Catalog All books
Antoine Danchin
The Delphic Boat What Genomes Tell Us
What is it that constitutes the unity and identity of a living creature ? This is the fundmental question of biology. The recent sequencing techniques provide a completely new response to this question, notably thanks to the knowledge of whole genomes. Antoine Danchin establishes a clear picture of this important biological discovery. He shows in particular that, just like the boat of Delphi, life is beyond prediction, and at the same time has an infinite capacity to create the unexpected. Antoine Danchin is the director of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at the Institut Pasteur.
Jean Rosa
From one Medicine to Another From a Craft Industry to High Techology
Jean Rosa belongs to the post-war generation that transformed French medicine from a state of powerless humanism all the more "humane" because it was so often helpless to one of scientific and technical efficiency. Unfortunately, in the process, medicine seems to have lost its human face. In this book, Rosa shows how he contributed to this medical revolution: on the one hand, through the "Debré Reform", which instituted teaching hospitals, thus firmly linking medical research with therapeutic and surgical treatment, and, on the other hand, by associating medicine with molecular biology. Jean Rosa is Emeritus Professor in the medical school of the University of Paris-XII and a member of the French Academy of Science
Alessandro Pignocchi
Art and Intention
The latest scientific research reveals how we perceive and judge works of art
Maurice Tubiana
Education and Life
This book is a reflection on the alarming fact that France has the highest level of violent deaths (from suicide, drugs, and road accidents) in all Europe among young people between 18 and 22 years old. Tubiana analyses the pleasure principle which runs through our culture and our values, the Freudian principle that demands the immediate satisfaction of our impulses. This brings him to denounce postmodern individualism which does not make any room for the collective interest. Maurice Tubiana is a world-reknowned oncologist and member of the French Academy of Science and the Academy of Medicine.
Marie-Jo Bonnet
What Does a Woman Desire when She Desires a Woman?
The desire of women for their own sex is a subject that has been concealed and heavily censored since Antiquity. Yet it has constantly resurfaced throughout history - despite repression, denial and today's feigned indifference - and its existence is a historical and anthropological fact, whatever the dominant opinion may say. Marie-Jo Bonnet argues that lesbianism transgresses social norms and female stereotypes, and breaks with the phallic model and the restricted social role that is assigned to women even today. She sees lesbian desire as a radical instrument of emancipation and offers an original analysis of the women's liberation movement, of recent discussions about homosexuality and, finally, of the persistence of lesbophobia. Desire, regardless of its subject, is always a unique and complex experience, and Bonnet does not ignore this fact. In an original, wide-ranging study of lesbian love through literature, she delves into the work of such major writers of the past as Marguerite Yourcenar, Violette Leduc, Simone de Beauvoir, Djuna Barnes and, surprisingly, Madame de Sévigné, as well as of more recent writers such as Monique Wittig, Anne Garreta and Christine Angot. The author's thesis is that women's desire for their own sex can serve as a tool to empower them to conquer their own space of creativity and liberation. Marie-Jo Bonnet, a writer and historian, is the author of Les Relations Amoureuses Entre Femmes (XVIe-XXe siècle).
Louis Crocq, Sophie Huberson, Benoît Vraie
Managing Crises
In the existence of any group, business or nation, a crisis is a serious, uncommon event that suddenly imposes an emergency situation and the management of the vital issues at stake.
Alain Berthoz, Gérard Jorland
The Empathie
Empathy is the ability to put oneself in the position of others, and thus to understand and know them. Ever since Darwin, empathy has been regarded as the basis of all human social behaviour, and most notably of ethics. Some major psychological disorders - autism, for example - can be described as the inability to empathise. Certain types of perverse behaviour, such as the torture of defenceless victims, have been explained as distortions of empathy. This book offers an overview of studies on empathy for the past 250 years. It also describes the latest research on the subject in a variety of fields: cognitive psychology, philosophy, ethology and ethics. Alain Berthoz is a professor at the Collège de France and a member of the French Academy of Sciences. He is the author of Le Sens du mouvement and La Décison, both published by Editions Odile Jacob. Gérard Jorland is a director of studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and the author of Les Paradoxes du capital (Editions Odile Jacob) and La Science dans la philosophie.