This textbook includes all 13 chapters of Français interactif. It accompanies www.laits.utexas.edu/fi, the web-based French program developed and in use at the University of Texas since 2004, and its companion site, Tex's French Grammar (2000) www.laits.utexas.edu/tex/ Français interactif is an open acess site, a free and open multimedia resources, which requires neither password nor fees. Français interactif has been funded and created by Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services at the University of Texas, and is currently supported by COERLL, the Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning UT-Austin, and the U.S. Department of Education Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE Grant P116B070251) as an example of the open access initiative.
Built around the concept of linguistic and cultural plurality, this book defines language as an instrument of action and symbolic power. Plurality is conceived here as : a complex array of voices, perspectives and approaches that seeks to preserve the complexity of the multilingual and multicultural enterprise, including language learning and teaching ; a coherent system of relationships among various languages, research traditions and research sites that informs qualitative methods of inquiry into multilingualism and its uses in everyday life ; a view of language as structured sociohistorical object, observable from several simultaneous spatiotemporal standpoints, such as that of daily interactions or that which sustains the symbolic power of institutions. This book is addressed to teacher trainers, young researchers, decision makers, teachers concerned with the role of languages in the evolution of societies and educational systems. It aims to elicit discussion by articulating practices, field observations and analyses based on a multidisciplinary conceptual framework.
A Lacanian look at how comedy might come to philosophy's rescue, with examples ranging from Hegel and Molière to George W. Bush and Borat. Why philosophize about comedy? What is the use of investigating the comical from philosophical and psychoanalytic perspectives? In The Odd One In, Alenka Zupančič considers how philosophy and psychoanalysis can help us understand the movement and the logic involved in the practice of comedy, and how comedy can help philosophy and psychoanalysis recognize some of the crucial mechanisms and vicissitudes of what is called humanity. Comedy by its nature is difficult to pin down with concepts and definitions, but as artistic form and social practice comedy is a mode of tarrying with a foreign object—of including the exception. Philosophy's relationship to comedy, Zupančič writes, is not exactly a simple story (and indeed includes some elements of comedy). It could begin with the lost book of Aristotle's Poetics, which discussed comedy and laughter (and was made famous by Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose). But Zupančič draws on a whole range of philosophers and exemplars of comedy, from Aristophanes, Molière, Hegel, Freud, and Lacan to George W. Bush and Borat. She distinguishes incisively between comedy and ideologically imposed, “naturalized” cheerfulness. Real, subversive comedy thrives on the short circuits that establish an immediate connection between heterogeneous orders. Zupančič examines the mechanisms and processes by which comedy lets the odd one in.
Earthen architecture constitutes one of the most diverse forms of cultural heritage and one of the most challenging to preserve. It dates from all periods and is found on all continents but is particularly prevalent in Africa, where it has been a building tradition for centuries. Sites range from ancestral cities in Mali to the palaces of Abomey in Benin, from monuments and mosques in Iran and Buddhist temples on the Silk Road to Spanish missions in California. This volume's sixty-four papers address such themes as earthen architecture in Mali, the conservation of living sites, local knowledge systems and intangible aspects, seismic and other natural forces, the conservation and management of archaeological sites, research advances, and training.
This publication offers an account of the unfolding of political and civilian conflict in Mali and the efforts to contain it, and an analysis of which efforts to restore peace were effective and why. It also examines the role of the international community, especially the United Nations, in helping the Malian Government to restore peace and to re-integrate its disaffected populations and refugees back into civilian life.--Publisher's description.
Since the Doi Moi policy of economic renovation was introduced in 1986, Vietnam has undergone deep transformations as a result of the transition to a socialist-oriented market economy. Social and urban transition has taken place in parallel, as urban dynamics were spurred on by Vietnamese public and private stakeholders, and by external agents such as international organizations and international solidarity organizations, experts, consultants and bilateral aid organizations.Here are the results of research carried out by French, Canadian and Vietnamese teams from the north and south of the country on the overarching theme of Vietnamese cities in transition. Some of this research deals with urban dynamics, some with the issues at stake within such dynamics, or with the strategies of the most significant stakeholders in urban transition: civil society, donors within the framework of official aid for development, consultants and international consultancy firms. These projects were carried out between 2001 and 2004 as part of the Urban Research Programme for Development (PRUD), and mainly focus on Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, or both in the case of comparative studies.Is there such a thing as a Vietnamese model of an Asian city? It seems that urban transition in Vietnam is not taking place in as radical and abrupt a manner as in China. The country's capacity for absorbing external models, the quest for a third way between state intervention and economic liberalism, and the fact that the country's architectural heritage is taken into account in urban planning, are just some of the reasons for its particularity. The issues addressed in each chapter, as well as the proposals for further research suggested by the contributors, should act as a catalyst for urban research in Vietnam.
Taking authentic texts from a variety of sources - the human body on CD-ROM, a fish recipe, 'L'Etranger' and many others - this book uses them as a starting point for the illustration and explanation of key areas of French grammar. It includes a range of exercises, many of them text-based.
