her teachings on corporal anthropology. The aim of this work, a compendium of such texts, is to take stock of the debates conducted in the 1990s on an illness which unfortunately has not yet been eradicated despite significant progress in treatment options. This work also argues for an anthropological approach to the disease. Using as her point of reference the “socially revealing” nature of AIDS, Françoise Héritier invites us to adopt a new way of thinking about the human relations involved, and to draw from among other values than those which isolate people in insecurity and fear. What is needed today is for people to call upon a different set of feelings, such as solidarity and trust. This groundbreaking book by a highly respected intellectual allows readers to explore a history of the progress made in the treatment of AIDS and, at the same time, to fully grasp the ways in which the perception of this disease have changed.

Françoise Héritier is Professor Emeritus at Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales and the author of Masculin/Féminin I et II (Odile Jacob, 1995), Deux sœurs et leur mère (Odile Jacob, 1994) and Une pensée en mouvement (Odile Jacob, 2009). As an intellectual committed to urban issues, she has just published Le sel de la vie (Odile Jacob, 2012) which, like her other works, has been very well received.

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Rubens’ Glory

A vindication of the individual and the aristocratic trial of the anaemic collective through the portrait of this painter of the flesh

April 2013 - 272 pages

Why is one of the most illustrious painters in the history of art also one of the least known? Such is the enigma which Philippe Muray undertakes to explore. In these pages Rubens lives again: readers can follow him everywhere, on his countless travels, diplomatic missions and negotiations. The Europe torn apart by religious wars is brought back to life. Here at long last we rediscover a work as admirable as it is inexhaustible, one with an unequalled sensual positivity in which one supreme passion is affirmed: that of women’s bodies. Rubens turns paint into flesh. In his paintings, all such things thought to be in imperiled resurface: voluptuousness, desire, the violence behind pleasure. In short, his work is the “Wonderland” of art as well as literature. «I celebrate this painter,” writes Philippe Muray, “because he is not of our century. Painting was outmoded long ago, removed from the world, a rock of colours ripped off the globe, an increasingly remote planet, and Rubens epitomises the full import of painting. I draw my inspiration from non-pious, non-“sacred” sources of something thought to be lost. I am not digging up a corpse – I am revealing a fervently alive man who dazzles me.»

Philippe Muray (1945-2006), was an essayist and novelist

13 Philippe Muray is the most intelligent antidote against all that is politically correct

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Le Point - Septembre 2010 Four years after his death, the essayist is receiving long overdue recognition. In Muray’s work, jubilation and execration go hand-in-hand. His decidedly ironic way of broaching major events and minute details alike, and of unveiling the stupidity which lies behind the significant, and the aggressiveness behind compassion, have forged a genre so original that no one knows on which bookstore shelf to find this author. Just as a cop pins a thug to the wall, he tortured reality until it would spit out the truth it was unwilling to disclose. Le Figaro littéraire - Septembre 2010 During the last fifteen years of his life, in publishing his rebellious writings in the Revue des deux mondes, L’Atelier du Roman, Art Press, Marianne, La Montagne and occasionally in these columns, Philippe Muray endeavoured to map the world which humanity blundered into at the turn of the last century, at a time when it was common to see people talk to themselves in the street, cars bark orders to their drivers, and adults ride scooters through shopping centers while their children played with their credit card in front of plasma screens. Season after season, these articles produced books which allowed us not to remain oblivious to our era. Now compiled in the form of an impressive 1800-pages volume, these Essais establish Philippe Murray as the utterly angry Saint-Simon of a minuscule century.

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Treatise on Contracts

Profit is justified if it is the product of risk – such is the credo followed by Pierre de Jean Olivi – a 13th-century cleric who was the first person to grasp the workings of modern economics. Sylvain Piron has published his book, Traité des contrats, in French. This is an astounding work.

June 2013 - 288 pages

Excerpt from an interview with Le Point: Le Point: Olivi is a mendicant friar. Why should he be so interested in economics? Sylvain Piron: He wanted to save the souls of merchants who were concerned about the morality of their business dealings and would come for confession. His book, which was written in Narbonne circa 1295, is a "guide" for confessors in which he offered to examine their contracts in terms of fairness, reasoning that the contractual relationship is a commitment entered into by two wills, so it must therefore be an equitable arrangement between the two parties concerned. In what way is it original? In that era, the problem was to determine whether it was possible to do business without committing the sin of usury. Olivi was the first to introduce a crucial distinction between charitable loans – which cannot yield a profit because their aim is to fulfil the duty of helping a neighbour in need (for example, a small farmer who must leave his land fallow between two harvests) – and commercial loans, which involve risk and thus yield a justifiable profit. He was thus the first to theorize about the relationship between profit and risk, just as he was the first to use the notion of “capital” in this context. He envisioned the market as a space in which individual decisions must take into account the common good. You consider him a thinker on the same level as Saint Thomas of Aquinas. If so, why did his name sink into oblivion/has history forgotten him? Because he was condemned by the Catholic Church, his works could only be distributed secretly.

Sylvain Piron is lecturer at E.H.E.S.S.

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Guides Belles Lettres des civilisations Directed by Jean-Noël ROBERT

The «Guides Belles Lettres des Civilisations» Collection takes readers on a journey through time and space (to Egypt, Greece, Rome, India, China and Japan). These books were written for students, people interested in history and civilisations, and inveterate travellers… These practical and analytical general education works on the major ancient civilisations of which we still possess a written record provide readers with the keys they need to comprehend ancient texts, history books, or help them to decipher allusions made, and to grasp their complexities. These books, which are organized in a practical manner, can be used in three ways: they can be read straight through (like a typical book) to identify the various aspects of the civilisation being presented, the reader can use the very detailed Table of Contents to directly refer to one of the topic headings comprising each chapter, or the reader may consult the comprehensive index to quickly pinpoint specific information. The maps, tables, and diagrams also enable the reader to focus on essential facts. A selective and updated bibliography allows any reader who so desires to conduct even more thorough research. «Guides Belles Lettres des Civilisations» is not a set of dictionaries. In these books, all documented facts are explained in the context of the specific mentality of each civilisation considered, because it is impossible to understand an historical event, a moral law, or the character of an historical figure if no attempt is made to explain the values that inspired them.

Already published • Rome • La Chine classique • La Grèce classique • L’Islande médiévale • L’Inde classique • L’Empire Ottoman • La Mésopotamie • L’Espagne médiévale • La France au Moyen Âge • Les Inuit • Les Khmers

• La Russie médiévale • Venise au Moyen Âge • Le Siam • Les Mayas • Les Étrusques • Les Gaulois • La Birmanie • L’Amérique espagnole • Le Viêtnam ancien • La Perse antique • L’Angleterre élisabéthaine

• Carthage • Le Japon d’Édo • Byzance • La Palestine • Québec • Les Incas • Les Aztèques • Pétra • La Corée du Choson • L’Amérique au XVIIIe siècle

Forthcoming title • La Mongolie de Gengis Khan (already sold in Russia) • La Turquie au XIXe siècle • Le Tibet • Florence à la Renaissance • Alexandrie • L’Arménie antique

Series sold in Russia and Brazil Many titles previously sold in Romania, Serbia, Estonia, Poland, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hungary, Japan and Greece

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The France of Louis XIV: The Era of Absolutes (1643-1715)

A comprehensive guide to France of the Grand Siècle

April 2013 - 304 pages

From every corner of the globe, visitors flock to Versailles to admire France in all of its glory. This Belles Lettres Guide – like the image of a Louis XIV leading his guests along the paths of his vast palace gardens – invites readers to discover who those esteemed subjects were who transformed the French nation into a greatly respected and admired power. Dignitaries, soldiers, courtesans, intellectuals, artists, not to mention modest countrymen and urban dwellers, each in their own way and despite adversity, supported this common project. The work also strives to familiarize readers with the key events which punctuated this extraordinary period. The book’s chronological approach is supplemented by chapters devoted to French territorial, social and political organisation. It also highlights other typical aspects of that reign: the triumph of the absolute monarchy, modernisation of the State and wars of conquest and supremacy. Although intellectual and artistic progress was undeniable, economic and religious issues are treated from a more critical perspective: the Sun King’s subjects were not spared from misery and intolerance. This portrait would be incomplete without giving readers an opportunity to delve into the universal mindset of this 17th-century man. He was obviously a Frenchman yet someone so very unlike ourselves! This may have been the beginning of an era of gifted philosophers and scientists, but the twenty-one million or so inhabitants of his kingdom had little use for speculations reserved for the privileged members of the court and mundane social circles. For the great majority, the world’s frontiers did not extend far beyond those of the local parish. This book pays tribute to them, as well.

A keen historian, Jean-François Bassinet works with Les Belles Lettres

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Naples from the Baroque Era to the Age of Enlightenment

A cultural guide of Naples from the Baroque Era to the Age of Enlightenment (1734-1799)

January 2013 - 272 pages

«See Naples and die» (Vedi Napoli e poi muori ). Why is the splendour of Naples’ landscapes so closely associated with that of its artistic treasures and ruins – and even with death? The Enlightenment illuminated Napolitan 18th-century heavens with the radiance of Cappella Sansevero, the sublime voices of the castrati at the Real Teatro di San Carlo [Royal Theatre of Saint Charles], and the revealed magic of Pompeii, yet the city’s baroque legacy encased in volcanic rock still remains – in its striking obscurity.

Luca Salza is a Senior Lecturer in Italian Studies at Université Charles-deGaulle Lille 3. His research deals with the history of ideas in Italy.

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FIGURES DU SAVOIR Directed by Corinne ENAUDEAU and originally created by Richard ZREHEN This Figures du savoir Collection presents monographs of great authors – ancient and modern – philosophers, and scientists. Each title was written by a specialist and stripped of jargon or technical terminology, except where absolutely required. With its brief notes at the bottom of pages limited to essential facts and quotations, this book is not an anthology, but a genuine essay and summary that permits readers to learn the basic information they need to evaluate a reputedly complex work. Included with the text is a brief chronology, biography, bibliography and, where needed, a glossary of terms and essential concepts. Each book should permit readers to understand who the author is, the main themes of his work, and why his work is still timely. Series sold in Corea and Brazil. Many titles previously sold in Greece, Spain, Japan and in the United-States.

Already published • Arnauld • Averroès • Berkeley • Cantor • Cicéron • Comte • D’Alembert • Darwin • Deleuze • Derrida • Epicure • Flavius Josèphe • Foucault • Freud • Gödel • Hegel

• Heidegger • Herder • Hilbert • Hjelmslev • Husserl • Kant • Kierkegaard • Köhler • Lacan • Lautman • Lévinas • Levi-Strauss • Locke • Lyotard • Maimonide • Merleau-Ponty

Forthcoming title • Jonas • Schopenhauer • Cavaillès

• Michel Henry • Montaigne • Newton • Nietzsche • Pascal • Poincaré • Russell • Ruyer • Sartre • Saussure • Spinoza • Stoïciens (Les) • Turing • Weil • Wittgenstein

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October 2013 - 220 pages

A monography whose global perspective explains the common elements found in the three themes of Jonas’ work which are crucial to any consideration of the environment: the form of nihilism unique to the Gnosis, the phenomenon of life on earth and our ethical accountability to future generations.

October 2013 - 180 pages

A monography whose overall perspective centres around the theme of evil whose source, according to Schopenhauer, is found in a cosmic force called “Will” which governs absolutely all living beings.

November 2013 - 220 pages

A monography presenting an overall perspective of how the philosophy behind the concept developed by Cavaillès proposes an unprecedented conception of the history of the senses in which the concept is the agent of its own transformation.

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SIGNETS BELLES LETTRES Directed by Laure de Chantal All topics about Antiquity

Already published • On the Table of the Ancient • Pantheon on Pocket • Seduce Like a God • On the School of Ancients • To Meet Foreign People • On the Purple Sea • Monsters and Wonders • Specialists of Love • Dixit. The Art of Speaking on Antiquity • Lyres and Zithers • Homosexuality

• Celebrity • To Become Gods • Paranormal Antiquity • The Empire of Recreation • Ancient Odors • Hocus Pocus • Exit ! • Mercato • Torture in the Ancient • Ancient Nights

Forthcoming title • Ecology • How writing History • Say it with Flowers • Natural and Human Disasters

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Torture in Antiquity: Torments, Sentences and Punishments in Greece and in Rome

From Antigone – who was buried alive – to Cicero’s head hung from the Rostra, welcome to antiquity’s ill treatment cornucopia!

February 2013 - 266 pages

Amputations, beatings, impalements, stoning, hangings: readers will discover, among all the penalties inflicted by the Ancients, punishments which unfortunately were commonly used in many eras and cultures. However, the Greeks and Romans demonstrated exceeding ingenuity and imagination in conceiving their methods and instruments of torture. For example, Phalaris and his bronze bull and Vedius Pollio and his lampreys became picturesque figures: the form of immortality they acquired adequately testify to how fascinating such bloody practices have always been. This book not only takes readers on a guided tour of this little museum of horrors through over one hundred translated texts, but also allows them to plummet, thanks to terrifying anecdotes, the hidden undercurrents accounting for the violence of the repression: in short, why did they impose such harsh tortures? Lastly, since the gory always seems to go hand-in-hand with the sublime, we will learn how noble figures, pagan sages, Christian martyrs and statesmen managed — through their nobleness and courage — to triumph over even the most loathsome treatments.

Guillaume Flamerie de Lachapelle is a Senior Lecturer in Latin Language and Literatures at Université de Bordeaux 3.

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Nights of Antiquity

From sleeping pills according to Plinus to Ptolemy’s cosmic emotion to the lighthouse of Alexandria, readers will savour this voyage through the night of ancient times.

April 2013 - 304 pages

As a time of rest, storytelling, sexuality, drunkenness and pleasures, night time easily lends itself to ambushes, conspiracies, crimes, esoteric initiations and magical ceremonies. It is in the dark that gods and the dead communicate with the living and it was at night when Lemurian ceremonies –forerunners of Halloween – were held to appease and expel ghosts. Night cloaks debaucheries and misdeeds, but also discloses what daylight conceals, unveiling stars and the cosmos, and giving free rcin to dreamlike imaginings. We owe to night spheres of knowledge essential to humanity: astronomy, astrology, the earliest lunar calendars and meteorology, as well as the science of dreams, to which the Ancients assigned a therapeutic and oracular value. In all of these fields, antiquity’s contribution was paramount: Aristotle and Ptolemy imposed a geocentric vision of the universe which prevailed until the discoveries of Galileo and Copernicus. Yet, in the third century BC, Aristarchus of Samos had already determined that the sun was the centre of the known universe. Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates and Artemidorus showed, well before Freud, all of the knowledge that can be derived from dreams and passed on to us some keenly perceptive systems of interpretation. In its more than 120 texts, this volume explores the Greeks’ and the Latins’ lives, practices, knowledge and nocturnal imaginings. It allows us to understand our relationship to sleep, to the universe, to the sacred, to death, yet also gives us an opportunity to confront our darker selves and to plum those depths.

Virginie Leroux is a senior lecturer in Latin Literature and Civilisation at Université de Reims and a junior member of Institut Universitaire de France.

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TIBI Directed by Laure de Chantal Since all subjects do not merit a lengthy discourse, TIBI (“for you” or “yours” in Latin) chose to dabble in the art of brevity by publishing micro-texts on the thousand-and-one ills and pleasures punctuating our daily lives. Inasmuch as the Ancients were well-versed in short forms and lacked neither imagination nor audacity, TIBI decided to offer readers satires, fables, dialogues, letters, diatribes, metamorphoses, eulogies and epigrams – among others – freely inspired by Antiquity in order to elegantly and nimbly convey the readily predictable reactions brought about by the times we live in.

Already published • Manhattan Volcano

Forthcoming title • Satire Foutre (inspired by the text of Juvenal, Satire VI) • Seul, éloge de la rencontre (inspired by the text of Boèce, Consolation de la philosophie) • Faut-il se raser le matin ? (inspired by the text of Julien, Misopogon)

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Manhattan Volcano. Fragments of a Ravaged City

Letters about 11 September

August 2013 - 128 pages On 24 August of AD 79, Mount Vesuvius erupted, laying waste Pompeii and killing thousands. Nineteen centuries later, on a certain Tuesday morning of September 2001, there was another eruption – that of human violence – which left part of New York City in ashes. The memory of these two disasters separated by the mists of time, dissimilar in nature yet alike in many other ways, has been preserved by a multitude of eye-witness accounts. In the case of Vesuvius, undoubtedly none are as precise or eloquent as that of Pliny the Younger who, in two letters to the historian Tacitus, vividly relates how the sky was torn apart by “immense tongues of fire ” from the volcano, the “flood” of ash clouds fell on Pompeii’s terrified inhabitants, and the exemplary death of his uncle, Pliny the Elder. Adopting the epistolary form chosen by Pliny, and, like the latter, situated on the tenuous border between truth and fiction, Manhattan Volcano is an account of 11 September as it was experienced by a young Frenchman who one bright day set out to conquer New York, and who, upon arriving in the city of his dreams, found himself – by the most tragic stroke of luck – confronted with the unimaginable. In four letters addressed to close friends and relatives, dated both before and after 11 September, from the event as was unfolding until a day twelve years later, he attempts to express the inexpressible and, in so doing, examines the very value of memory – its veracity, reliability and its necessity – as well as its shortcomings. In the end, what did he really see in New York City on that particular day? How could he describe on an individual scale an event whose scope transcends any human dimension? In relating the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, Pliny the Younger apparently wanted to perpetuate the memory of the event and give it “in some manner the assurance that it would live forever .” Centuries later, Manhattan Volcano echoes this irrepressible need to keep the memory alive in confronting the oblivion of destruction. As an edifying testimony of “things seen,” and an intimate and nostalgic meditation haunted by doubts and questioning, these letters ultimately comprise not so much a requiem as a love song full of noise and fury, addressed to the most volcanic of modern-day metropolises which, like Pompeii, survives and continuously re-emerges from its ashes, thanks to those who share with us what they experienced there.

Pierre Demarty was born in Paris in 1976. An École Normale Supérieure graduate and holder of an agrégation in English. After preparing an American Literature thesis and teaching French for two years at Columbia University, he returned to France where he became a foreign literature editor and began a parallel career as a translator (of Joan Didion, Paul Harding, and even William Vollmann). Manhattan Volcano is his first book.

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[NEUS] serie 24x36

Directed by Rudy Nimsguerns & Arnaud Brunet The 24x36 Collection, situated on the frontier of the leading photographic trends, allows readers to discover photographers’ personal interpretations of contemporary subjects. Each book consists of a blank space devoted to a particular artist in order to showcase his or her vision, while the full collection displays a multitude of perceptions designed to satisfy the curious observers of our world. Works bound under jacket Format : 18 x 24 cm

Forthcoming title • Rwandan Destiny • The Inside Ennemy • Hope (tracking the Americans of Robert Frank 50 years after)

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Return to Wenzhou

As a companion piece to the TV documentary, M. et Mme Zhang (Mr. and Mrs. Zhang] (Arte, May 2013), this is the special story of a family torn between France and China

May 2013 - 192 pages

Like 60,000 other Chinese, Mr. and Mrs. Zhang live clandestinely in France. They came in the hope of becoming prosperous in the early 2000s. Meanwhile, China underwent extensive changes and even while some Chinese desperately clung to the prospect of becoming legal aliens, they opted to return to their homeland. Their story unfolds between Chinatown in Paris and Wenzhou province. Despite their disappointment, this simple and determined couple in love is not defeated. By sharing their daily lives, and experiencing their moments of introspection and will to succeed, they bring us new insight into Wenzhou’s Chinese community and the migrations which have occurred in the last few years.

Fanny Tondre. Upon completing her art history studies, she published her photo stories with the Editing Agency. As a photographer with the Réa agency, she turned her lens on longer-term magazine subjects and their closely related social lives. Acutely aware of immigration issues, she is now devoting her time as a photographer and independent filmmaker to the Asian community and the migratory routes between Asia and Europe. Olivier Jobard. This Sipa agency photographer has covered numerous conflicts worldwide: Croatia, Bosnia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Colombia, and Iraq. After completing a report in Sangatta in 2000, he radically changed his photographic approach, focusing on immigration issues in all of its forms. In 2004, he published Kingsley, carnet de route d’un immigrant clandestine about the journey of a Cameroonian on his way to France.

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The Mongols

May 2013 - 224 pages

Guided solely by chance encounters, a photojournalist and his 11-year-old son crisscrossed and photographed a country in the throes of total economic and cultural revolution: Mongolia. They relate their conversations and take snapshots of their exchanges with people composing today’s Mongolia: painters, poets, doctors, miners and nomads, and reveal the country’s many contrasts, unveiling its face’s previously hidden side. An imperfect crosssectional view of Mongolia: two photographic approaches to a changing world.

Olivier Laban-Mattei is a French photojournalist. He spent ten years working with Agence France-Presse covering global news (wars in Iraq, Gaza, Georgia, Libya, revolution in Tunisia, insurrection in Iran, an earthquake in Haiti and a cyclone in Burma) before starting his career as a freelance documentary photographer so that he could focus on long-term photo stories such as «The Mongolian Project» (themongolianproject.com). He receives prizes for his work on a regular basis (including, in 2011 the World Press Photo prize, for the third consecutive year). Lisandru Laban-Giuliani was born in 2001 Corsica in 2001. An avid reader, traveller and adventure-seeker, he crossed Canada by train from east to west, hiked with a backpack through the Scottish Highlands, and trekked across the Steppes and mountains of Central Mongolia. Closely attached to his birthplace, he enjoys returning to his roots from time to time in his native Corsican village, Aiti, opposite San Petrone. He enjoys mountain hiking while attending school in Ajaccio. After winning the Corsican chess championship several times in his category, he has also participated in French national chess championship contests. At the same time he is practicing a Vietnamese martial art, Lam Son Vo Dao. Determined to enjoy every aspect of life, he has not yet decided on his future profession.

Spring 2014

Rwandan Destiny by Christophe Calais Bilangual text (French/Rwandan)

Spring 2014

The Inside Ennemy by François Pesant Bilangual text (French/English)

Autumn 2014

Hope by Bruno Stevens Bilangual text (French/English)

A selection of Foreign Rights

Pierre Vidal-Naquet Atlantis : Brief history of a platonic myth

Guglielmo Cavallo To read at Byzance

Kirmizikedi (Turquey)

Edizioni Sylvestre Bonnard (Italie)

Philippe Muray The Empire of Good

Lucian Boia Hegemony or the decline of France ? Fabricating a national myth

Editorial Nuevo Inicio (Espagne)

Humanitas (Roumanie)

Jacques André Roman Food and Culinary Arts

Suzanne Saïd Approaches to Greek Mythology : Ancient and Modern Readings

Reclam (Allemagne)

Editori Riuniti Univ. Press (Italie)

Previously sold rights

Philippe MURAY, L’Empire du bien (Espagne) Véronique BOUDON-MILLOT, Galien de Pergame (Italie) Jean-Christophe SALADIN, La bataille du grec à la Renaissance (Grèce) Jacqueline de ROMILLY, Histoire et raison chez Thucydide (Espagne) Alain VANIER, Lacan (Japon) Stéphane TOUSSAINT, Humanismes antihumanismes de Ficin à Heidegger (Italie) Pierre HADOT, Etudes de patristique et d’histoire des concepts (Italie) Pierre HADOT, Etudes de philosophie ancienne (Italie) Pierre HADOT, Plotin, Porphyre, Etudes platoniciennes (Italie) Pierre HADOT, Etudes de philosophie ancienne (Roumanie) Jean-Michel SALANSKIS, Heidegger (Brésil) Olivier DECKENS, Lévi-Strauss (Brésil) Vincent BONTEMS, Bachelard (Brésil) Nathalie MONIN, Sartre (Brésil) Benoît TIMMERMANS, Hegel (Brésil) Clara AUVRAY-ASSAYAS, Cicéron (Brésil)

Backlist available on : http://www.lesbelleslettres.com/foreignrights/

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