Michel Despland

The Indians of the Saint Lawrence Valley and their religion: An essay on four centuries of scholarship in French

During the century and a half from Champlain to Charlevoix a vast corpus was written in French about the Indians of the Saint Lawrence Valley. The rich material from these writings opens a discourse on native religions and serves to affirm a common nature between the two populations. However, the British conquest and subsequent developments interupted this production of material. This paper examines the attitudes towards natives and native religion that inform the earlier French material and considers the differences between them and the English inter-cultural policies and practices that followed. It brings its discussion to the 1970s, showing how, with the rise of ethno-historical studies, a new Quebec corpus is being written which attends to the interaction of the French and native populations.

Can Conscience be Hypocritical? The Contrasting Analyses of Kant and Hegel

Both Kant and Hegel focussed their attention on the problems of self-knowledge and self-scrutiny. Both elaborated a carefully considered view of conscience and sought to wrestle with the moral threat of self-deception. Both believed that a solution of the problems in this area was decisive for their understanding of the moral life and the task of ethics. In his analysis Hegel came to formulate what he considered to be decisive criticisms of Kant. The purpose of this paper is to examine the contrasting views of the two philosophers and provide a context in which the merits of each can be assessed.

Two Ways of Articulating Outsider's Knowledge of Polynesian Culture and Religion: Melville's Typee and Mardi

Two of Melvilles early works are contrasting attempts to report on what he saw and experienced during his stay in some islands of the South Pacific. Typee is presented as a sober, philosophical account of mores and religion, thus in keeping with the more ethnographic interests of travelerss reports. Mardi is an avowed work of fiction. While cannibalism serves to focus interest in the first, human sacrifice has this function in the second. Melville could find previous authors to support his approach in the first book but, even though he studied available works on mythologies, found no scholarship to help with the second issue. It is argued that the second work, albeit a fiction, makes the greater cognitive advance and helps discern the perils scholars had to face in the colonialist era.

The heterosexual body as metaphor in Plato's religious city

After establishing the full scope of the religious, social and political reform measures presented by Plato in his book on Laws, the article applies to this fictitious society the methods of analysis that Mary Douglas elaborated in the course of studying real ones. The application makes some features of the proposed city manifest. Life in it is shown to fit the nature and needs of heterosexual bodies. The erotic basis of the writers rhetorical appeal is also made apparent.

Comptes rendus / Reviews of books: Le mystère Campanella: Jean Delumeau Coll. « Biographies » Paris, Fayard, 2008. 593 p

teurs d’aujourd’hui. Sa carri~re mouvement6e, par contre, retient 1’attention. Form6 ~ 1’ecole de saint Thomas, il rejoint vite le camp de ceux qui s’opposent à Aristote. Cela am~ne ce lecteur vorace de textes érudits et de savoirs 6sot6riques, vers le n6o-platonisme, vers les theses pan-vitalistes, pan-sensistes, vers 1’astrologie et la magie. Une id6e-force domine son esprit: Dieu se revele dans deux livres, celui de la nature et celui de la revelation. Il faut donc observer la premiere et non pas raisonner a priori. 11 oppose les savants aux p6dants et accueille Galilee et son

Comptes rendus / Reviews of books: Pierre Bayle: Hubert Bost Paris, Fayard, 2006. 684 p

11 n’est pas nécessaire d’avoir beaucoup étudié l’histoire religieuse pour savoir que 1517 marqua le d6but du conflit entre Martin Luther et L6on X. Mais qui sait qu’au même moment ce même pape accumulait une collection de manuscrits grecs, h6breux et arabes et s’entourait d’humanistes et de philologues, dont certains étaientjuifs et d’autres musulmans ? Parmi les travaux alors accomplis, des dictionnaires (dont un

Comptes rendus / Reviews of books: La sagesse et le malheur. Michel de l'Hospital, chancelier de France: Denis Crouzet Seyssel, Champ Vallon, 1998. 607 p

Palestine ayant ete «durablement per~ues comme un groupe suppl6mentaire de la mosaique juive» (714). Les expos~s que l’on trouvera dans ce livre reflètent 1’etat le plus recent de la recherche, comme en t6moigne la bibliographie rassembl6e aux p. 744-750. Cependant, le format de l’ouvrage, qui exclut toute note infrapaginale, sauf pour les references bibliques, ne permet pas toujours de faire la place qui devrait leur revenir, meme dans un ouvrage destine a un large public, aux d6bats qui agitent l’historiographie du judaisme du second Temple, par exemple en ce qui concerne les pharisiens et leur influence avant 70, question cruciale pour une juste évaluation de la valeur historique des Evangiles. Quoi qu’il en soit de cette limite, il faut saluer la parution de cet ouvrage solidement documente, bien 6crit et a la presentation soign6e, qui constitue, sans aucun doute, la meilleure synthese en francais consacr6e au judaisme qui fut celui de Jesus et de ses premiers disciples.

Comptes rendus / Reviews of books: Enseigner le catéchisme. Autorités et institutions XVIe-XX e siècles Raymond Brodeur et Brigitte Caulier, directeurs Paris, Cerf; Québec, Les Presses de l'Université Laval, 1997. 466 p

ple : il debute avec les papes, et passe a une description de la société pour aborder la question de 1’enfer que Dante illustra a merveille. L’architecture, le syst6me paroissial, la confession, la cruaut6 et la mystique sont autant d’616ments de cette époque que 1’auteur r6ussit a rendre avec justesse. Le nouveau monde et la R6forme, qui font l’objet d’un seul chapitre, y sont traites diversement: la R6forme, par exemple, y est vue, essentiellement, comme

Pascal et le mystère du mal. La clef de Job Denise Leduc-Fayette Coll. «Cogitatio Fidei», 198 Paris, Cerf, 1996. 410 p

Public a 1’occasion de la visite du pape a Tours et a Reims, en septembre 1996, et des Journees mondiales de lajeunesse a Paris en aout 1997, cet ouvrage offre une anthologie d’oeuvres produites par des évêques, moines ou saints personnages de la Gaule des Ile-ve siecles, ou r6dig6es a propos de ceux-ci. L’ouvrage s’ouvre par les passages de l’ Histoire ecclésiastique d’Eus~be de C6sar6e qui citent la Lettre des Églises de Lyon et de Vienne sur la pers6cution des chrétiens survenue en ces endroits

La religion des pauvres. Les missions rurales en Europe et la formation du catholicisme moderne XVIe-XIXe siècles Louis Châtellier Coll. «Histoires» Paris, Aubier, 1993. 351 p

The author (Geography, Carleton University) combines sociology of religion theory, demographic statistics and in-depth studies of five diverse Anglican parishes to generalize on the reaction to the growth of Francophone nationalism in one section of the Anglophone community in Montreal. Twin pressures for change emerge. First, outer pressures: socio-political (loss of power, need to know French), especially since 1971, and out-migration of Anglophones, especially of the 25-50 age group. Second, internal change: inclusive language and modernization in ways of worship combined with emphasis on status of women and social justice. Interestingly, upper-class Westmount and working-class Point St. Charles show striking similarities in a retreat into conservatism, while the more mobile, middle-class parishes of Knowlton and Pointe Claire seem to show themselves better able to adapt. While the emphasis on theory is a little overwhelming, the study is interesting (e.g., case studies, statistical appendices) if somewhat depressing.