Contenu du sommaire : Sciences et religions au 20e Siècle

Science and Religion in the 20th Century: An Introduction
This article presents an overview of the changing relationship between science and the three major religions of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, from the end of the 19th century until today. The reception of Darwin's work, the development of the humanities and social sciences, and the rise of psychology were at the heart of a confrontation, one of the main stakes of which was reconciling with the legacy of the Enlightenment. The clashes and compromises experienced depend on the organisation of each religion's highest official bodies, including the latter's ability to take into account the critical dimension of scientific research. The degree of conflict also depends upon epistemological changes in the social and life sciences. This history includes a strong political dimension, in a context marked, especially since the 1970s, by the increasing mobilisation of religious vectors of political engagement.

Science and Religion, Universal Culture and Jewish Particularities
Within Zionism as a national Jewish movement, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem plays a specific, if not central, role. As an institution of higher education, it is tasked with embodying cultural Hebrew renewal, as a distinct entity from the inherited traditions of the diaspora and the solely religious aspects of Judaism. The article examines the origins of this institution and its function, as established by the founding fathers of the Jewish national movement. It first outlines the different elements of Jewish science, religion and culture within the theoretical Zionist ideology that existed before the university was established. Then, the article looks at the role of these elements in applied Zionism, illustrated during the university's first decades by the creation of separate curricula for “Jewish science” and “general science”.

Science and Islam in the 19th and 20th Centuries
Napoleon's 1789 Egyptian campaign, as well as its symbolism as the advent of European civilization in the Levant, armed with science and philosophy, was seen as a crucial moment for Islamic and Arabic thought. For the first time in the history of Muslim civilisation, many ideas were confronted their modern European counterparts. During the 19th and 20th centuries, Arabic philosophers debated the notion of “science”. Whereas some adopted the modern definition that was independent of all religion, others remained committed to a definition of science that was linked to religion, making the Quran the ultimate scientific arbiter.

Al-Azhar University and Western Science
Since the fall of the Fatimid Caliphate, Al-Azhar University has remained the central institution of Sunni Islam. Like all denominational training establishments that hold a monopoly over knowledge, the university was forced to face the challenge posed by the profound transformation of the scientific world between the 17th and the 19th centuries. Following an initial period of total rejection, the university began to open up: students were sent to Germany, France, and Great Britain during the first part of the 20th century. Among these students, Sheikh al-Bahi became an authority within the university as reformed by Nasser. His dual qualifications gave him the opportunity to find decisive arguments to justify locking down the core of the training, i.e. the “religious sciences”. The surrounding context of decolonization would continue to encourage support for this position.

A Social Science Perspective on The Mystical Experience of Saint John of the Cross
As religious psychology became established as an academic discipline, during Interwar France, the mystical experience of Saint John of the Cross became paradigmatic of the shifting relationship between the social sciences and Catholic philosophy and theology. Catholic religious psychology, which, in order to acknowledge the supernatural dimension of religious life, was more experimental than speculative, began to gradually emerge, in particular thanks to the teachings of historical criticism. Under the influence of the social sciences, theology was also driven to adopt a more phenomenological approach. The very relevance of mystical experience was itself finally challenged by the development of psychoanalysis.

Conceptualising and Speaking of Race in Far-Right Movements (France-Italy, 1960-1967)During the 1960s, far-right French and Italian activists refused to acknowledge the emancipation of colonised peoples. Thanks to their on-going debate, the journals Défense de l'Occident, Europe-Action and Ordine Nuovo thus played a part in the resurgence of theoretical reflections on racism, bolstered by visceral hatred of Communism in the postcolonial context. They helped to build and spread a multi-faceted migratory threat, illustrating the circulation and exchange of racialising ideas. The fight for the presence of white people in Africa also acquired an anti-subversive and operational dimension, thanks to the involvement of South Africa and Salazar's Portugal.

Alain de Sérigny, Newspaperman and Political Actor
Called “the barometer of Algiers” by his contemporaries, Alain de Sérigny, the director of the leading daily newspaper L'Écho d'Alger was a Pétain supporter and an erstwhile backer of de Gaulle: he was also the only journalist to be indicted during the barricades trial. This article shows the complex web of political and media ties surrounding Sérigny in colonial Algeria. It also sheds light on the strategies the journalist used to make his daily newspaper into a sounding board for Europeans in Algeria who felt abandoned by metropolitan authorities, thereby helping to form an elusive public opinion. By highlighting an episode of the “Franco-French war”, this work also examines the press baron's more Gaullist beliefs.

Rapes Committed by the German Army in France (1940-1944)Recently, wartime rape has become a legitimate subject of historical study. However, the acts of sexual violence committed by German soldiers in France during World War II remain largely unknown. This paper highlights how widespread sexual violence was, while emphasising the difficulty of establishing the facts according to criminal law or martial law. By combining micro-historical studies with a general overview of the war, this article establishes a typology of sexual violence in order to deal with the simplifications of myth (the rape of the Sabine women) or current events. This chronology of sexual violence illustrates how sexuality was one facet among many of the Occupation's regime. Finally, these acts of sexual violence are also considered in a comparative perspective with the rapes committed by Allied soldiers in Europe during World War II.

Indictment of the French Resistance
Several thousand FFI and FTP veterans were prosecuted after 1945 for actions that had unfolded in the theatre of war, but which were later reclassified as criminal acts. Starting in 1947, the Cold War gave these trials a strong political connotation. The Communist Party organised major campaigns in support of these “imprisoned patriots”, while the political parties of the far right sought to use the charges against former resistant fighters try the Resistance, and especially the Maquis, in a court of law. These trials finally stopped in the late 1950s. They illustrate how, immediately after the end of the war, the Resistance gave rise to a “battle of memories” between those who wanted to tarnish its image and those who wished to defend it.

Cooperation between Brazil and the International Refugee Organisation (1946-1951)In 1945, Brazil helped to formulate new rules of international cooperation, with the hope of gaining political leverage from its role in ending the war. In fact, Brazilian participation in international organisations was structured to benefit the country's national economic development. This phenomenon was apparent in Brazil's cooperation with the International Refugee Organisation (IRO). IRO archives help us to understand how international cooperation was defined in accordance with national considerations. They also reveal the reactions of the international organisation, which pursued its own aims, promoted policies and sought support of various partners in order to circumvent the obstructions posed by the Brazilian State.

The CGT and Union Repression (August 1939-December 1940)France's entry into the Second World War in the summer of 1939 was accompanied by the restriction of civil liberties and the banning of the Communist Party, following the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. At the trade union level, this policy led to the exclusion of union members suspected to be Communists and to the dissolution of more than six hundred unions. Until the fall of the Republic, union activity was thus split between legal, but ineffective, unions and clandestine unions organisations. The rise of Pétain's “État français” completed the transformation of the social landscape. After the Vichy government dissolved all union organisations, a final schism developed among legal unionists, dividing those who agreed to cooperate with the new regime from those who refused, joining the activists who had gone underground a year earlier.