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If the campus is about 70% female and 30% male, and of the women, 75% are available and heterosexual, and of the men, about half are gay and maybe 25% are in a relationship, how many available, straight men does that leave for the single women, keen and looking? No need to do the math. We are not all EcoSoc majors. To put it simply, the answer is not a lot. < Back Love is in the Air? Une Lutte Contre le Vent Maia Zasler and Maria Eirini Liodi March 31, 2025 February 14th. A day marked in red on calendars around the globe. For better or worse, we prepare roses for our partner, bottles of wine for our “Galentine’s” soirées or gather stocks of chocolate for company in bed. Amidst the swirling romance and ka-ching! of capitalist cash flows, somewhere in the Côte d’Azur, some 400 students ponder their life decisions. Menton, nestled in the nook of Southern France, is but a blip in the grand scheme of life and love—a microcosm resembling normality. Well, dear readers, Valentine’s Day has passed. Although remnants of love (and receipts from Société Générale ) linger over a month later, there persists a pressing matter. In such a tight-knit academic environment, we may appreciate the privilege of exchanging ideas on constitutional law and climate policy with familiar faces, but navigating the same dating pool gets tedious to say the least . This got us thinking: In a limited (dried-up?) dating pool, is there hope for romantic dalliances in Menton? With an unbalanced male-to-female ratio, could those yearning for a man even find (catch, and then hold on to) one? Then we thought some more, and we configured a little word problem: If the campus is about 70% female and 30% male, and of the women, 75% are available and heterosexual, and of the men, about half are gay and maybe 25% are in a relationship, how many available, straight men does that leave for the single women, keen and looking? No need to do the math. We are not all EcoSoc majors. To put it simply, the answer is not a lot. And as it has been pointed out, this unequal dating capital has fostered an environment in which “straight men are aware that they have too many options and choose to either ‘play around sexually’ or emotionally manipulate” ( Articulate Survey Respondent #1 ). Is “hookup” culture, then, even a viable option? In such a small community, any sort of relation (wink, wink) is bound to get around. Gossip—a natural form of extending platonic intimacy—is inevitable. Thus, as eloquent as we Sciences Po students are, stories spread. Unless you don’t care about your personal business being aired, entering into any kind of relationship brands you with a respectable scarlet letter of sorts. With all of these obstacles in mind, we had to ask: Did the Sciences Pistes spend Valentine’s Day alone? From “Dry January Extended to Dry February” and “Eating Chocolate Alone in Bed” to “Galentine’s Drinks” and beyond, Sciences Po students were getting busy. Some of the ladies channeled Miley Cyrus and bought their own flowers, while others replaced love with a few rounds of poker. About 30% of respondents were even lucky enough to go on a date (although a couple were restricted to the virtual realm). Even if ‘alone,’ it seems that the mentonnais had no trouble occupying their time. Our very professional—very halal—survey shone light on more than just February 14th-related activities. Be it perceptions of the dating scene, fear of judgement, or just difficulty navigating a multicultural dating scene, a plethora of factors seem to block Sciences Pistes in their pursuit of a fulfilled love life. Maybe hookup culture isn’t the problem. People could be standing in the way of their own happiness, afraid of being the victims of dating gossip. Or maybe everyone is actually in a long-distance relationship (LDRs) and we just don’t know: 67% of those in relationships qualified as LDRs. At 40 responses, we cannot claim that the distribution of survey results is entirely reflected in the Menton campus as a whole (but it is statistically significant!). It seems that the majority of those surveyed perceive a solution to the relationship drought as opening up perspectives, becoming more “progressive.” It is in fact “difficult to date when two people have the same circle, same habits, we know the same persons and are always gonna see each other again on campus.” Others were very candid in their thinking, with one respondent asserting: “Not enough hookups in Menton, the parties need to be spicier!!” ( BDE, take notes. ) But does it have to be that deep? Human beings seek connection—romantic connections are just some in a wider umbrella. If we are mature enough to uproot our lives and move to this far-off place, find our own apartments, sustain ourselves with food (even if it is just pesto pasta), don’t we have the adult-ness to handle interactions with a past hookup or relationship with grace? This could be too much to ask for in a big city. But Menton is different. Things tend to be bigger in our heads (no pun intended). It seems that over 60% of our respondents perceive the Menton relationship culture to be heavily dominated by hookups, while another 30% of respondents view dating culture as pervasive. A few argued that Menton is a mix. What we found to be most accurate was the perception of the 2.5%. These individuals argued that the predominant culture persists as “ gossiping about who everyone else is seeing?” and “complaining about the lack of options.” Yet, the vast majority of respondents indicated that the issue with relationships in general in Menton is that everyone is going to find out, and there’s almost shame … but the ummah is not hooking up very often. Less than a third of respondents reported having sex on a weekly basis—but 40% are in a relationship. And only 30% of respondents are more content with their sex life here, at Sciences Po, than before arriving in Menton… perhaps this response pool overlaps. It most likely does. Don’t despair if you are not content vis-à-vis your “relationship” status. “Ppl [may] suck,” but our time here in this little lemon town is so short. A mere blip in a hopefully long and fruitful life. Although we can’t help the respondent who stated, “the girls here aren’t like her” (that’s tough, man), we may be able to provide some insight into the query: “Why date when you know you’re going to break up?” Doesn’t this extend to every relationship at all points in our lives? When with people from all over the world, the time together becomes all that more precious (even if just for a night). We don’t mean to romanticize ephemeral interest, but if people were more communicative, more open with their interests and wants, less conscientious of speculative judgement at (few and far between) parties, maybe the satisfaction rates would be higher! Who knows, maybe for you 1As, your Valentine’s date for next year just gave a presentation on sanctions in Iraq.

In Palestine, threads carry stories. Each stitch of tatreez — the traditional Palestinian embroidery — embodies memory, identity, and resilience. On a quiet afternoon, an elderly woman sits with fabric in her lap, weaving patterns passed down through generations. < Back Threads of Memory: The Story of Palestinian Tatreez Mariam Mahamid September 28, 2025 In Palestine, threads carry stories. Each stitch of tatreez — the traditional Palestinian embroidery — embodies memory, identity, and resilience. On a quiet afternoon, an elderly woman sits with fabric in her lap, weaving patterns passed down through generations. The colors and motifs are never random; they are symbols of home, heritage, and a history too often silenced. The art of tatreez dates back centuries, rooted in daily life across Palestinian villages. Each region developed its own style: Ramallah with rich red geometric shapes, and Bethlehem with elaborate silk embroidery in deep purples and gold. A woman’s thobe (traditional dress) told her life story: her village, her marital status, and even whether she was expecting a child [Skinner, 2008]. Embroidery was passed down from mother to daughter, ensuring that traditions endured through every generation. Even as modern fabrics and fashions arrived, tatreez remained a cultural anchor, quietly affirming: “This is who we are, and this is where we belong.” Palestinian embroidery forms a visual language. Olive branches symbolize peace and connection to the land; cypress trees represent endurance; birds signal freedom and hope. Colors carry meaning too—red for life and strength, black for resilience, and indigo blue to protect against the evil eye [Kawar & Nasir, 1992]. The stitches themselves vary: cross-stitch dominates, but other techniques like couching and satin stitch also appear in regional dresses [Skinner, 2008]. Motifs were not merely decorative: the fish-eye offered protection, the tree of life stood for continuity, and grapevines symbolized fertility and abundance. These designs, evolving across centuries, became markers of cultural geography and personal identity [Vogelsang-Eastwood, 2010]. More than craft, embroidery was storytelling. Women stitched at weddings, family gatherings, and in the evenings at home, turning fabric into wearable memory. Beyond colors and stitches, tatreez carries meaning through its motifs — a visual lexicon that reflects Palestinian life, beliefs, and environment. Some of the most recognizable patterns include the Tree of Life, symbolizing continuity and rootedness; the Fish Eye, protecting the wearer from envy; the Bunch of Grapes, representing abundance and fertility, especially in Hebron; the Damascus Rose, a mark of beauty and elegance in bridal thobes; and the Moon of Bethlehem, evoking guidance and spirituality. These motifs function not only as decoration but also as cultural memory, weaving personal stories into garments that served as wearable archives of Palestinian identity [Skinner, 2008; Kawar & Nasir, 1992]. Before 1948, embroidery flourished in thriving Palestinian textile centers. Al-Majdal, north of Gaza, was the most important weaving hub, producing fabrics that were exported regionally [Weir, 1989]. Bethlehem became known as the “Paris of Palestinian fashion” for its luxurious couching embroidery and distinctive thobes [Vogelsang-Eastwood, 2010]. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wikimedia Commons During the late Ottoman and British Mandate periods, European photographers and travelers frequently misrepresented Palestinian dress. Commercial postcards and staged studio photographs circulated widely in Europe, where tatreez was rebranded as an exotic “Oriental costume” rather than a living cultural practice. These images detached embroidery from its social, political, and economic contexts, reinforcing colonial narratives that imagined Palestine as timeless and primitive [Dedman, 2016]. At the same time, European collectors began acquiring Palestinian thobes for museums, treating them as ethnographic curiosities rather than as objects of cultural continuity [Weir, 1989]. Such practices not only distorted the meanings of tatreez but also contributed to its appropriation and decontextualization in the global imagination. Nadar, Wikimedia Commons The Nakba of 1948 disrupted this continuity. Over 700,000 Palestinians were displaced, and many women, now in refugee camps, temporarily set aside embroidery as they assumed new roles to sustain their families. Weaving centers were destroyed, and a generation grew up without learning the craft [Kawar & Nasir, 1992]. Yet by the 1960s, embroidery re-emerged, adapted for survival. Women’s cooperatives, such as INAASH in Lebanon, began training refugee women to produce embroidered dresses, cushions, and wall hangings for income. What had once been a village craft became a national symbol and a lifeline for displaced communities [Kawar & Nasir, 1992]. In refugee camps, tatreez shifted from regional patterns to shared symbols of identity. The Six Branch dress, for example, represented all of Palestine, uniting diverse designs in a single garment. Tiamat, Wikimedia Commons During the First Intifada (1987–1993), embroidery became explicitly political. With the Palestinian flag banned, women stitched its colors and motifs into dresses as subtle but powerful acts of resistance [Dedman, 2021; UNESCO, 2021]. Embroidery had moved from being a regional folk art to a collective expression of national survival. Far from fading, tatreez thrives today. Young Palestinian designers integrate traditional motifs into jackets, handbags, and sneakers, bridging heritage with modern fashion. This revival extends across borders: workshops in Ramallah, Gaza, and refugee camps teach embroidery both as cultural preservation and as economic empowerment. Diaspora initiatives, like Tatreez & Tea in the United States, connect younger generations to their roots [Wafa Ghnaim, 2020]. Social media amplifies this renaissance, sharing tutorials, motifs, and stories with global audiences. What was once a village tradition has become a worldwide movement of heritage and pride. Contemporary motifs even include watermelons—now a symbol of Palestinian resistance—woven alongside ancestral patterns. Mariam Mahamid In recent years, tatreez has also entered the global fashion industry. International brands, including both luxury houses and fast fashion labels, have incorporated Palestinian embroidery motifs into their designs without acknowledgment, sparking debates about cultural appropriation and erasure. For Palestinians, however, contemporary designers consciously reclaim tatreez: figures like Suzy Tamimi, Natalie Tahhan, and labels highlighted in Vogue Arabia reinterpret traditional motifs on modern garments, presenting them not as exotic decoration but as bold declarations of identity. By situating tatreez within both heritage and innovation, these designers challenge the fashion world to respect indigenous cultural knowledge while affirming embroidery as a living practice of resilience [Vogue Arabia, 2020; Museum of the Palestinian People, 2021]. Tatreez is a memory stitched into fabric, a map of Palestine worn on the body, and a testimony of resilience. Each stitch tells a story of women who turned needle and thread into tools of continuity and identity. As many Palestinian grandmothers describe it, tatreez carries the memory of the family and ensures that heritage survives across generations. Bibliography Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood (2010), Encyclopedia of Embroidery of the Arab World. Margarita Skinner (2008), Palestinian Embroidery Motifs: A Treasury of Stitches 1850–1950. Museum of the Palestinian People (2021), Tatreez and Palestinian Identity. Rachel Dedman (2016), At the Seams: A Political History of Palestinian Embroidery, Palestinian Museum Exhibition Catalogue. Rachel Dedman (2021), Seamstress of Survival: Palestinian Embroidery and Identity. Shelagh Weir (1989), Palestinian Costumes. UNESCO (2021), Art of Embroidery in Palestine – Intangible Cultural Heritage. Vogue Arabia (2020), “Palestinian Designer Using Clothes to Preserve Indigenous Culture.” Wafa Ghnaim (2020), Tatreez & Tea Institute. Widad Kawar & Tania Tamari Nasir (1992), Palestinian Embroidery: Traditional Fallahi Cross-Stitch.

A labyrinthine net of characters emerges from the book’s pages; their vices, virtues and contradictions carry questions ranging from Epicureanism to existentialism, from normative political philosophy to Biblical hermeneutics. The distinction between main and secondary characters is often blurred in this framework. The only exception is Prince Myshkin, also known as “the Idiot.” < Back You Need To Read Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot” By Margherita Cordellini September 27, 2022 If ethics, political philosophy and hermeneutics entice you Only a limited selection of books boasts a resemblance to encyclopedias. Those authors who manage to find the hidden connections between fields that rarely go hand in hand offer original lenses through which readers can process and interpret reality. Several 19th-century Russian writers’ works belong to this group; among them, we can find Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot.” A labyrinthine net of characters emerges from the book’s pages; their vices, virtues and contradictions carry questions ranging from Epicureanism to existentialism, from normative political philosophy to Biblical hermeneutics. The distinction between main and secondary characters is often blurred in this framework. The only exception is Prince Myshkin, also known as “the Idiot.” The Prince: a man who does not belong to mankind It is hard to describe the character of Prince Myshkin without utilizing the words employed by Dostoevsky in a letter written on May 27, 1869, in which he referred to him as a “positively beautiful person.” He fully embodies the principles of compassion, altruism, empathy and honesty. After years of illness-induced exile in the idyllic Swiss alpine landscape, the Prince returns to his motherland, Russia. From the second the Prince set foot in Saint Petersburg, he unwittingly disrupts the ordinary unfolding of events, surrounding himself with disarray and grief like a plague-spreader. By guiding the reader through the extremely diverse vicissitudes, Dostoevsky convinces us that this is the only possible result that could arise from the collision between an inhumanly good person and a 19th-century society characterized by a hypocritical social hierarchy and merciless taboos. By gathering intra- and extra-text clues, philosopher Michel Terestchenko, suggests that prince Myshkin is the allegory of Christ. The Prince’s story thus shows the disastrous consequences that would occur, according to Dostoevsky, if Christ should restumble upon Earth. Terestchenko’s pessimistic statement can be analyzed through different hermeneutical levels. Firstly, from a teleological perspective, one could argue that the writer aimed to depict how human flaws are necessary for coexistence in society; that the paradoxical presence of only one human being freed by such flaws would degenerate into collective madness. However, other elements in the novel also hint at an irreverent social critique. Lebedev or modernity understood by a depraved theologian: Dostoevsky mainly confers the role of critic of modernity to the most unsuitable character: Lebedev — a drunkard who embodies the discrepancy between intellectual depth and virtue. Lebedev denounces the social consequences of the still young capitalist system by giving a modern interpretation of John’s Apocalypse, which predicts the extinction of the “sources of life.” He provocatively affirms that railways are what will bring life on Earth to its end. In the beginning, this unreasonable sentence seems to fit with the other aspects of his nonsensical personality. However, in later pages, the symbolic meaning of his thought is unpacked --- railways indicate industrial development that amplify hecticness and noise in society. With the development of transportation, human beings are constantly dissatisfied with the place in which they find themselves at any given moment. The gasping search for happiness distances people from the “only true happiness,” which would be spiritual peace and consciousness. As in Tolstoj’s “Anna Karenina,” the Epicurean understanding of happiness as the product of a complete withdrawal from society reemerges, but this time it is entrenched in the modern infiltration of capitalism (the base) that penetrates collective and individual values and habits (the superstructure). These are the capitalistic ruins that would hypothetically kill Christ upon his resurrection: schizophrenic modernity filled with spiritual taboos and greedy egoism. Forty-four years after Lebedev was written into “The Idiot,” Charles Peguy also denounced the subordination of all “spiritual powers” to a single material one: money. However, Dostoevsky crafts the eccentric drunkard’s personality to offer a metacritique that warns us to be skeptical of modernity’s enemies. In fact, despite having identified modernity’s flaws, Lebedev falls into them more than anybody else, freeing himself, thanks to self-deception, of any moral compass. The conclusion seems to be, once again, of a pessimistic nature, suggesting that immunity to the economy’s moral backlashes does not exist and that, instead, one can merely choose whether to adapt consciously or unconsciously to the status quo. Hippolyte and the cruelty of waiting “The Idiot” would sound outrageous to the ears of any past or present conservative. The first part of the book is soaked in a denunciation of the death penalty, which then lingers in later developments of the story. During Prince Myshkin’s first encounter with some members of the Russian bourgeoisie, he firmly condemns the death penalty by affirming that the executioner commits a more serious crime than the murderer. A person sentenced to death has, in fact, a double conviction: not only will she soon disappear, but she is also aware of that in advance. According to the Prince, physical pain cannot compare to the tremendous torment that the waiting and certainty of death entails. One can find this same reasoning in Franz Kafka’s novel “The Trial,” where Joseph K. is suspected of an unknown crime and awaits a trial that never takes place. Eventually he dies after having been deprived of his life for what seemed to be an eternity. In Dostoevsky’s book, the inhumane burden of the wait is embodied by Hippolyte, an 18-year-old boy in the final stage of tuberculosis. He attempts to escape his sentence by accelerating it with a gun, but he fails because of inattention or survival instinct. His desperation is not met by compassion but by disdain and mockery, which highlight the intolerant posture that Russian 19th-century society had towards public manifestations of grief. This is, however, not necessarily relegated to the context in which Dostoevsky was writing. As Elnathan John wrote in “The Africa Report” last March, the intersection of death and sorrow has little public space in the West today, silenced by the numerous taboos surrounding it. The only person who comprehends the complexity of Hyppolite’s sorrow is, of course, the Prince. The latter, by virtue of his inadequate and radical thoughts (concerning capital punishment, for example), manages to reach realms of empathy unimaginable and unwanted to the other characters. In this case, the idiot is bound to suffer inaction: even a man freed from mankind is powerless in front of an inhumane conviction imposed on a human life

Welcome back, fellow eaters! Last month, I promised you exciting traditional recipes that are quick, easy to make and delicious. Today, I shall fulfill my pledge. Let us celebrate Lebanese independence, acquired on Nov. 22, 1943, with two meals prepared straight from my grandma's kitchen, who, like her fellow Arab grandmothers, does not joke when it comes to food! < Back Whipping Up Lebanese Dishes Has Never Been Easier By Angela Saab Saade November 30, 2022 Welcome back, fellow eaters! Last month, I promised you exciting traditional recipes that are quick, easy to make and delicious. Today, I shall fulfill my pledge. Let us celebrate Lebanese independence, acquired on Nov. 22, 1943, with two meals prepared straight from my grandma’s kitchen, who, like her fellow Arab grandmothers, does not joke when it comes to food! Essential kitchen appliances: One medium or large pot Strainer Knife Wooden spoon Cup (for measuring purposes) Ladle (for serving purposes) “Mdardara” مدردرا Also known as mujaddara in other colloquial Arabic dialects, such as Syrian Arabic, “mdardara” has been one of my favorite meals, especially after transferring to a more vegetarian diet. “Mdardara” is a protein-dense plant-based meal that is convenient to prepare, and it involves lots of lentils, one of my favorite ingredients to cook with (after corn, obviously). Ingredients: One cup of lentils Half a cup of rice Two cups of water One big (or two medium-sized) yellow onion Two tablespoons of olive oil Salt Pepper and curcuma (optional) Recipe: Soak the rice and lentils together in water for 10-20 minutes. Meanwhile, chop your onion into cubes. Add a tablespoon of olive oil in the pot and place it on the stove over low-medium heat. Add the chopped onion cubes and occasionally stir for five to ten minutes. The goal is for the low heat to facilitate an onion-sweating process which should render them slightly translucent. Once your onion is ready, strain the rice and lentils and add them to the pot. Put another tablespoon of olive oil in the pot with the onion, rice and lentils and sprinkle some salt, pepper and cumin to taste. Stir all ingredients together, add two cups of water and bring to a boil. Once the water reaches boiling point, reduce the heat to low, and allow everything to cook slowly. Do not cover the pot or stir the ingredients! Check up on your “mdardara” every few minutes. Once the water is absorbed, give it a taste test and either add some water if the lentils and rice are not fully cooked or turn the heat off. “Mdardara” may be consumed on its own — cold or warm, and it may also be served with your choice of salad or “laban,” a fermented dairy product that I am obsessed with. Sadly, it is unavailable in the stores of Menton. For a “laban” alternative, you can use plain kefir or greek yogurt with a dash of olive oil and salt. “Rishta” رشتا Aside from meaning marriage proposals in Urdu and Hindi, “rishta” also refers to my grandma’s favorite childhood meal, which makes it very dear to my heart. I only learned about it recently over the autumn break, which was the perfect timing for me to be able to share it with you! Is that not truly heartwarming? I can certainly feel our beautiful friendship blossoming with every passing Menton Times Issue. A fellow Sciences Piste brought to my attention that “rishta” is similar to a traditional Italian dish — Pasta e lenticchie. Like its antecedent, “rishta” includes a healthy dose of lentils. Ingredients: One cup of lentils One-two cups of spaghetti (I use tagliatelle, but any kind of pasta works) Six cups of water One large (or two medium-sized) yellow onion One large (or two medium-sized) red onion Two cloves of garlic (or more or less, based on preference) Half a lemon or two to three tablespoons of lemon juice Olive oil Salt Pepper and cumin (optional) One bunch of cilantro leaves (optional) Vegetable broth (optional) Recipe Soak the lentils in water for 10-20 minutes Meanwhile, chop your onions into slices and press two cloves of garlic. Add a tablespoon of olive oil to the pot and place it on the stove over low-medium heat. Add the chopped onion cubes and occasionally stir for five to 10 minutes. Allow them to sweat and transform into slices of translucent joy. Once your onion cubes are ready, strain the lentils and add them to the pot. Add another tablespoon of olive oil, and sprinkle some salt, pepper and cumin to taste. Stir all ingredients together, add six cups of water, and keep the temperature high. You may add less water, depending on the end-result texture you want. The less water, the less soup-like the “rishta” will be. You may also add vegetable broth and cilantro leaves for additional flavor. Once the water begins to boil, bring the heat to a low so that everything slowly cooks. Once the lentils are fairly cooked, in about ten-fifteen minutes, break up about a cup or two of spaghetti and put them into the pot. Depending on personal preference and the desired lentil-pasta ratio, more or less spaghetti may be added. You might also have to add more water to cook the pasta if the lentils have already absorbed too much of it. Once the pasta is cooked, turn the heat off. Estimated Price Calculations: Aldi sells five hundred grams of raw lentils for under one and a half euros. This means that a cup of lentils, equivalent to roughly two hundred and fifty grams, costs between half and two-thirds of a euro. Slightly cheaper calculations apply to rice purchased from any of the three big stores, making our rice costs equivalent to about a quarter to half a euro. As for the pasta, the relative quantity used prices under half a euro. The onion(s), olive oil and salt should not amount to more than one and a half to two euros, making each of the aforementioned meals cost under three euros for quantities yielding two to three servings! Fellow eaters, whether my favorite meal or my grandma’s seems more tasteful to you, I hope you give at least one of them a try. It is not common to find traditional Lebanese recipes that do not require long hours of preparation, so I encourage you to seize the opportunity. If any questions or comments should arise in your Lebanese cooking journeys, do not hesitate to contact me or the Google search engine, preferably). Next month, we shall draw inspiration from holiday joy and prepare sweet treats adequate for our seasonal celebrations. Until then, eat up and sahtein !

Feminism does not always require being vocal, an activist, or engaging in mass mobilization. Sometimes resisting is retreating—in the choice to withdraw from cultural pressures knowingly. Dissociative feminism expands the scope of what feminist action can entail. < Back With Prada and Ten Protagonists on to a new self-destruction feminism Lou Hildebrandt March 31, 2025 What do Prada, dissociative feminism and a fictional protagonist using drugs to hibernate for a year have in common? - Novelist Ottessa Moshfegh, who has created literary brilliance with her novels Eileen , My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Lapvona , as well as the short story collection Homesick for Another World . Now, as part of a collaboration with Prada on the brand’s spring-summer 2025 collection campaign, Moshfegh's Ten Protagonists , a collection of short stories, was published in February of the same year. In the short story collection, we see model Carey Mulligan wearing various Prada outfits, each embodying a brief story of one of Moshfegh's heroines. The women give us a glimpse into their professions: a physicist, an interior designer and a corporate translator. Not only their profession, but their lives, too, seem to be diverse, based on what is revealed. Nonetheless, they have something in common: they're all predominantly young, white cis-women who are somewhere on the unlikability spectrum—between counterintuitive and flat-out antiheroine—like Eileen and the narrator of My Year of Rest and Relaxation before them. The Epic of an Antiheroine and Dissociative Feminism The tale of an unlikeable white cis-woman seems to be Ottessa Moshfegh's signature. Her heroines never show any hesitation to disappoint the norms of female protagonists in fiction: they are unsympathetic, disagreeable, occasionally disgusting and driven by their own perverse desires. In Eileen , the main character lives with her drunkard father in a run-down house. Her brooding intellect and peculiar habits—like keeping a dead mouse in the glove compartment of her vehicle or stalking her crush, Randy—are not those of a stereotypical heroine, but rather an antiheroine. The ending is just as dissatisfying, since Rebecca, the one character Eileen looks up to for how organizes she appears to be, turns out to be as unreliable as Eileen. Instead of tackling the challenges of her life, the realization of Rebecca’s irresponsibility gives Eileen the motivation to leave her hometown for good to start all over in New York City. This type of protagonist is featured in My Year of Rest and Relaxation, too. The unnamed narrator attempts to cure her trauma following the death of her parents through radical withdrawal: she locks herself in her apartment in New York for a year, consumes huge amounts of sleeping pills and attempts to erase herself from the world. Her friend, who visits every now and then, is treated with mercilessness and ruthlessness. The protagonist shuts all avenues for empathy; she is completely dissociated. Psychologically, dissociation is the separation of perception and memory, a “ disconnection between a person's sensory experience, thoughts, sense of self, or personal history.” But when women cognitively and emotionally disconnect from their surroundings, it's a survival mechanism. The famous Buzzfeed article by Emmeline Clein, The Smartest Women I Know Are All Dissociating , describes that this gendered dissociation of “women using intellectual detachment to dull pain or avoid emotion isn’t at all a new phenomenon.” Therefore, discussion about feminism and dissociation requires acknowledgement of the specificity of women’s mental health issues. Hence, a construct such as dissociative feminism carries intrinsic solidarity—a mutual knowledge of women's gendered experience of mental health issues. It is an acknowledgment that, instead of meeting expectations pushed upon them, women create coping mechanisms of their own. Re-shaping one’s own suffering and re-narrating it as a feminist tragedy can be regarded as the claiming of agency by a person who lives under patriarchal oppression. The historical and oppressive tale of “female hysteria” is re-appropriated: rather than women being victims of whatever diagnosis, they appropriate dissociation as an act of resistance. They use it as protection against the difficulties of patriarchal life—to endure terrible sex, to filter out toxic men, to avoid the squeeze of productivity. Dissociative feminism also exceeds nihilism and is critical of capitalism. In Moshfegh's novel, My Year of Rest and Relaxation , when the protagonist locks herself up in her apartment for a year, she also evades capitalist exploitation logic. She takes medication to detox herself from work and social life. The book is thus the very definition of dissociative feminism, with a clear emphasis on dissociation. It is not a mere individual retreat but a feminist statement. A Defense of Dissociative Feminism Dissociation isn't apathy; it's a survival mechanism. Women are not dissociating because they ignore patriarchal violence, but because they have to disconnect from it. Active withdrawal is resistance—a safety mechanism against the constant demands of the expectations of society. Identifying dissociative feminism as neoliberal feminism, as many critics have done, disregards its significantly different stance. While neoliberal feminism would call women to adapt to the system, maybe even to embrace a “girl boss mentality” in the face of patriarchal and capitalist injustice, dissociative feminism rejects this entirely. Denial of being productive or emotionally available is a rejection of the capitalist requirement to constantly improve oneself, a resistant non-adherence to the patriarchal view of women as carers and nurturers. Feminism does not always require being vocal, an activist, or engaging in mass mobilization. Sometimes resisting is retreating—in the choice to withdraw from cultural pressures knowingly. Dissociative feminism expands the scope of what feminist action can entail. The same counts for the tale of anti-heroines. Women like Eileen, whose greatest joy is indulging in explosive diarrhea, reject traditional notions of femininity. The way her quirks are shown and how she acts, along with her dark fantasies, is a resistance or defiance of the restrictions that come along with gender-based oppression and the ideology of femininity. Her Ten Protagonists are Ten True Girl Bosses As previously mentioned, the ten protagonists in the eponymous short story collection are as detached from the outer world as in all of Moshfegh’s tales. Interior architect Betty, for instance, recounts how she does not like the collection of things; she says: “It’s important for me to be detached, my hands as clean as a surgeon’s.” Puppeteer Tabitha, who drops out of college after a great realization, which she gets from a fever, says that what makes us human is our inconsistencies. Scientist Tara’s greatest aim is to prove that basic laws of physics and biology are not true, with an eagerness that apparently results in her losing her funding from the university where she is employed. It is unclear whether Tara’s keenness stems from a concern for the planet or plain hatred for humanity itself. he describes her vision as “a world of microbial calm, where the cacophony of human progress is finally silenced.” Some stories entail the narration of dissociation to a greater extent than others. One of the most profound dissociations can be found in Victoria/Veronica —a short story that almost seems like a schizophrenic new interpretation of the classical doppelgänger-motif. This ambiguity is already emphasized with the title and, whilst those are technically two protagonists, we have nine other short stories with protagonists. Since the title of the short story collection tells us that there are only ten protagonists in the book, Moshfegh makes those seemingly two protagonists count only as one. Similarly, it seems to be an element unique to this story, as there have been other short stories where there was a very important secondary character, but without a similar reference in the title. An instance is Cecily , which deals with two actresses, Cecily and Amelia. Amelia is significant for this story, like Victoria is for Veronica’s, yet the story is not named “Cecily/Amelia” but only “Cecily.” This insinuation, that we might be dealing with one person instead of two, is further exemplified by the fact that not once is it mentioned whether the speaker is Victoria or Veronica. The impression that it might, in reality, be only one schizophrenic woman arises through the increasingly sickly appearance of “the sister,” especially in the moments where the narrator does unusual things like sleeping on the ground or in lines like: “Whereas it used to feel easy, now my breathing feels labored. Harder, as if I’m breathing for two sets of lungs.” Another striking line is: “It’s like there’s only one of us.”. “I’m the real me, and you’re the part that watches.” Given that all the protagonist ever does revolves around “the sister,” this makes us question: Could it be that she is hallucinating her into existence? There is not one single activity pursued by the speaker that suggests she has a life separate from her ‘sister.’ On to a New Self-Destruction Feminism So far in the short story collection, we have seen women who are detached, disagreeable and dealing with their mental health problems. However, stories like Rachel give us the impression that with Prada and Moshfegh, we leave dissociation behind and are moving to a new form of self-destruction feminism— the protagonist, Rachel, dissociates and is unreliable to the point of almost driving her lover and herself off a cliff. The story starts off with an “enchanted evening,” in which Rachel spends time with her partner Freddie for the first time. They are in a car and are driving through the most romantic and beautiful scenery imaginable. Then, the scene is interrupted by Rachel almost driving them off a cliff. This was not merely an accident, as is revealed by the lines: “Later it scared me because I thought I had done it on purpose. Because I’d had the thought: I’m happy. Because sometimes just the thought of that is enough to cut you loose.” However, throughout the story, it crystallizes that this was not an instantaneous thought or, even less so, suicidal ideation. To her core, Rachel believes that people should experience situations where they are not safe: “I believe that everyone should, at some point in their lives, get stranded. Or at least get lost. Go missing.” Self-destruction has been a long-standing trope for male geniuses, from literary figures such as Hemingway to musicians such as Kurt Cobain and artists such as van Gogh. Their own destruction is mythologized, keeping the notion of a tortured genius alive. For women, however, the story has been the contrary—writers such as Sylvia Plath have been either fetishized or pathologized just as much as they have been for their mental illness. It took a long time until her art was acknowledged in a similar manner and even today it is questionable whether she is seen predominantly as ‘a mentally ill woman’ or a professional writer. As Heather Clark, in her introduction to Sylvia Plath, explained , people cannot accept women as professional writers as they do for their male counterparts. A reclaiming of self-destruction can therefore be a kind of resistance. This is not to say that everybody should destroy themselves, but when life does, one should not hesitate to use that as a creative source. Rather than constantly urging women to “get through it,” a self-destruction feminism could encourage a form of radical solidarity—one that would understand failure, resignation and breakdown as common experience rather than individual failure. Instead of trying to pathologize or individualize self-destruction, it could acknowledge it as a legitimate response to an unbearable world and create a space where women do not have to be strong but can merely be. Photo source: Wikimedia

Upon arrival in Menton, I enjoyed the scorchingly hot summer weather and the sunshine that the Côte d’Azur is renowned for. As the seasons changed, though, I found myself disappointed by the lack of “gold and saffron and red” leaves, pumpkins and the other autumnal accouterments that I become accustomed to back home. < Back Once Again, the Palestinian Story at Risk of Being Silenced: Netflix’s Farha By Ghazal Khalife December 31, 2022 Rarely is there a movie about Palestine that does not receive political backlash. The Israeli state has been trying to dominate the country’s narrative since the Nakba, especially in the Western world. The Israeli perspective on the Palestinian conflict has often been singled out as the true one. While many question the state’s ongoing aggression (nowhere near as loudly), they rarely question its legitimacy and origins. This is where the movie Farha comes in, using the perspective of a 14-year-old girl to describe the horrors of the Nakba and the atrocities committed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Farha is a movie based on actual events set in a small Palestinian village before the Nakba. Nakba in Arabic translates to “catastrophe,” and no film has been able to exude such a strong connotation of the word disaster. The movie shocks us through its raw illustration of the trauma faced by Palestinians as their villages were destroyed, their families killed, and their lives upturned completely. The film is written and directed by Darin J. Sallam, a Jordanian award-winning director and writer who chose to spotlight Palestinian suffering through the perspective of a young girl seeing her dreams crushed and witnessing the destruction of her people. In this film, we witness the upheaval created by the battles for Israel’s creation; the director transports us from an ambiance of hope with a looming danger to that of absolute tragedy, and since we know how history plays out, we already dismiss the prospect of a happy ending. Sallam enriches the film with the symbolism of a fig tree, gold earrings, and, most importantly, a school registration paper. It makes us ache for what could have been: what Farha’s future could have been and, on a grander scale, what Palestine could have been. It overcomes any filters and showcases the sheer violence, and utter dehumanization of the other as the IDF soldiers raid villages, burning all that stands in their way. Hence, it was predictable that when a film like this was streamed on Netflix, it was received with strong condemnation from the Israeli state. For Israel, this film threatens its legitimacy and version of history and dismantles the power of having a single story. As a result, the film has been subject to immense criticism, manifested as calls to ban it and boycott its streaming network. “The dangers of A single story” To explain why Farha has been met with such hostility and why some have called on Netflix users to cancel their subscriptions, I will use a quote by the novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: “Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity… When we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.” To establish one’s story in stone, it is sometimes necessary to neglect or silence alternative ones. Farha being streamed on a global platform risks deconstructing the story propped up by the Israeli state for so long. For the first time, a marginalized narrative reaches: the trauma of a people often misunderstood and misrepresented. The film’s subject matter can be compared to other stories of oppression — many have compared Farha to Anne Frank, with both little girls witnessing extreme and life-altering aggression. A popular Israeli influencer rushed to denounce the movie, calling it “blatantly anti-semitic” and a distortion of history. These claims have no ground in reality, but all they do is serve the Israeli narrative, preventing people, most importantly Israelis themselves, from breaking the barriers of the single story and approaching the other side. Boycotting the movie is boycotting the other, limiting them to a box of prejudice and stereotyping. One might disagree with the film’s brutalist portrayal of IDF soldiers, but it remains crucial to allow it a chance to remain willing to hear another perspective, one of pain. It is impossible to deny that the 1948 Nakba was a time when massive breaches of human rights were committed, where people refused to listen to one another, where one nation was annihilated for the other to survive .

As a Muslim living in France, it has been difficult facing the day to day reality of an extremely charged and hostile political discourse that targets my community. This election has chosen our community as the scapegoat, and while the elites run free from their corruption scandals and the cost of living crisis slaps the most underprivileged communities hardest in the face. Here we are debating my mother’s right to wear a scarf over her head. < Back It’s a Good Day to Fight the System: Students Protest Zemmour By Ismaeel Yaqoob March 30, 2022 ‘’It’s a good day / To fight the system,’’ the famous lyrics by Shungudzo blared out as we stood together, on the Franco-Italian border, in solidarity with the everyday mistreatment of refugees in this exact place. We stood in solidarity with the women, the Muslims, the Jewish people, the disabled, and every minority that Zemmour has targeted in his bigoted campaign for presidency. Sciences Po Menton students did not disappoint, responding avidly to our call out, by in two days, mobilizing a coalition of students, local residents, trade unionists and activists from Italy through Nice. The crowd was a diverse tapestry of people from all around the world, all political colors, races, and languages coming out to reject the visit of Zemmour in Menton. There was something powerful about the moment where hundreds shouted towards the border police that formed a wall between us and Zemmour who was interviewing officers at the frontier post, “Solidarité avec les réfugiés.” We demonstrated that we were not turning a blind eye to the humanitarian crisis at this border and view justice as the right of passage for refugees. Our chants echoed through the town of Menton that day, from “Riviera Antifa,” to “On est tous contre le racisme,” to “solidarité avec les sans-papiers.” Music blared from campus anthems like “C’est la vie” to the Zemmour remix of “Ne reviens pas” to Stormzy’s “Shut Up” to “Boushret Keir.” We brought an energy that older activists told me they had never seen in Menton. They thanked us for giving them hope that the university was producing conscious students with initiative, energy, and drive. As a Muslim living in France, it has been difficult facing the day to day reality of an extremely charged and hostile political discourse that targets my community. This election has chosen our community as the scapegoat, and while the elites run free from their corruption scandals and the cost of living crisis slaps the most underprivileged communities hardest in the face. Here we are debating my mother’s right to wear a scarf over her head. The reality of Eric Zemmour’s discourse is not polemic or controversialWith his plans to force Muslims in France to change their names to something more “french-sounding,” his essentialist view on gender roles, and criticisms of so-called LGBT propaganda, it is outright fascism. Let’s not forget that he has also been convicted twice now on charges of provocation of racial hatred for his numerous discriminatory comments against Muslims. He has also sought to rewrite history, talking up part of France’s collaboration with the Nazis under Petain. This rhetoric is setting France back generations on the progress it has made at the political and legal level when it comes to discrimination and minority rights. A day before the protest we hosted a sign making session, in which students demonstrated their solidarity and disgust at the candidate’s visit with phrases such as “Zemmour rentre chez toi;” “On est tous les enfant d'immigrés;” “Solidarité avec les femmes du monde entier;” “les jeunes contre fascisme;” “LGBTQI fièrement contre Zemmour” “Plus d’amour, pas Zemmour.” The colors, creativity, and designing skills were all a perfect demonstration of the artistic flair and talent within our student body, that was truly activated in this beautiful show of solidarity with all marginalized groups. The truth is that Menton is a beautiful place, where some very ugly things happen. Menton is a town where the streets are perfect and the sun is always shining, but just a few kilometers away, a humanitarian crisis is taking place with daily police violence at the border. It is often easy to turn a blind eye to these things —that is the nature of these operations. They exist, so we do not see anything. This time our small town where the far-right typically flourishes sent a clear message that there is no place for fascists here. Eric Zemmour spends his days running a campaign that targets any and every minority that exists. We marched in solidarity with refugees, Muslims, women, Jews, the LGBT community, immigrants, people of color, and all other minorities to say that we will not let his presence be normalized. We will fight against his politics of hate. We shouted for solidarity with refugees, we shouted to condemn racism and misogyny, we shouted for our community from all around the world. We have taken up space, been loud and unapologetic in our sleepy university town, uniting locals and the international student body alike in a beautiful display of hope, peace and love that we can be very proud of.

Cannes is for the living, Monaco for the playing, and Menton for the dying < Back Ghosts of Menton By Saoirse Aherne October 30, 2021 Beyond the colourful facades of Menton’s old town lies a morbidly fascinating history. Transport yourself back to the 19th century, when the cobblestone streets of Menton were filled with the sound of coughing — perhaps not an unfamiliar scene. However, the hacking and spluttering in the 1860s was not caused by a wave of integrationitis ripping through SciencesPistes. Instead, the cheerful Riviera town we now call home was a fashionable winter resort frequented by aristocrats — many of whom suffered from tuberculosis. If you have ever sworn that Mentonese air is special, you might be onto something. Doctors from the 19th century certainly thought so, most notably James Henry Bennet. We can thank this Briton for putting Menton on the map by recommending it to his tuberculosis-afflicted patients. Bennet believed Menton’s temperate winters and warm dry climate could help to cure tuberculosis. He travelled first to Menton in 1859 after contracting the disease, seeking “to die in a quiet place.” Instead, Bennet experienced a miraculous improvement in his health. He subsequently started a medical practice in Menton, though he would return to Britain during the summers to see patients. Bennet published a number of books in the 1860s and 1870s exploring the role of climate in the treatment of pulmonary diseases, heralding Menton for its rejuvenating weather. By 1882, even Queen Victoria herself had caught Menton fever. In search of a cure for her sickly son Leopold, the monarch spent two months here. Although Leopold did not survive, Menton’s legacy prevailed and by the turn of the century, this little commune was saturated with ailing aristocrats from Britain, Germany, and Russia. Menton came to be known amongst Britons as a town “for the dying”: its beauty and charm drew in famous folks looking for a place to spend their final years, while its reputation for restoring health made it desirable to the sickly. To this day, spirits continue to roam the streets of Menton, and are especially noticeable at this time of year. So let us embark on an exploration of our most interesting local ghosts, their lives, their deaths, and their legacies... William Webb Ellis (1806-1872) Perhaps the most famous of Menton’s deceased, William Webb Ellis grew up in the town of Rugby, England. In 1823, during a game of soccer, Ellis picked up the ball in his hands and ran with it. This bold violation of traditional soccer rules sparked the development of “rugby” style play. Ellis has since been recognized as the inventor of rugby. In 1987, the International Rugby Board decided to honor Ellis by engraving his name into the Rugby World Cup. Ellis went on to become a pastor and then a minister in London. At some point towards the end of his life, Ellis moved to Menton, though it is unclear whether this was due to illness. He died on the 24th of January in 1872 and was buried in le Cimetière du Vieux Château. Next time the ball drifts in an unexpected way during a Mentonese game of rugby, don't be so quick to blame the wind. It just might be the spirit of William Webb Ellis, trying once again to partake in the sport he created. Pyotr Petrovich Troubetzkoy (1822-1892) This former aide-de-camp to the Tzar was a Russian diplomat, administrator and general. His first marriage was to Princess Varvara Yourievna Trubetskoy who was also, coincidentally, his cousin. However, in 1865, he went to Florence on a diplomatic mission and met Ada Winans, an American opera singer. He promptly divorced Yourievna and moved to Ghiffa, Italy with Winans. After a financial disaster owing to the Panama Canal crisis, Troubetzkoy was forced to sell his villa in Ghiffa and relocate to Menton. His love for botany drew him to Menton’s temperate climate and diverse flora. He died here in 1892 and is buried in le Cimetière du Vieux Château. His resting place is hard to miss; it is an ornate Russian orthodox funeral chapel overlooking the city. Some swear that if you venture to the cemetery late at night, you might catch a glimpse of a wispy form, draped in the tattered remains of an Imperial Russian diplomatic uniform. And if you listen very carefully, you might even hear a quiet operatic tune drifting through the tombstones. Though we may never know for certain, perhaps it is the voice of Ada Winans, serenading her husband in death just as she did in life... Ivan Grigorovich (1853-1930) Everyone’s favorite Russian naval minister is indeed a former resident of Menton! Serving from 1911 to 1917, Grigorovich established himself as a competent leader during the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05, where he served as commander of the besieged Port Arthur. Following this military defeat, Grigorovich set about expanding and reforming Russia’s navy, leading to his appointment as naval minister in 1911. He maintained healthy relations with naval interests in the Duma and remained popular with Tsar Nicholas II. However, the February Revolution brought about naval unrest, and Grigorovich was dismissed from office in 1917. Grigorovich suffered from frequent bouts of pneumonia and requested to seek medical treatment abroad. In 1923, he was granted permission to leave Russia and seek exile in France, where he lived in relative poverty and made a living by selling his oil paintings. When Grigorovich died in 1930, he was buried in le Cimetière du Vieux Château in Menton. Anatoly Lunacharsky (1875-1933) This Marxist revolutionary was the first Soviet people’s commissar for education. He was also a playwright, critic and journalist. Lunacharsky’s brilliant skills as an orator and position as editor of the first Bolshevik newspaper Vpered solidified his position as one of Lenin’s most active collaborators. He played an important role in persuading the industrial workers of Petrograd to support the October revolution. As commissar for education, Lunacharsky was able to preserve many historic buildings and artwork from destruction over the course of the Russian Civil War. He also introduced a system for subsidizing the arts and attempted to reform the Russian education system. Lunacharsky was responsible for the Soviet Government’s campaign against adult illiteracy, and by the time he left office, virtually zero percent of the adult population in Russia was illiterate. In 1930, he represented the Soviet Union at the league of Nations in Geneva. In 1933, he was appointed Soviet ambassador of Spain. En route to Spain, Lunacharsky stopped in Menton, but he never managed to leave... On the 26th of December, 1933, Lunacharsky died, failing to ever officially take up the post of Ambassador to Spain. Once again, the anecdote of British aristocrats rings true, Menton really is “for the dying.” Lunacharsky’s name was erased from Soviet history and his memoirs were banned during the Great Purge, however his legacy underwent a revival in the 1950s and 1960s. During this time, Lunacharsky came to be viewed as an educated and tolerant Soviet politician. Today, Lunacharsky has had many institutions and even an Asteroid named in his honor. William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) The cherry on top of this morbid milieu: old W.B., one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. Born in Sandymount Ireland, this wonderful wordsmith developed a fascination for Irish legends and the occult as a child. These themes certainly translated to his poems, which were frequently based on Irish folklore and ballads. His later work explored the cycles of life, death, prophecy, and history. In spite of his Anglo-Protestant roots, our man of the hour Mr. Yeats was a fervent Irish nationalist and one of the first senators of the Irish Free State in 1922. One year later, Yeats received a Nobel Prize in literature “for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation.” Yeats retired from the Irish senate in 1928 due to illness, but regained vigor in 1934 following a Steinach operation. He lived out his golden years engaging in relationships with much younger women (classic), and in 1936 he travelled to Majorca with Shri Purohit Swami where the two worked to translate the Principal Upanishad from Sanskrit to English. Yeats spent his last two winters in Menton, attempting to escape the cold which aggravated his heart condition. Yeats died at the Hotel Ideal Séjour in Menton on January 28, 1939, and was buried in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. In 1948, his body was dug up and returned to Ireland… or maybe it wasn’t. There is quite a bit of controversy over exactly whose remains were returned to Ireland. You see, Yeats’ body was initially buried in a communal grave in Roquebrune, and though a forensic doctor reconstituted a skeleton presenting all of the characteristics of dear William, it is quite likely that bits and pieces of this beloved poet may still be hanging around the Riviera. Indeed, Bernard Cailloux, the French diplomat tasked with returning Yeats to Ireland stated that it was “impossible to return [his] full and authentic remains.” So if you notice a dark haired bespeckled man wandering along Rue Longue and reciting prose this October 31, it might just be the ghost of Ireland’s pride and joy: William Butler Yeats.

As everyone returned from a long vacation looking forward to starting the new year, students were apprehensive about the 18-hour-long intensive course named “Ecological Literacy.” < Back Are We Desensitized to the Environmental Crisis? By Ghazal Khalife March 31, 2023 As everyone returned from a long vacation looking forward to starting the new year, students were apprehensive about the 18-hour-long intensive course named “Ecological Literacy.” The Sciences Po Menton administration sent an email containing three required readings for this course, each explaining a different angle of the environmental crisis — from the associated inequalities, to the economic challenges posed by it, to its devastating repercussions on our survival. A common attitude towards the course was that of nonchalance, not towards the question of climate change itself, but rather regarding the need to study such a widely explored and “redundant” topic. As a student who insisted on attending each one of these long — at times triggering — lectures claimed “I have noticed that perhaps this course links to a greater overarching theme — desensitization towards the climate crisis as a whole. Maybe we know the facts and we know the repercussions but just cannot bring ourselves to do anything about it.” The course’s main professor, Nathan Marom, was able to harness students’ interest, especially impressive considering the long hours of class in the early morning. Students posed questions, interacted with the teacher and shared their own opinions on factors that exacerbated this existential problem. The class followed a thematic structure alternating from a purely scientific approach to a historical account of the environmentalist movement and, finally, an overview of the economic and hence political undertones of the fight against climate change. These approaches highlighted the multidimensionality of this issue. Among the debates in class that caused the most controversy is the idea around the individual’s role in combating climate change as opposed to government and industry agents. What all students shared, however, was a strong opinion on the crisis, either strongly in favor of radical, systemic changes or in favor of free-market reforms. Everyone knows about the environment’s problems, to differing extents, but not everyone shares the same passionate engagement. In my opinion, the course itself did not introduce any powerful revelations. As Sciences Po students, we have more than likely been exposed to the urgency of climate change and the various economic and political policies aimed at tackling climate change. Nonetheless, the courses serve as a reminder — especially to those of us prioritizing political goals and economic growth — that beyond all the immediate dangers of diplomatic conflict, power imbalances and economic competition are the imminent dangers of global warming, pollution and the depletion of natural resources. Domino Morris, a former environmental sciences International Baccalaureate student, pointed out that the course was interesting and largely coherent in the way it presented the topic. The need behind taking this course and the general attitude towards it coincide as telltale signs of general desensitization towards this pressing topic. Whether on social media or TV, outlets are saturated with content on the crisis. For the average citizen, this could cause a monetary shock or sense of disappointment but not necessarily an impetus for change.

Pour préserver le pacte républicain dont la liberté est un des trois principes, il n’y a aucune difficulté à rejeter les diverses phraséologies que nous avons dénoncées. La liberté d’expression n’est pas un prétexte suffisant pour s’y opposer, au contraire, notre liberté d’expression n’est que la conséquence et l’outil du projet républicain qui va à l’encontre de tout ce que l’extrême-droite promeut. < Back Des tabous sont-ils nécessaires en politique ? Lubin Parisien October 31, 2024 Le 20 septembre, le corps de Philippine est retrouvé au bois de Boulogne. Thomas a été tué à Crépol en 2023. Lola est assassinée en 2022 dans des conditions abominables. Ces trois faits divers ont défrayé la chronique avant d’être oubliés. Ce qui a retenu l’attention d’une certaine presse et de politiques, ce n’est pas l’horreur que constitue l’assassinat d’enfants ou d’adolescents, mais un point précis du profil des accusés: des immigrés sous OQTF (obligation de quitter le territoire français). En quoi cette dernière information nous renseigne-t-elle sur la nature des affaires évoquées plus tôt? Cela ne nous éclaire en rien. En réalité, ces affaires cristallisent autre chose, une angoisse qui semble généralisée sur l’immigration. Ces discours suscitent une montée des violences de groupes ethno-nationalistes et de la violence verbale des politiques dans les médias. Au vu de la division du pays, il apparaît nécessaire de réfléchir collectivement aux bornes à imposer à la parole politique afin de préserver le vivre-ensemble. Des tabous bien présents en politique Pouvons-nous tout dire en politique? A l’évidence non: on ne peut pas nier l’existence de la Shoah—c’est la loi Gayssot de 1990. On ne peut pas inciter à la haine ni faire l’apologie du terrorisme, opérer des discriminations ou encore nier la Shoah. Contrevenir à ces lois ne fait pas qu’attirer les foudres de la justice mais aussi une vive réprobation, même si cela semble de moins en moins vrai. La négation de la Shoah est ainsi un tabou et heureusement. Robert Faurisson a de cette manière été lourdement dénoncé par Robert Badinter, qui incarnait le défenseur de la vérité historique et d’une certaine conception du pays, lors du procès qui lui a été intenté pour diffamation. Le négationnisme ou l’apologie du terrorisme font donc l’objet d’un tabou très fort. On associe souvent le terme de tabou à des pratiques moyenâgeuses et enfiévrées de mysticisme: en réalité un tabou est simplement l’interdiction dont est frappé une pratique ou un discours contrevenant aux normes ou aux valeurs communes. De fait, l’interdiction de la tenue de propos révisionnistes permet d’interdire les discours antisémites sous couvert de fausses controverses historiques. La liberté d’expression n’est pas absolue, on place au-dessus la nécessité de garantir l’effectivité de la devise républicaine pour l’ensemble de la population. Néanmoins, des discours qui excluent des parties entières de la population du pacte républicain sont tenus et semblent passer entre les mailles du filet. Le constat: des discours qui excluent Il nous faut d’abord voir comment une certaine phraséologie fracture le tissu social et l’unité du pays. C’est à partir de ce premier constat que l’on doit réfléchir à l’état actuel des débats politiques et aux éventuels rééquilibrages. Marine Le Pen déclarait le 21 novembre 2023 à Valeurs actuelles au sujet du meurtre de Thomas à Crépol qu’on « assiste à une attaque organisée, émanant d’un certain nombre de banlieues criminogènes dans lesquelles se trouvent des “milices” armées qui opèrent des razzias. » Il est nécessaire de décortiquer cette phrase pour comprendre les sous-entendus. Est criminogène ce « qui produit ou favorise la propagation du crime, des délits; qui donne naissance à la criminalité . » Pourquoi Mme Le Pen qualifie-t-elle les banlieues de criminogènes? Quelles caractéristiques ont les banlieues dans les discours du RN (Rassemblement National) de Marine Le Pen qui expliqueraient la qualité criminogène de ces banlieues? Parle-t-elle souvent des questions urbanistiques liées aux banlieues françaises? Quel critère commun réunit les banlieues des villes françaises dont elle parle dans l’ensemble de ses discours? C’est de l’immigration, en particulier une immigration extra-européenne et musulmane, dont parle couramment Marine Le Pen et ses alliés quand il s’agit de dénoncer les maux dont sont affectées les banlieues. Ainsi, analysons les « milices armées » qui auraient lancé contre Thomas à Crépol une « attaque organisée. » Il y a derrière une idée d’organisation qui permet de décrire ces mêmes banlieues assez fantomatiquement définies comme dotées de communautés propres, indépendantes et séparées: Marine Le Pen entérine là une supposée frontière entre les banlieues et le reste la France, sachant qu’elle associe aux premières une population immigrée. Nous avons là un faisceau d’indices que nous pouvons encore étoffer, et qui, accompagné de la connaissance du contexte idéologique dans lequel s’exprime Mme Le Pen, montre une volonté d’entériner la marginalisation—si ce n’est l’exclusion—de certains territoires et de certaines populations de la République. Ces discours, associant immigration et délinquance, islam et séparatisme, excluent une partie importante de la population en remettant en cause et en posant la question de leur volonté de faire nation ou de vivre en paix, et ce à cause de déterminants identitaires supposés qui leur seraient propres: l’islam et leurs origines. Faisons ensuite un second constat: ce genre de propos inquiète. Ils inquiètent notamment les immigrés, qu’ils soient français ou non, qu’ils soient sur le territoire de façon régulière ou non—avec dans ce dernier cas une grande diversité de situations, de la pure clandestinité au blocage administratif. Par exemple, le journal local L’Union a recueilli le témoignage d’Eliane , arrivée de Guinée en 2014. Son titre de séjour n’est pas renouvelé en 2023 alors qu’elle a trouvé un emploi stable, sa demande de naturalisation s’est perdue dans les oubliettes de la préfecture de la Marne: avec les législatives de 2024, « elle craint que l’étau ne se resserre par pure idéologie. [...]. “Je ne regarde pas trop la télévision parce que c’est l’heure où je rentre ou bien je m’occupe des enfants. Ils m’ont demandé si on allait devoir partir.” » Citons encore le témoignage d’Aliy (son prénom a été modifié): « L’année dernière, il [...] devait supporter un patron pro-Zemmour. “Quand son fils venait, il ne nous parlait pas, à nous les Noirs. Il ne nous regardait même pas”. » Les discours d’un parti comme le RN et de toute une galaxie d’extrême-droite ne sont pas de simples projets débatables sur la politique du pays, ce sont des discours qui remettent en question l’intégration de millions de personnes. Ces dernières n’ont plus—ou n’ont jamais eu—le sentiment d’appartenir à la même société à égalité avec le reste des habitants et citoyens. Ces discours heurtent, ils nous incitent à nous demander si notre pays est bien capable d’accepter des minorités comme les personnes racisées. A ce titre, la possibilité de porter de telles idées doit faire l’objet d’un débat clair car il s’agit de savoir quel commun nous voulons construire. La préservation d’une liberté d’expression Pour défendre la possibilité de prononcer des discours qui excluent et archipélisent la société, on invoque souvent la liberté d’expression, droit fondamental inhérent à chaque individu. L’article 11 de la Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du citoyen énonce: « tout citoyen peut donc parler, écrire, imprimer librement, sauf à répondre de l'abus de cette liberté dans les cas déterminés par la loi. » Tout le malice réside dans la notion d’« abus ». Remarquons cette chose sans doute banale: la liberté d’expression n’est pas absolue et sans bornes, nous l’avons déjà montré au sujet de la loi Gayssot contre la négation de la Shoah. La régulation de l’expression politique ou même de l’expression tout court quand elle a un impact politique est une vieille idée. Dans La République , Platon consacre des passages entiers à analyser des vers d’Homère afin d’expliquer pourquoi ceux-ci doivent être bannis de la cité cherchant à guérir des maux de l’injustice pour assainir les réflexions des gardiens de la cité. Il considère même que les poètes promouvant l’affadissement de l'esprit des gardiens de la cité et l’excès doivent être chassés. Platon a à peu près 2400 ans, il convient de hausser les sourcils sur ses préconisations. Néanmoins, abstraction faite du projet politique concret du philosophe, cela fait plus de 2400 ans que nous savons que les discours politiques prononcés dans la cité modèlent notre façon de penser et de percevoir. La maîtrise de la parole est un enjeu majeur identifié par Platon et par toutes les monarchies, dictatures et démocraties pour se maintenir en plus de deux millénaires. Cependant, il est vrai que la liberté, notamment celle d’expression, est souvent associée à un étrange relativisme qui consiste à dire que toutes les opinions se valent, qu’on peut tout dire. Il nous faut réfuter ces réflexions communes: tout projet politique—la République par exemple—porte un idéal absolu et non négociable. La liberté, l’égalité et la fraternité sont cet idéal en France, et nombreuses sont les interprétations possibles pour sa mise en application, c’est pourquoi il faut laisser un large pluralisme politique pour enrichir ces valeurs. Nous avons parlé des limites à la liberté d’expression, mais les contraintes à cette limitation sont les mêmes: la perpétuation de la liberté et le respect de l’égalité. Il ne faut pas de censure comme les dictatures savent en faire, il faut bien au contraire que les tabous à observer dans notre société fassent l’objet d’une réflexion collective éclairée. Si la liberté d’expression n’est pas une fin en soi, c’est un instrument indispensable. Une repolitisation de nos tabous? Aujourd’hui, après la décolonisation et les progrès permis par l’accroissement de la tolérance, il convient de ne pas utiliser des mots comme « négre » ou « bougnoul » car il s’agit désormais de termes qui renvoient à une mémoire douloureuse et à un présent qui doit toujours se défaire des griffes du fait colonial. Ces mots font l’objet de tabous tels qu’on n’ose pas les prononcer, remplacés par exemple par l’expression « n-word ». L’opprobre dont sont objets ces mots montrent que la société n’est plus encline à voir les manifestations éclatantes du racisme et de l’exclusion. Néanmoins, des discours comme celui de Marine Le Pen que nous n’avons que brièvement décortiqués sont publiés et presque normalisés. Nos tabous ne semblent pas être le fruit d’une réflexion collective aboutie. En ce sens, on peut proposer une repolitisation de nos tabous. Il ne faut pas éviter le mot « négre » car c’est inconvenant ou désagréable, mais parce que l’usage courant de ce terme perpétue des structures de domination blanche héritée de la colonisation. Il faut proscrire les discours racistes et dédaigneux de l’extrême-droite car ils vont à l’encontre de notre projet politique commun: faire nation. Ernest Renan, dans Qu’est-ce qu’une nation en 1882, écrit qu’une nation a deux facettes: « l’une est la possession en commun d’un riche legs de souvenirs; l’autre est le consentement actuel, le désir de vivre ensemble. » Lorsqu’un discours remet en cause l’appartenance ou la volonté d’appartenance d’une partie de la population, il sape méthodiquement la base de toute nation: la volonté commune de faire corps. En France, cette volonté s’incarne dans la devise républicaine. On peut céder à la grandiloquence en disant que pour défendre la nation, il faut faire taire le poison de la division. Par division, on n’entend pas les nécessaires désaccords sur les politiques à adopter, mais au contraire l’éclatement même de la nation. Et c’est bien là la conséquence des propos d’une Marine Le Pen. Le doute est instillé quant à l’inclusivité de la nation, car les immigrés, les personnes racisées, etc. se sentent et se savent exclus du pacte républicain. Pourtant, la tolérance s’accroît dans la société même si les résultats électoraux ne le marquent pas . Il faut sortir de ces situations mortifères, il faut stopper le poison avant qu’il puisse être proféré. Pour préserver le pacte républicain dont la liberté est un des trois principes, il n’y a aucune difficulté à rejeter les diverses phraséologies que nous avons dénoncées. La liberté d’expression n’est pas un prétexte suffisant pour s’y opposer, au contraire, notre liberté d’expression n’est que la conséquence et l’outil du projet républicain qui va à l’encontre de tout ce que l’extrême-droite promeut. Ces tabous doivent être investis de la force de la loi, à terme il n’y a pas à avoir de gêne à combattre structurellement les idées du RN, de Reconquête, de l’Action française et notamment la préférence nationale. La question aujourd’hui doit être de savoir comment procéder. Un fait apparaît désormais clairement: des tabous sont nécessaires en politique car ils protègent ce qui permet la politique: la volonté de vivre ensemble.

‘’We must experience everything. Not just the good, but degradation, horror, sadness. This makes us whole, Bella. It makes us people of substance. Not flighty, untouched children. Then we can know the world. And when we know the world, the world is ours.’’ < Back Poor Things By Francesca di Muro February 29, 2024 ‘’We must experience everything. Not just the good, but degradation, horror, sadness. This makes us whole, Bella. It makes us people of substance. Not flighty, untouched children. Then we can know the world. And when we know the world, the world is ours.’’ This is one of the quotes uttered by the protagonist of the film “Poor Things,” directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and released in cinemas in January 2024. Inspired by the homonymous novel written by Alasdair Gray, “Poor Things” can be considered a postmodern revision of Frankenstein It replaces the classic monster with Bella Baxter, a woman who committed suicide and was then brought back to life thanks to a brain transplant of the child she was carrying at the time of her death. Defined as a hilarious political allegory; a raw and self-deprecating portrait of society and its contradictions, of human desires and their most animalistic instincts; between patriarchal visions of society, female independence, and sexual awakening. “ Poor Things” is nothing more than a visual bildungsroman depicting the growth and development of a woman who navigates in a society strongly dominated by sharp moral judgments, which chases her being in a continuous process of self-determination and affirmation. What is particularly striking is how Lanthimos pushes interpersonal relationships to their extreme; boiling down individuals to their inner desires, bodies, and smells. In short, Bella Baxter represents what is a child’s vision of society and its contradictions, far from its conventions and norms. The result is a true portrait of the development of post-enlightenment philosophical thought: from the Scientific Revolution's rationalism to the emotional liberation of Romanticism, transcendentalism, Marxism, and, finally, the Absurdist acceptance of the flawed yet fulfilling lives we lead. By transcending the boundaries of conventional storytelling and delving into philosophical inquiries that challenge the audience's perception of morality, identity, and societal constructs, Lanthimos presents a compelling exploration of the nature of humanity and consciousness. Central to the philosophical underpinnings of "Poor Things" is the concept of agency and autonomy. Upon her revival, Bella navigates a world where her agency is both constrained and manipulated by the forces around her, particularly by Dr. Baxter. Her journey prompts viewers to reflect on the nature of free will and the extent to which external influences govern individuals. Through Bella's struggles and choices, Lanthimos invites audiences to ponder the complexities of human autonomy and the ethical responsibilities that come with wielding power over others. Moreover, "Poor Things" offers a trenchant critique of societal norms and structures. Lanthimos uses the absurdity of Bella's situation to satirize the conventions of Victorian society, exposing the hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy that underpin its facades. Through the characters' interactions and the absurd situations they find themselves in, the film invites viewers to question the arbitrary rules and hierarchies that govern society and consider alternative modes of existence. Furthermore, the film engages with philosophical themes of identity and selfhood. Bella's resurrection results in a fragmented sense of self, as she grapples with memories and experiences that may not entirely belong to her. This exploration of identity raises profound questions about the stability of the self and the extent to which external influences shape it. Lanthimos challenges viewers to interrogate their own sense of identity and consider the fluidity of the self in the face of external forces. In addition to its thematic richness, "Poor Things" is characterized by Lanthimos's distinct visual style and narrative approach. The film's deadpan humor and surreal imagery create an atmosphere that is both disconcerting and captivating, drawing viewers into its philosophical inquiries through unconventional means. Lanthimos's masterful direction imbues every frame with symbolic resonance, inviting audiences to decipher the deeper layers of meaning beneath the surface. And, to conclude, according to Lanthimos, we are all changeable, facing the overwhelming struggle to live under precise norms and customs. And at the same time, we are all poor things. This consciousness can break us or, on the contrary, evoke a sense of empathy for humanity, leading us to dance in an uncoordinated and childish way like Bella Baxter in a Victorian dining room. “I am a changeable feast, as are all of us.”

Most importantly, science fiction is a reaction and a warning. By depicting a dystopian world of socially-segregated mega-cities, as in the case of Metropolis, or totalitarian states with groupthink and no individuality, as illustrated in Orwell’s 1984, science fiction often presents a future we wish to avoid. < Back Metropolis: The Role of Science Fiction in Social Analysis By Lara Harmankaya October 31, 2023 “Freder: Your magnificent city, Father - and you the brain of this city - and all of us in the city's light...And where are the people, Father, whose hands built your city--? Joh Fredersen: Where they belong... Freder: In the depths...? What if one day, those in the depths rise up against you?” Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, essentially, is a tale of two cities – the “City of the Workers'' and the “Club of the Sons.” One is an underground industrialized prison, the other a capitalist utopia. They form Metropolis, characterized by its futuristic skyline, Art Deco skyscrapers, elevated highways and jam-packed roads. Such imagery is not unfamiliar to modern audiences, given its resemblance to contemporary megacities. Considered the “first great science-fiction film” by critic Roger Ebert, Metropolis is an astonishing accomplishment of special effects and German Expressionism. Its stylistic influence on the genre of science fiction is far-reaching; its deeply divided megapolis, mad scientist, human-like robot and dystopian setting have all developed into idiosyncratic tropes of science fiction that have reappeared countless times in works such as The Blade Runner, the Hunger Games, Star Wars and many more. Even its soundtrack reminds the audience of the iconic melodies orchestrated by John Williams for Star Wars. At the same time, it also follows a literary tradition established by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and H. G. Wells – that of a moral message entrenched in science fiction. This is precisely what makes this film relevant in my eyes, despite the almost 100 years since its first release. Its scathing social and political commentary, using the dichotomies of the great metropolis, reveals the inherent purpose of the science fiction genre in a broader context. Science fiction, as I will come to argue, contemplates and critiques the social issues that are prevalent at a specific point in history. It may construct a future rampant with technological advancements and societies foreign to our own, but at its core, it invariably revolves around humanity. The story of Metropolis follows Freder, the privileged son of the master of Metropolis, as he discovers the dark reality that goes on deep within the industrial heart of Metropolis. He has a revelation when he realizes that masses of men, under his father's instructions, toil away for hours on end and become dehumanized cogs in the machine of industrial capitalism. In contrast to them, his character is part of a world of hedonistic pleasure, emotional excesses and glittery nightlife. This clash of status, which the film emphasizes by dressing Frederer in white in contrast to the laborers’s black uniform, is reinforced by the city itself as a physical manifestation of the chasmic separation between the two classes. However, despite its overtly Marxian themes of class conflict, Metropolis does not ultimately promote a revolution of the working class. Instead, it fosters mediation; as the film progresses, Frederer commits to the working classcause and decides to take on the role of the ‘Mediator’ to bring peace to the city. One of the most memorable quotes of the movie embodies this idea, “There can be no understanding between the hand and the head unless the heart acts as mediator.” This expresses a Durkhemian view of society as an organism that can only function effectively if there is co-dependence and solidarity within the branches, a concept a Sciences Po student is all too familiar with. Therefore, by engaging in and allegorically incorporating elements of sociological discourse into their narratives, this showcases that films can encourage their audiences to relate the overarching themes to politics and to think reflexively about society and its struggles. When conceptually creating Metropolis, Lang was inspired by New York City, its role as a global center of capitalism then and now, as well as its Art Deco architecture. Yet, the similarities between Metropolis and New York City cannot simply be reduced to those of infrastructure. In our current world, cities are the most vivid representations of inequality. With slum areas and skyscrapers often located right next to each other, they continue to be home to a variety of people from different social classes and groups. They not only tend to be the most unequal places in a nation, but they can also be synecdoches of the larger inequalities within a macro society. According to an International Monetary Fund study, inequalities within cities are “expected to worsen” over the years. Similarly, the United Nations predicts that urbanization will increase to 68 percent by 2060. The dichotomous nature of Metropolis and the everlasting relevance of its message are thereby highly consequential when thinking about social problems posed within 21st-century cities across the world. Thus, although Metropolis’s vision of social structure is too binary and simplistic to accurately represent the complex and multifaceted inequalities that permeate our social order now, it is still a valuable model of elements of Marxist urban theory. Considering we are now living in a world where the disparities between the richest and the poorest are the greatest they have ever been, Metropolis’s scathing criticism of the social order and unrestrained capitalism is more relevant than ever. Analyzing Metropolis reveals a greater trend in the realm of science fiction, which is the trend of political critique. Whether it be Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Akira, or Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, works of science fiction that posit a moral message are almost always shaped by contemporary events with socioeconomic implications. They are social commentaries that scrutinize certain ethical dilemmas. Fahrenheit 451, for instance, is concerned with the uncontrolled advent of technology and its intellectually-numbifying effect, whereas Neon Genesis Evangelion and Akira both allude to the post-Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear trauma embedded in the Japanese collective consciousness. This is what film critic Annette Kuhn refers to as the “cultural instrumentality” of science fiction, which she describes as the way in which “sci-fi movies relate to the social order through the mediation of ideologies'' and explore “society’s representations of itself in and for itself.” In this sense, it can be argued that science fiction holds a vital role of social analysis that renders it a fundamental part of what she calls the “collective psyche of the era”. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, neatly summarizes the purpose of science fiction with his own statement, "science fiction is a way of thinking, a way of logic that bypasses a lot of nonsense. It allows people to look directly at important subjects." In making a case for science fiction’s societal relevance, one might point out its relationship with social change and technological innovation. Creating fiction about science could, in fact, induce developments in the sphere of technology. Many developments in the fields of space travel, communication and transportation are said to have been motivated by science fiction. Notably, Martin Cooper – known for inventing the cell phone – credited Star Trek’s ‘communicator’ as its inspiration. This is an indication of science fiction’s endless ability to imagine. For activist Walidah Imarisha, it is a tool with which we can picture an idealized future, and the necessity of employing it lies in the fact that “we can’t build what we can’t imagine.” Science fiction can, therefore, be a source of hope for the future and the progress of humanity. Most importantly, science fiction is a reaction and a warning. By depicting a dystopian world of socially-segregated mega-cities, as in the case of Metropolis, or totalitarian states with groupthink and no individuality, as illustrated in Orwell’s 1984, science fiction often presents a future we wish to avoid. It even offers us some moral solutions, like revolution or reconciliation. Nowadays, it partakes in questioning the ethics of artificial intelligence and navigating the rapid advancements that mark our world. Science fiction’s ability to transcend popular culture and place itself in the center of moral discourse and social analysis is thus ubiquitous. Science fiction must not be fantastical and completely detached from human society. Rather, it can be deeply interwebbed in the major philosophical, sociological and economic debates. It can reflect social trends that are evolving and developing around us, while simultaneously expanding imagination and limits to contemplate what can be . It is our connection to ‘future’, hence why we must continue to heed its warnings about the calamities it may bring.

During the week of April 11-15, the Bureau des Arts (BDA) organized the Semaine des Arts to gather the Sciences Po Menton community and highlight students’ artistic abilities in a supportive and welcoming environment. < Back Semaine des Arts: Realizing Your Inner Artistic Potential By Colin Lim April 29, 2022 During the week of April 11-15, the Bureau des Arts (BDA) organized the Semaine des Arts to gather the Sciences Po Menton community and highlight students’ artistic abilities in a supportive and welcoming environment. The BDA hosted events throughout the week, collaborating with other student associations and inviting external guests. On campus, students could frequent the second-hand vintage clothing stand run by entrepreneur Giulia Castellucci, attend theater workshops led by comedian Lucas Gimello, participate in a dance workshop taught by Marie-Pierre Genovese, and learn dabke, a Levantine dance workshop guidedby 1A Riwa Hassan in collaboration with Sciences Palestine. Other festivities included a bake sale to raise funds for the Minicrit in collaboration with the Bureau des Sports (BDS), and a chant-learning session at Soundproof. The focal point of this week of celebration was the live performance in the grand amphitheater on Thursday evening — the culmination of weeks and months of preparation by dozens of students who performed with their clubs, friend groups, and artistic workshops. The building’s main entrance showcased a student art gallery that featured numerous physical mediums such as mosaics, ceramics, photographs, and Arabic calligraphy. The show in the grand amphitheater began with the music club’s energetic performance of “Runaway Baby” from Bruno Mars’ debut album, followed by “Redbone” by Childish Gambino. Vocalist and guitarist Sienna Bertamini (1A), bassist Saoirse Aherne (1A), and drummer Cameron Sterling (1A) faithfully captured the spirit of the original renditions of both songs while adding a unique flair in their interpretation. Shortly afterward, Raphaël Phanor (2A) captivated the audience with an eloquent French spoken ode to the memories he made and the people he met during his two years in Menton. He concluded his talk with a poignant reminder to the rising 2As that it will not be too long before they are in his position, reminiscing on the time they spent at Sciences Po. There were other musical performances and short theatrical pieces, and an improvised percussive jazz and maqam-inspired piece by the vocal music artistic workshop. The evening was rounded out by the oriental dance and polyphonic singing artistic workshops and a lively routine by the cheerleading team. The show was an opportunity for students to celebrate one another and discover the latent talent within their classmates. The entire week would not have been possible without the time and effort of the BDA. 2A Eliana Seroussi, the BDA president, reflected on her relationship with the arts: “Honestly, the arts mean everything to me. I couldn't imagine my life without at least a hint of creativity. It just means being free, speaking with something other than words, and connecting with people on a level you would have never expected.” She continued, “Of course, organi(zing the events) is tiring and takes up your energy and commitment, but in the end it’s all worth it, as long as it gets one person to smile and escape for a bit. That’s the beauty of art.”

Prenant tous ces éléments en compte, il est possible de voir l'extrême droite non pas comme le mal mais simplement un des symptômes d’une Europe fragmentée et dont une grande part des populations doutent aussi. < Back L’Union Européenne confrontée à elle même By Anna Halpern December 31, 2023 Qu’est-ce que l’Union Européenne? Cette question devient de plus en plus cruciale avec la montée au pouvoir de partis d'extrême droite qui ne soutiennent pas forcément l’UE et qui divisent l’Union de plus en plus. Le Brexit était un premier signal très flagrant et un “wake up call” pour l’Union Européenne, mais la question de sa viabilité et de son futur est de plus en plus pressante. Entre ceux qui prônent une centralisation et un fédéralisme Européen et ceux qui veulent sa dissolution, où va t-on? Cette question de la structure européenne est apparue après la chute de l’Union Sovietique et l'expansion sans précédent de l'Union Européenne vers l’Est avec notamment l’élargissement de 2004 à 10 pays, passant de 15 à 25 membres. Cet élargissement est un moment charnière pour l’opposition à l'Europe, car il a permis de développer la notion que l’Europe avait perdu son but/raison d’être d'après-guerre et s'était élargie à des pays ayant une histoire politique et une économie très différente. A cela s'ajoutent les crises migratoires et économiques auxquelles toute l’Europe fait face, surlignant des divisions de fond. Ces divisions sont les fondements des tiraillements que l’on peut observer aujourd’hui. Je me dois de souligner que je ne peux pas répondre à cette question, mais il faut les garder en tête en regardant la montée historique de l’extrême droite en Europe. En effet, l’année 2022 seule a vu Giorgia Meloni monter au pouvoir en Italie, le grand succès du bloc d'extrême droite en Suède ainsi qu’un score historique pour le Rassemblement National en France. Les finlandais et les néerlandais ont eux aussi témoigné une montée de l'extrême droite en 2023. Ceci a des impacts non seulement sur la politique de ces pays, notamment en Italie où le débat fait rage sur les propositions de changement de la constitution amenées par le gouvernement Meloni, mais aussi sur l’Union Européenne. En effet, l’UE apparaît de plus en plus divisée. Face à la guerre en Ukraine et à la problématique migratoire, les pays européens se divisent entre les pays gouvernés par l'extrême droite et le reste de l'Europe. Cette divergence fait aussi et surtout rage sur les sujets de la démocratie et la protection des libertés fondamentales avec l’affrontement entre l’Union Européenne et la Hongrie et la Pologne au sujet de tendances autoritaires que ces pays ont progressivement adoptées (notamment la libertée de la presse et la séparation des pouvoirs sont sous pression), culminant en une confrontation juridique. En de tels temps, des questions se posent sur la viabilité de l’UE telle qu’on la connaît. Néanmoins, il serait trop facile de blâmer l'extrême droite pour tous les maux de l'Europe. En effet, les ressentiments se sont fait sentir de toutes parts, notamment après 2008 dans les pays d’Europe de l’ouest tels que la Grande Bretagne dont la population avait le sentiment de trop cotiser et de ne pas en bénéficier autant, créant la base de l’argument pro-Brexit. D’autant plus que la tendance vers la droite n’est pas universelle dans les pays membres avec l’exemple de l’élection de Donald Tusk, du parti pro-UE, comme premier ministre en Pologne, un changement radical par rapport à la dernière administration. Prenant tous ces éléments en compte, il est possible de voir l'extrême droite non pas comme le mal mais simplement un des symptômes d’une Europe fragmentée et dont une grande part des populations doutent aussi. Ces doutes vont très certainement influencer les résultats des élections européennes de juin.

To answer this question, we must remember that when politics is the subject of art, art becomes the subject of politics. In the case of Mustang, Erguvan’s socio-political expression in the film challenges the image of a fully modernized Turkey. < Back Mustang: A Deep-Dive Into the Public Response to Art in Turkey By Selin Elif Köse October 31, 2023 “Everything changed in the blink of an eye,” says Selma gently before letting you on an emotional rollercoaster that, perhaps, leaves you with a lot to think about. Mustang , a Turkish language film directed and co-written by Deniz Gamze Ergüvan, was undoubtedly one of the most talked about films during the 2015 award season. The French-Turkish co-produced drama boasted 63 impressive nominations. It secured 43 wins, topping its success with a Label Europa Cinemas award from Cannes and a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year at the 87th Academy Awards. Despite its global recognition and success, the public reaction in Turkey was quite conflicted, sparking a significant controversy around the film's portrayal of the country. As Erguvan says, “Everywhere else, people have really embraced the film. In Turkey, the reactions were extremely diverse.” The film mainly focuses on the conservative social life in rural Anatolia and the consequent oppression against women. Erguvan does nothold back from tackling the harsh realities of her homeland as she tells a compelling story of five sisters and their experiences with arranged marriages, sexual abuse, virginity tests, and more. The critique of “honor” and “purity” in the film sheds light on the traditionally patriarchal structure of Turkish society. While some critics like Atilla Dorsay labeled the film a “masterpiece,” others, such as Ali Ercivan, thought the film was “a work designed for the Western world in the most annoying, calculated way.” The argument of the latter was a common opinion. The perception among some in Turkey is that the film was created with a Western audience in mind, potentially damaging the country's reputation on the global stage. However, this criticism is not unique to Mustang – many other Turkish artists with global recognition, such as Nobel Literature Prize winner Orhan Pamuk and Women's Prize for Fiction nominee Elif Şafak, have faced similar backlash in the past. The negative public response to Turkish artists with worldwide fame almost seems like a recurring trend. So, one might ask, what is the reason behind this peculiar pattern, and why are Turks not embracing their very own artists? To answer this question, we must remember that when politics is the subject of art, art becomes the subject of politics. In the case of Mustang , Erguvan’s socio-political expression in the film challenges the image of a fully modernized Turkey. The film offers a social and political commentary on the state of Turkish women's rights and gender equality. Moreover, it implies that these issues are still significant concerns in certain parts of the country, which can be seen as a critique of the government's policies and societal norms. This gave an opportunity for extreme right-wing parties like the Justice and Development (AK) Party to polarize society by turning the artist into a public enemy. Then-Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç expressed his disappointment with the film, stating that it “didn't accurately represent Turkish society and culture,” while also claiming that the film had “an agenda.” As a result, local authorities in Turkey reportedly faced pressure not to screen the film in their theaters. Even though the government’s response to the film may align with some people’s views, it does not fully reflect the reason behind the public reaction, demonstrating why examination of cultural authenticity is necessary. The most common criticism towards Erguvan, Pamuk, and Şafak’s work is the superficiality of their products. We must note that life in rural Anatolia is completely distinct from metropolitan cities like Istanbul and Izmir. Rural Anatolia is not only socio-economically but also culturally unique with its traditional lifestyle. This puts a huge responsibility on the artist's shoulders as they need to showcase a very nuanced reality. However, when the artist is a stranger to these customs, the artwork loses its essence. The script of Mustang , for instance, lacks an extremely significant aspect: cultural authenticity. The film shows that Erguvan is clearly aware of the underlying issues in Anatolia, but, at the same time, you can also see how she fails to execute the many layers of these problems. The lack of details leaves viewers unsatisfied with a one-dimensional story. On the contrary, Yaşar Kemal, who was nominated for a Nobel Literature Prize, has always been an embraced artist in the Turkish community despite his focus on the social injustices in rural Anatolia. Having been raised in Southern Anatolia himself, Yaşar Kemal knows the Taurus Mountains and Çukurova so well that he is able to build a story around this natural tension in his most well-known novel, Memed, My Hawk . His descriptions are subtle and nuanced, and his storytelling has the perfect balance between fiction and reality, which you cannot find in either Erguvan, Pamuk’s, or Şafak’s work. Overall, Erguvan’s Mustang provides an illustrative example for examining the public reaction to art in Turkey. We can see that an intriguing plotline and strong visuals are, of course, crucial factors for a successful movie, but insufficient on their own. Among many reasons, cultural authenticity is what makes the movie stand out. Hence, we can conclude that for a society to embrace art, the artist should come from within, deeply connected to the culture and traditions they portray in their work.

“Eats with Angela” has always revolved around the joys of food. However, I would be a hypocrite if I did not address the underbelly of this subject. < Back Eats With Angela: The Struggle to Celebrate Food By Angela Saab Saade January 31, 2023 “Eats with Angela” has always revolved around the joys of food. However, I would be a hypocrite if I did not address what is often masked regarding this subject. Kindly note that this article may be triggering for some readers; it unpacks heavy — albeit necessary — topics, namely unhealthy relationships with food and body image, diet culture, social media and mental health. Long ago, I came across an advertisement on social media that championed a weight loss diet for the purpose of “looking beautiful” and “being happy.” It was unsurprising, as similar publicities constantly surround me, whether on social media or billboards, in Lebanon or in Europe. Body shaming and the pressure to look a certain way is certainly in the air, and it is suffocating. My first instinct was to click on the ad and read through its content. Little did I know that I neither had to lose weight to look beautiful nor follow advice from a patriarchal capitalist market that makes millions of dollars at the expense of my ability to walk out of my home feeling comfortable in my own skin. Although this is only my personal experience, this scenario is not novel to the general public, especially not to the young female demographic. While wanting to lose weight or have our bodies look a particular way is not inherently negative, the means by which we choose to do so and the intentions of our doing are worth noting. Recent studies have shown that the eating disorder epidemic has been the second leading cause of deaths in the U.S. after opioid overdoses — one death every fifty-two minutes . Furthermore, according to Johns Hopkins research, 95 percent of people with eating disorders are between the ages of twelve and twenty-five. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated these figures and data is significantly lacking in most parts of the rest of the world. Furthermore, social media and its toxic editing tools to manipulate one's physical appearance have helped foster unrealistic beauty standards, which much of the world has fallen victim to internalizing. This outcome is facilitated by the dominance of capitalism and widespread technology. Yet, some have attempted to re-instrumentalize social media in order to counter negative trends and re-conceptualize previous norms; for instance, the body positivity movement. Nonetheless, the overwhelming number and variety of advertisements revolving around body image, amongst other standards of beauty, reaffirm the wealth-oriented use of technology and vanquish our optimistic outlook. Though, beauty standards and the normalization of body shaming differ across cultures. Specialists agree that “culture plays a significant role” in developing eating disorders, despite the precise reasons remaining unknown. For instance, in the Middle East and North Africa, little is known of eating disorders and myths are generally the dominant knowledge base; even worse, the region lacks resources for treatment. It has been stated that in the Arab World, the " thin ideal and the prevalence of obesity " have encouraged more eating disorder symptoms among the general public. Notwithstanding, the region has made recognizable progress in the provision of resources to help understand and deal with eating disorders. For instance, the Middle East Eating Disorder Association was established in 2009 to debunk societal myths and provide support for those struggling. Recoverly Ever After is another organization that is based in Beirut, Lebanon and provides clinical-based therapy and a free questionnaire to help identify whether or not you may have an eating disorder. In addition, a number of reports and articles have been published pertaining to the topic. More broadly, on social media, Instagram accounts such as those of Dana Mercer Ricci and Nuras Recovery discuss their own journeys towards defeating their eating disorders, while Djemila Roukos and Colleen Intuitive Eating Dietitian provide psychological and science-based knowledge to educate their audiences. Moreover, it is inevitable that when we go back home for the holidays, family members, friends and even strangers may comment on the way we look, especially when our physical appearance has changed. Our opportunity to catch a break may be transformed into a period of overwhelming stress, fear and anxiety. Such feedback is often offered by loved ones who do not intend to harm us. Nonetheless, the comment itself may trigger unfavorable emotions, thoughts and behaviors. In such moments, it is important to take a step back and pull yourself out of the situation in order to recall that those who judge you often feel insecure themselves and have been victims of judgment and invalidation in some way or another. Therefore, as we share the glee of eating, cooking and celebrating love through food, it is essential to remember that some may be struggling to celebrate with us. It is with this token that I hope we may be kind to one another and avoid unnecessary comments and judgments that hurt more than heal. And, if you are indeed struggling to celebrate, I hope you find the courage to reach out to someone, whether a friend, a colleague, someone you trust or a specialist, because you deserve to be nourished, to savor the art of food.

< Back Organized Crime, Migration, Prostitution: A Hidden Link or an Obvious Collaboration? By Greta Murgia November 30, 2021 When it comes to organized crime – or mafia – and migration, it is commonly known that there is a hidden yet indissoluble connection between the two. What is the extent of the link between migration and organized crime? How can the phenomenon be explained? What are the different fields affected by this phenomenon? From migration to prostitution Migration is one of the most profitable sources of gain for the mafia, since it represents a persistent and flourishing business which involves different agents and actors. Since immigration towards Europe and, more specifically, Italy is constant, the mafia is extremely present, as it is easy for parties practicing organized crime to build connections with Northern Africa’s communities, and play a major role in human trafficking. The Juju’s Ceremony – Nigeria and sex trafficking One of the most lucrative aspects of mafia’s business around immigration is prostitution. The main country from which the girls originate is Nigeria: here, major importance is given to the Juju’s ceremony, still quite unknown in Europe, but relevant when it comes to the flow of immigration related to prostitution. Between ages 12 and 17, girls living in the Edo State and the Delta State in Nigeria, and belonging to the Juju religion, go through a ceremony led by the town’s priests. The priests collaborate with the smugglers operating in the region, as well as with “ madams ” (women, who have been prostitutes themselves), and conduct the ritual to get the girls’ loyalty and full support. This all relies on the power of superstition and religion. The fear that the dead will chase and kill them – or make them crazy – if they ever try to escape from their protectors or refuse to pay a debt makes these girls prisoners of the smugglers and the madams . This is the process that pushes them, consciously or not, towards the world of European prostitution. Once under the protection of human traffickers, who promise the girls a better future and a good job in what is presented as the “promised land,” there is little chance for the girls to improve their situation or reconquer their lost freedom. Without accessing money nor savings through prostitution, the girls are in the hands of the traffickers, who take them through the exhausting and frequently deadly travel to an unknown land. During this journey, the girls have no way of going back to their hometown nor asking for help. Only once they arrive – if they arrive – to Italy or to the other European countries, they find out they have been lied to: the promised land with the numerous possibilities of success turns out not to be as promised, and the hard reality is that they find themselves alone, in an unknown and often unwelcoming country. Moreover, they have no documents nor knowledge of the language, but they have a debt to the traffickers of about 30,000 euros. They are therefore forced to work for the smugglers who paid for the trip, as well as the food and shelter they are provided with. They are aware that because of their illegal condition they can’t rely on external help and the Juju ceremony makes it unthinkable for them to denounce their protectors. Most of them end up living in buildings usually owned by criminal associations for years, without any real possibility of change. The role of SPHR and Caritas in Ventimiglia When SPRH (Sciences Po Refugee Help) goes to Ventimiglia to provide food and support, girls and women are almost never alone: they are accompanied by men who define themselves as cousins, boyfriends or husbands, and the volunteers rarely have the chance of talking to them alone. This is because the protectors know that, being alone, the girls might ask for help, and succeed in getting out of their situation. Caritas is an organization that takes care of women who are embedded in prostitution. In Ventimiglia, it offers women and their children shelter and food, and provides them with the help they need to get out of their critical situation. No men are allowed in the buildings offered to women by Caritas, and victims slowly gain confidence and find the courage and the mental strength needed to reach the practical independence to get out of their condition. The main criminal organization dealing in the immigrants’ business in Ventimiglia is called ‘Ndrangheta, as Rocco Ciarone states in the essay “Mafie del Nord.” Non-profit organizations and Law Another interesting fact is that those who are attempting to make a difference while working on the ground and truly engaging in the cause are volunteer-based non-profit organizations, and not the authorities, the State, nor the police. In fact, the system in France allows immigrant women to ask for citizenship only if they can provide proof of not having been part of the prostitution network – which is, even if true, extremely hard to provide. For this reason, some associations help women in the process by providing them with testimonies attesting that they have never seen them in a prostitutions’ environment. Such organizations are very few and hard to find, and this kind of solution cannot apply to every case and woman: this shows how flawed and desperate for change the system is when it comes to migration policies. A sense of fear and gratitude Another factor that makes it difficult for women to get out of the prostitution network is a sense of gratitude towards their guardians, even if unjustified and unneeded. The awareness that protectors represent the only option of safety, and the fact that the authority will not help them and could instead work against their situation, pushes the women to contribute to the vicious circle of submission and resignation. Organized crime and mafia – denounce or support? And what is the role played by criminal organizations, and especially by the mafia, in the field? It is hard to determine, as there are multiple ways for organized crime to profit from immigration – this ranges from prostitution, to the dealing of drugs, to forced labor – and immigrants have no reason nor incentive to denounce such organizations. If they do, they will lose the protection they are being provided with by their smugglers: on the other side, the State will not provide them with help nor support. On the contrary, it will most probably condemn and expel them from the country. In fact, these women are not only illegal immigrants, but they have also collaborated with the mafia in illegal businesses. How do we detect the presence of organized crime? Another factor that makes it difficult to detect the presence of mafia on the territory is its fluidity: especially on the border, migrants move suddenly, and people who are in one place one day, might be hundreds of kilometers away shortly afterwards, complicating the process of detecting how and where organized crime behaves. The problem does not rely on the immigrants themselves, as it is not their wish to become drug dealers or prostitutes, but it lies in the European Union and in states’ inefficient and unsuccessful handling of the immigrants’ crisis. If nations unite themselves in order to find a common and efficient solution, a lot of progress could be made, and such extreme situations would be rarer. Through cooperation, a solution could be possible.

< Back Cocteau’s Azur: Exploring Queerness in Menton Ema Nevřelová At first glance, Menton appears to be a quaint and peaceful town on the French Riviera—a place of leisure, history, and, of course, lemons. But is Menton truly as fruity as it seems? To uncover the realities of queer life in this picturesque coastal town, I conducted a brief survey among fellow Sciences Pistes. Their an swers reflected diverse and sometimes conflicting experiences. My first question centered on safety—something that is a recurring concern in Menton. Anyone who reads the Sciences Po group chat knows that it sometimes turns into a site of distressing stories recounting harassment and scary encounters with strangers. Still, the queer students who responded saw safety through different lenses. One noted, “Yes, it’s pretty quiet,” while another pointed out, “There’s a bunch of rightist guys who tend to be very homophobic. But you see allies hanging out with them, which makes me question people’s moral and ethical integrity.” This may sound familiar to anyone who has spent time in certain social circles at Sciences Po. While most students are openly supportive of the LGBTQ+ community—or part of it themselves—there are still spaces where discriminatory comments are not called out. And it’s not just about the students. Nearly a third of Menton’s population is over the age of 65, and some of those residents are not fond of Sciences Po students, in general and queer people in particular, causing a sense of alienation for some queer students beyond the campus. Despite this, most survey respondents agreed that Menton and Sciences Po provide spaces where they feel free to express themselves. Still, Menton offers little in terms of queer visibility or cultural representation. Perhaps the only formal nod to LGBTQ+ identity in the town is the Jean Cocteau Museum. Cocteau—a French poet, filmmaker, and artist—left behind a legacy shaped by Orientalism, surrealism and queerness, evident in his love letters to actor Jean Marais. In a letter from 1939, Cocteau wrote : “ My Jeannot, adore me as I adore you and console me. Press me to your heart. Help me to be a saint, to be worthy of you and of myself. I live only through you. ” But even this representation is complicated. Cocteau’s relationship with Marais, marked by a 24-year age gap, seems disproportionate in terms of power and manipulative, to say the least. Not to mention that the museum does not particularly embrace Cocteau’s sexuality. For example, on the website of the Museum Jean Marais, Cocteau’s lover, is mentioned several times in Cocteau’s biography, but the romantic relationship between the two is essentially omitted. On the contrary, it displays drawings of fetishized females turned into “mythical” creatures, making the entrance fee feel like a contribution to modern orientalism rather than to queer representation. With enough determination, one might stumble upon two paintings by British artist Francis Bacon in the Gallery of Palais de l’Europe. Like Cocteau, Bacon lived a frivolous and hazardous life, but what they both have in common is their romantic interest in younger men. My second survey question focused on dating and relationships. Responses varied: one student mentioned being in a relationship with another Sciences Po student, while another wasn’t seeking a connection. Interestingly, one respondent described the gay community on campus as “mean,” also noting that some students engaged in “outing” others—speaking publicly about someone’s sexuality without their consent. Conversations about who is or is not queer are not uncommon on campus, even though sexuality is a deeply personal matter. The environment at Sciences Po can foster an unhealthy curiosity, reinforcing a link between gendered stereotypes and sexual identity. It’s one thing to be curious or to hope for connection; it’s another to pressure people to “confess” or treat queerness as a fuel for gossip. The reality for queer Sciences Pistes becomes even more intricate as some students’ cultural background and family pressure create significant internal conflict. Some come from countries where homosexuality is criminalized or where queer people lack certain rights. Others are dealing with trauma from homophobic upbringings. Even in a relatively open environment like Sciences Po, those emotional scars can prevent students from exploring or embracing their identities. Queerness in Menton is undeniably present, even if it sometimes feels silent or silenced. While some are desperate to find even the smallest traces of representation in this fruity town, the right approach isn’t to squeeze people’s sexuality out of them. Instead, we should work toward building spaces that feel safe not only for queer individuals, but for all marginalized communities—and remain committed to calling out homophobia when we see it. Real inclusion isn’t just about visibility; it’s about cultivating empathy, respect and genuine solidarity. Ultimately, Menton’s beauty isn’t just in its scenery—it’s in the values we choose to embody and the community we create. Photo source: Ted Eytan on Flickr Previous Next

Des salles de bals étincelantes de Bridgerton à l'aesthetic Regency Core sur les réseaux sociaux, la génération Z semble obnubilée par une période qu’elle n’a jamais vécu. Comment peut-on expliquer cette fascination pour un monde vieux de deux siècles ? < Back Nostalgie historique et la génération Z: liaisons dangereuses ? Elsa Uzan November 13, 2025 Des salles de bals étincelantes de Bridgerton à l'aesthetic Regency Core sur les réseaux sociaux, la génération Z semble obnubilée par une période qu’elle n’a jamais vécu. Comment peut-on expliquer cette fascination pour un monde vieux de deux siècles ? Cet attrait pour le passé est bien plus qu’un engouement esthétique car il s’inscrit dans un phénomène plus profond, celui de la nostalgie historique. Ce concept désigne une nostalgie éprouvée de la personne interrogée vis-à-vis d’une période qu’elle n’a pas vécue voire d’une période antérieure à sa naissance. Selon Chris Marchegiani et Ian Phau, cette forme de nostalgie ne repose pas sur une expérience individuelle et directe du passé, mais plutôt sur une représentation collective de celui-ci, puisque les personnes ne l'ont pas vécue et se créent leur propre vision — parfois idéalisée — du passé. En effet, la connaissance de ces périodes provient de récits, d’images ou de discours socialement transmis, ce qui explique le caractère collectif de cette mémoire. Ainsi, le phénomène relève davantage d’une mémoire partagée, transmise voire même construite par la société moderne. Mais cette transmission du passé n’est pas passive: elle s’accompagne du phénomène plus contemporain de la « nostalgie simulée » qui en est une forme plus médiatisée. Théorisé également par les deux auteurs, il désigne la construction et la mise en scène d’un événement auquel on attribue – notamment à travers la publicité – une signification symbolique en y associant des objets censés l’incarner, alors même que la personne ne l’a pas vécu. Cette nostalgie historique 2.0 trouve un terrain d’expression privilégié dans le monde numérique. C’est ce que soulignent Huanshu Jiang Jie Yao Peiyao Cheng et Shumeng Hu, chercheurs à l’Institut de technologie de Harbin à Shenzhen, en démontrant que la génération Z se distingue par son inclination à se plonger dans des mondes virtuels qui s’explique par le fait qu’elle a grandi avec Internet et les écrans. Dans ce contexte, les interactions contemporaines entre une vision du passé et le rapport au numérique favorisent à la fois une circulation et une réappropriation des références nostalgiques. On peut ainsi observer l’expression d’une instrumentalisation du phénomène de la nostalgie historique par les entreprises comme un outil de stratégie marketing. En effet, l’étude des chercheurs à l’Institut de technologie de Harbin à Shenzhen a montré que les Générations Y, Z et alpha (nées entre 1981 et 2024) ont tendance à considérer les marques et toute forme de designs mobilisant de la nostalgie comme authentiques, crédibles et expressifs, créant une distance par rapport aux produits modernes qui sont considérés comme factices. Cependant, penser la nostalgie historique comme une stratégie marketing serait réducteur. En effet, la génération Z ne se borne pas à copier les styles anciens ou à romantiser le passé, mais elle va construire une réflexion renouvelée sur des objets d’une époque particulière, sur des événements et des symboles du passé pour développer ses outils propres d’expression personnelle entre autres par le biais des réseaux sociaux. Cela traduit de manière plus significative comment la génération Z renouvelle les interactions avec le passé dans l’optique de répondre à leurs besoins psychologiques de stabilité et d’épanouissement personnel selon les observations de Clay Routledge and Nicola Avis. Il s’agit aussi de relever les défis contemporains en s’inspirant du passé. La valeur des expériences plus lentes et manuelles du passé s’en trouvent d’autant plus valorisées que selon une étude du Human Flourishing Lab , 60% de la génération Z aux Etats-Unis aimerait revenir à une période où tout le monde n’est pas connecté, dans un monde avant l’invention des réseaux sociaux et d’Internet. Réduire ce rapport au passé à une stratégie commerciale reviendrait à nier sa dimension réflexive. La romanticisation reste en effet une caractéristique essentielle de la nostalgie historique. La création de nombreuses séries en témoigne, que ce soit sur la régence anglaise avec la série Bridgerton , ou sur la fin du XIXème siècle et le début du XXème siècle avec The Gilded Age ou Downton Abbey . Ces séries et particulièrement Bridgerton sont selon Sharmini Kumar l’illustration d’un pur fantasme d’évasion, visible notamment par les nombreux bals plus exubérants les uns que les autres. Les robes en style régence changeant à chaque évènement traduisent une vision d’âge d’or de la société anglaise. De plus, à chaque apparition de la reine Charlotte, le spectateur découvre une perruque différente, parmi lesquelles une volière ou encore une avec un étang et un cygne en mouvement. Ces facettes de la série montrent une image de prospérité et de luxe de la Régence. Toutefois, Bridgerton néglige la réalité criante de l’industrialisation et surtout par une pauvreté importante de la population urbaine qui n’est ni montrée, ni mentionnée dans la série. Par la romanticisation, le passé devient un univers séduisant et accessible où le spectateur projette ses désirs personnels d’appartenance et d'évasion. L’idée d’évasion associée à Bridgerton est renforcée par la manière dont l’inclusivité culturelle remodèle les représentations historiques et, par extension, la nostalgie historique. La série présente en effet plusieurs inexactitudes historiques, particulièrement du point de vue de la représentation de la culture indienne. La langue utilisée dans le programme est erronée et conduit à des ambiguïtés. Les termes « Didi », « Bon » et « Appa » traduisent une vision superficielle de la culture indienne car ils appartiennent à des langues et des régions différentes. Cette simplification de la diversité culturelle indienne et la confusion entre des expressions linguistiques et régionales peut être nocive. En effet, cette représentation imprègne la génération Z d’une image erronée car trop largement simplifiée, malgré le caractère divertissant du programme. Cette vision euro-centrée représente ainsi un danger dans le sens où elle peut pérenniser de telles représentations dans la société à l’échelle mondiale, vu le succès retentissant de la série. Bridgerton met en avant la diversité comme argument marketing, à travers une représentation faussement authentique. Plus récemment, de nouveaux phénomènes sont identifiés par les chercheurs, au-delà de la nostalgie « simulée ». Parmi eux, la notion de « méta-nostalgie », théorisée par Clay Routledge et Nicola Avis, désigne un intérêt des jeunes pour les expériences nostalgiques des générations antérieures qu’ils réinterprètent. C’est ainsi que naît un dialogue intergénérationnel qui s'appuie sur des repères culturels communs à ces générations. Ainsi, la nostalgie historique révèle bien plus qu’un goût esthétique de la génération Z: elle s’inscrit dans une recherche de sens et de stabilité dans un monde fragmenté. L’avenir du phénomène demeure toutefois incertain puisque la quantité considérable d’informations disponibles interroge : aurons-nous toujours le temps de penser le passé – surtout celui que l’on n’a pas vécu ? C’est peut-être là tout le paradoxe de la nostalgie historique: dans un monde saturé d’informations, elle devient l’incarnation d’une forme moderne de rébellion, de refus de la surinformation.

“There’s nothing like the Arab world’s hatred of the truth.” < Back Arab Netflix: To Stream or not to Stream? By Lara-Nour Walton April 29, 2022 My cousin Zeina delighted in the sprawling array of Egyptian films before her. In years past we had shared halwa over Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, camped out in front of Black Mirror for hours, and swooned over Baz Luhrmann’s expert castings of Dicaprio. She introduced me to “Gone Girl,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Inglorious Bastards.” Zeina has always loved her cinema, always reveled in good television. But, I’d never known her to be a connoisseur of Arabic programs until I visited her over this past winter break. She enthusiastically scrolled through Netflix’s seemingly never-ending queue of movies and shows from the Arab world, explaining the summary of each. I asked her why she’d never exposed me to this passion of hers, and she shrugged her shoulders: “I suppose I’ve never known how to show you.” On December 9th, Netflix launched an Arab cinema catalog comprising 58 films by 47 different filmmakers. The American streaming service titled this release “Celebrating Arab Cinema” and aimed to “explore the breadth and beauty” of the region and culture with the collection. Now, a large variety of Arab movies are accessible to anyone with a Netflix subscription, permitting Zeina to finally show me her Arabic favorites. While the “Celebrating Arab Cinema” launch was largely welcomed by the South West Asian and North African (SWANA) and international community alike, Netflix’s other Arabic initiatives have experienced cooler receptions. On January 20, the release of the first Arabic Netflix original, “Ashab Wala A’azz,” sparked mass controversy in the Arab world. A remake of the hit Italian box office hit “Perfect Strangers,” “Ashab Wala A’azz” implicates SWANA audiences in discussions about queer identity, infidelity, and premarital sex. However, many Netflix users from the region worry that the movie’s themes do not mesh with Arab society, some asserting that Western films cannot be made into SWANA adaptations due to insurmountable cultural differences. Lebanese English track 1A Angela Saab Saade repudiates this sentiment. “I don’t think it’s a matter of whether or not the Arab world is ready for this type of movie. I think it is imperative that we acknowledge that these things exist in Arab society. It is not a crime to address reality,” she said. However, Saab Saade’s perspective is purely normative. Broaching contentious subject matter in the Middle East should not be a crime, but it is certainly still condemned. According to Lebanese journalist Rabih Farran, “There’s nothing like the Arab world’s hatred of the truth.” This antipathy for candor, this cultural reluctance to recognize what happens behind closed doors, has been made all the more visible by the audience response to “Ashab Wala A’azz.” However, the public’s reaction raises questions that transcend Netflix’s scope. It reveals the heated duel between social sensitivities and artistic freedom in the Arab world — a battle that seems to have no end in sight.