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AbstractIn recent years, the radical populist right in Western Europe developed a comprehensive ideological position. The central characteristics of this ideology are a strong emphasis on difference and on the defense of cultural particularity. Both are used to mobilize support against what the populist right sees as the twin threats to the survival of European culture and Western values: globalization and Islam. With this ideology, the populist right has appealed to a broad range of the electorate, which goes well beyond those groups objectively and subjectively most threatened by economic, social, and cultural modernization. Given the growing importance of cultural issues and particularly questions of collective identity in contemporary politics, the populist right is bound to continue to pose a considerable challenge to liberal democracies for the foreseeable future.

AbstractThis article calls for increased cooperation and dialogue between born “Westerners” and born “Muslims” in the near future. It suggests human originality and individual creativity be valued when those cultures are encountering each other. A major challenge of our time is that of communication, including in religious matters. It is a test of human dignity with a far from certain outcome. Basically, Islam is a human faith, a way of life, and a kind of social order. For too long — notwithstanding the practice of Orientalist studies — the West has viewed Islam in the perspective of Western material, cultural and spiritual interests. In a period of Western hegemony it could hardly have been otherwise. Islam tended to be constructed as a radical alternative to the Western world. This dualist construction of the West and Islam, however, is not only untenable in scholarly terms but also implies political provincialism. Suggestions are made to create new kinds of relationships between Westerners and Muslims.

This article focuses on the philosophical implications of Quebec City's Ephemeral Gardens. Eleven different temporary gardens were created during the summer of 2008, as part of the city's 400th anniversary celebrations. While the structure, objectives, and underlying themes of each of these projects are addressed, one particular garden, titled “Wampum 400,” is discussed at greater length. It was created by two indigenous artists, Domingo Cisneros and Sonia Robertson Piekuakamilnu. The analysis reveals how the overall project embodied key issues and strategies related to urban gardens. While pursuing the vision of an ideal garden, it also provided an experience for tourists. Moreover, the Ephemeral Gardens contributed to the development of a postcolonial critique by reclaiming space for collective use, thereby putting into question the epistemological and ontological foundations of the “garden.”

This article presents an unpublished interview with British writer Aldous Huxley, conducted by Hubert Aquin for the Premier Plan television program and broadcast by Radio-Canada on June 12th 1960. By analysing how the interview was produced, broadcast, and received by the public ; and by placing it in the context of several major interviews undertaken by Aquin in 1960, the article provides a better understanding of the impact of Aquin's career as a journalist on his intellectual development as a writer, political activist, and media figure. Finally, the article underscores the significance of newly accessible audio-visual sources related to Aquin held at the Université de Montréal, sources that offer new perspectives on his life's work.

From the arrival of the first French fur traders and missionaries, the Illinois Country was defined by a series of cultural and political accommodations. When Virginian soldiers arrived at Kaskaskia in 1778, it marked a third imperial regime in the region in fifteen years. Much like they had done under the previous French and British regimes, French Creoles sought to assert political and cultural autonomy under American rule. This article considers the challenges that French Creoles faced in resisting emerging American hegemony in Illinois Country, and the strategies that they employed to adapt to new geopolitical circumstances during and after the American Revolution. A comparison of Creole claims and acts of resistance at Kaskaskia and Cahokia, and their surroundings, shows that they successfully asserted their rights and also set the foundation for a new Franco-American identity.

As Virginia Woolf said, our world is in the midst of childbirth. Multifaceted change is underway in cultural institutions, libraries, museums and, generally, in all places where knowledge is created. Change is transforming our work habits, practices and relationships with our users. How do we evaluate and highlight our place in the knowledge society? How do we reconcile change with the important notions of truth, cultural and social solidarity as well as sharing, that forceful catalyst of human dignity?Harnessing the mass of data to make them reliable and truthful and taking ownership of new technologies in order to build a free and open tender are part of the challenge to be met by those whose primary mission is to build a knowledge base, that is accessible, sincere, and altruistic for all.The change we are currently experiencing is the result of four major events in human history: the transformation of the financial, economic and commercial map of the world; the unfolding of a digital era that has forever changed the relationship of human beings to knowledge; the demographic expansions in Asia and Africa that will soon disrupt the distribution of the world's population; and, finally, the colossal environmental issues that our society must immediately face.Beginning with the first developments in Québec society and followed by an internationally renowned artificial intelligence laboratory, history is created with the information used by the human mind to which it imparts a vital energy. Change must be undertaken by sharing information in all its forms and with all, which means putting an end to the scandal that is illiteracy in our learned and connected societies. This also requires accelerating the transition to a digital civilisation, by establishing a digital legal deposit, the scanning of heritage collections and the creation of avant-garde libraries that provide a space for the innovative and creative laboratories such as the future Saint-Sulpice library.We also have to think about the future of creation. In an era of robotics, algorithms, artificial intelligence, and big data, what does the future hold for the safeguard, the production and the sharing of knowledge?