Accueil » Sommaires » revue : Revue française d'études américaines » no 79, janvier 1999

Contenu du sommaire : L'Amérique du Nord existe-t-elle ?

Revue Revue française d'études américaines Mir@bel
Numéro no 79, janvier 1999
Titre du numéro L'Amérique du Nord existe-t-elle ?
Texte intégral en ligne Accessible sur l'internet
  • Avant-propos - Catherine Collomp, Jacques Portes p. 5 pages accès libre
  • Is There a North American History? - Richard White p. 21 pages accès libre avec résumé
    En passant en revue l'historiographie américaine et canadienne, on s'efforce de cerner l'émergence et l'utilité du concept d'Amérique du Nord comme cadre d'analyse historique. Comme la notion de région, qui peut paraître plus naturelle, ou celle de nation, qui l'est moins, la notion de continent est une catégorie construite, mais dont l'histoire n'a guère été écrite. L'approche continentale n'a pas la même valeur pour tous les sujets envisagés. Elle est particulièrement féconde dans l 'étude historique de certains thèmes, tels les Améridindiens, les migrations de peuplement et de travail, les échanges et contacts, l'environnement, les systèmes régionaux. Cette optique trans- ou supranationale a suscité de nombreux travaux récents qui ont le mérite de resituer les États-Unis dans un contexte géographique, écologique, démographique ou même économique plus complexe que le seul cadre national.
  • L'Amérique du Nord des géographes - Paul Claval p. 30 pages accès libre avec résumé en anglais
    This paper addresses the question of the history of geography in US and Canadian societies. It shows that in spite of the apprehension of space as a constitutive element of North American identity, geography was only slowly institutionalized in academia. American and Canadian geographers, however, have constantly interpreted the economic and social changes affecting their countries and the continent more generally. Since the 1940s their methods have become more specifically adapted to the study of a land where history had not shaped landscapes in the same way as in Europe. Thus the fields of environment, economic and urban (or suburban) geography have been significantly developed.
  • Genèse de l'espace économique nord-américain - Jean Heffer p. 28 pages accès libre avec résumé en anglais
    This paper examines the changes that have affected the economic relations between the United States and Canada over two centuries. Their evolution has ranged from protectionist policies to bilateral free trade agreements, however temporary and limited the latter may have been in the past. Today both countries have heavily invested in each other's national economy and have entered the North American Free Trade Agreement (which also includes Mexico). This accord establishes the highest degree of economic integration ever reached between them. Throughout these stages of economic integration Canada has successfully maintained its national identity in spite of the dissymetry beween the two economies.

  • Hors thème

    • « Ce qui donne pointe à la sauce » : désir et délire sécuritaire dans Lolita de Vladimir Nabokov - Joseph Urbas p. 18 pages accès libre avec résumé en anglais
      Desire, which stirs the passions of hope and fear, also remains under constant threat of extinction by their extremes - security and despair. Such, in broad terms, is the analysis Descartes presents in Les Passions de l'âme (1649), an analysis that arguably affords a great deal of insight into the dynamics of desire in Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita. In a profoundly disturbing twist, Humbert Humbert's obsession with security, more than a mere symptom of his perversion, turns out to be an general tendency of desire as such. Consistent with the Cartesian model, the desiring subjects of Lolita - character, narrator, writer, and reader alike - are thus torn between the imperatives of security and a passion that would throw caution to the winds. Safety first or safety last ?
    • Les Leviathan de Paul Auster : fiction(s) et explosion(s) - Mireille Hardy p. 14 pages accès libre avec résumé en anglais
      Leviathan refers to the State (as defined by Hobbes) and its symbol in the USA, the Statue of Liberty, but also to the Biblical monster that swallowed Jonah. The body of the State is made up of all the bodies of the citizens and the social contract was originally designed to protect them. Auster 's novel stresses that the contract has been broken and the symbol emptied of its meaning, justifying therefore an aesthetic form of terrorism based on Thoreau's Civil Disobedience : the Liberties must be destroyed to restore Liberty. The bomb at the core of the novel pervades its theme, vocabulary and metaphors. However, the explosive message o/Leviathan is to be put into perspective since the text proves to be a destabilizing network of secrets, lies, contradictions and errors.

  • Comptes rendus