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Francesco Filelfo’s Commentationes Florentinae de exilio (ca. 1440) presents us with a dialogue among a group of nobles and scholars who debate several issues in moral philosophy to console themselves on their defeat by Cosimo de’ Medici. The role of pleasure in human happiness is treated in several sections of the work in relation to three of Filelfo’s main goals: the condemnation of his rivals Poggio Bracciolini and Niccolò Niccoli (both of whom were connected with the Medicean circle), the exaltation of his own philological erudition, and the attack on Cosimo’s regime. There is textual evidence that Filelfo used some of the ideas presented by Valla in his De voluptate (1431) for the purpose of satirizing his rivals and showing that their interest in Epicureanism was morally and intellectually flawed.

Based on an ethnographic study of Canadian women's intimate relationships with a racialized man from the Global South, this article focuses on their experiences of the spousal reunification process. More specifically, I examine how the women emotionally and materially engage with spousal reunification procedures and administrative temporalities and how interactions with the Canadian immigration bureaucracy affect their subjectivity as women and citizens. I look at three embodied modes of involvement with bureaucratic procedures—waiting, working and fighting—each bringing forth its own set of emotions and creative coping strategies. I argue that love is central to the experience of the administrative procedures, as an ideological and technological tool used both by the state to regulate and discredit non-desirable relationships and by applicants to make sense of their position (of vulnerability) and to create meaningful narratives within state-imposed categories. A form of defensive agency emerges in women whose enormous application files, filled with “proof” of the authenticity of their relationship, shows how they have endorsed social anxieties about North-South intimacies and the strategies they have developed in order to legitimize their union.

Keywords: bureaucracy, agency, immigration, emotions, binational couples, Canada, bureaucratie, agentivité, immigration, émotions, couples binationaux, Canada

During the war, the accumulation of tensions, anguish and collective traumas form a "breeding ground" most conducive to the birth and proliferation of false news, rumors and legends. The first of them, spy mania, explodes in the first hours of the conflict. The home front becomes the scene of a veritable jingoistic outburst, leading many civilians to relentlessly hunt down this "enemy from within" demonized by propaganda focusing on German barbarism. In Brittany, this psychosis was cleverly prepared by pre-war publications denouncing the presence on the coast of a "vanguard of the German army". In this context, rumors and fantastic gossip abound and create suspicion towards anything that seems strange. These elements of false news, sometimes relayed by newspapers, are mainly spread orally, through wounded soldiers on leave or even refugees. They generally pass through the main communication crossroads, especially train stations. Thus, fed with rumors and legends, the population of the home front is actively involved in the hunt for spies, often degenerating into vengeful and irrational popular violence all the more embarrassing for the authorities that, as in this case, these spies are simply imaginary.

The Croisière du Tricentenaire is a spectacular staging of the arrival of the official delegations, bearers of French values in the Caribbean, who came in large numbers from Le Havre to inaugurate and celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of the colonization of the Antilles and Guyana. With its 366 passengers, the Messageries Transatlantique's liner Le Colombie brought together the colonial, political, scholarly and artistic elite of Metropolitan France for official representation. The aim is to analyze this transatlantic fiction at the heart of republican assimilationist propaganda while conveying the frivolity of this ephemeral cruise.

Keywords: Caraïbe, exposition, croisière, impérialisme, artistique, French Caribbean, exhibition, cruise, imperialism, artistic

The arrival of the Hudson's Bay Company, fur traders, in Eeyou Istchee (East James Bay Crees) and Nunavik (Inuit) precipitated a great many changes in the lives of the local peoples, among which was miscegenation, British men and Indigenous women, leading to several hundred years of mixed ancestry individuals. This cohabitation and hybridity occurred everywhere in the Canadian fur trade country and in two regions used as contrasts, the Red River and west James Bay, a new people emerged, first known as Métis in the Red River Colony. No such new society arose in the two Quebec regions. At the core of understanding the circumstances of this non-event is how the personal relations played out in the post communities among the local people, the Euro-Canadians and the hybrid population. No seminal distinguishing traits were discerned in Eeyou Istchee or Nunavik while other factors were seen to have caused the rise of a new people outside of Quebec.

Keywords: Cris, Inuit, Naskapis, Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson, ascendance mixte

The average number of children per woman in Tunisia has declined from about seven in the mid 1960's to about five in the early 1980's, but the change has been slower over the last part of this period. In attempting to understand Tunisian society and its childbearing situation, we address questions of (1) sex roles, (2) conflicts over models of development and (3) tribal loyalties. The state has attempted to change sex roles, but there remain powerful traditional forces, especially from men, giving priority to women's family roles. The conflict between Western and Islamic models of development implies that there is a wide element of ambivalence as people try to seek the advantages of both the small (Western) family and the large family corresponding to cultural traditions. For many, four children represent a type of compromise: “not too many, not too few”. Given the ways in which tribal loyalties become part of institutional dynamics, certain groups have come to perceive that Family Planning is acting not for them but for its own benefit. In the course of reconstructing these fertility dynamics, the author also stresses the experiences through which he learnt to situate the relevant issues.

The New Orleans Mardi Gras Carnival is a high point for tourists as well as locals. This period of parties and parades is a major tourist attraction in North America. The article presents two less well-known aspects of Mardi Gras, the Zulu Parade and the Indian Carnival. After tracing the origins of these two events, the author looks at festive practices in these two African American communities. The simplified image offered to the tourist covers different sociological realities. Each group attempts, in its own way, to assert its importance for American society through the authenticity of its traditions.

During the Congolese transition towards democracy, there has been a rebirth of song as a mirror of current events. Whether traditional, religious, worldly, or popular, songs are omnipresent at political gatherings of ail sorts. As a kind of enacted rite of passage, they allow political battles to be ritualized. The social religious song has taken up a considerable amount of space in this renewal. Its use of politics has, surprisingly, made it even more popular than the modem Congolese song. Collective tasks at hand, the poverty of the nation, changes in ethics and mores, political confrontation, demands for human rights and democratic values are all themes that songs of the transition period have broadly covered. Analysis of the songs shows that the language used is often metaphorical. What cannot be said outright is signified indirectly, and the technique of retrogression occurs frequently. This use of song shows that those who work in the industry have become aware of the social role that is incumbent upon them. The repertoire and its utilization allow the people and the artistes to appropriate a new framework for understanding society in the past and organizing society in the future.